Best approach to versatility- pedals vs. ch. switching

[guit_lar]

I'd like to be able to get some versatility in my sounds, to cover a lot of sonic territory, as you hear in many modern songs. Clean, crunchy, "classic" distortion, scooped heavy distortion, 4 basic sounds. Would the best approach be a simple one channel amp like a Marshall JTM45, with a few pedals for the variations, or a channel-switching amp? All my amps are single channel "classic" type amps. How effective are the channel switchers? Some of those newer Marshall amps give you 3 or 4 different sounds at the footswitch. All of course being some sort of compromise but I suppose that's the price you pay for versatility, and anyway I'm looking for practicality rather than the "Perfect tone for recording".

[Flameout12]

IMO, a good switcher plus some pedals.
I have a JMP 50 watter clone and a JVM2 and both sound great. My JVM2 easily sounds as good if not better than the Plexi, so I'm not sure you're losing anything...it's just different. JVMs are based upon a JCM800.

[Tone_Terrific]

A good pedalboard will get you close to your tones with any amp that you can set clean, to your taste. Highly versatile.
Finding an amp that hits all your fave tones in one box is more difficult, ties you to that amp but may be simpler and more satisfying in some respects. Compromise, that's life.

[plan-x]

Originally Posted by Tone_Terrific

A good pedalboard will get you close to your tones with any amp that you can set clean, to your taste. Highly versatile.
Finding an amp that hits all your fave tones in one box is more difficult, ties you to that amp but may be simpler and more satisfying in some respects. Compromise, that's life.

+1 on the pedalboard.

[fusionbear]

For me its both a simple channel switcher and a good selection of pedals. I have a Fuzz, TS variant and a high gain distortion pedal, chorus, phaser, delay before the amp and delay in the loop, and last but not least a wah. With this I can pretty much cover what I play.

[Seegs]

pedalboard all the way...never have found a multiple channel amp where I liked more than one channel...

Chow,
Seegs

[Senor Forum]

I was a channel switcher guy for a LONG time. As of about 6 months I am officially a pedal board into a clean amp guy.

It took me a while to realize it, but I don't need channel switching or an FX loop (I ALWAYS thought I needed one of these!).

I'm running a gigantic pedalboard into my Club 40, and it sounds better than any of my channel switchers ever did, and I can do a lot more with it.

For the record, I've owned an Einstein, a 101B, a Budda SD18, 30, and 80, and a few more.

[VaughnC]

I prefer to build my gigging rig based on an amp platform that has great cleans and lots of clean headroom because you can't "fix" bad cleans or lack of headroom with a pedal...but there are lot's of OD flavor pedals out there. There's no right or wrong though...whatever works best for you.

[voojo]

There are so many great pedals out there now that I would lean towards a great clean single channel amp and try some pedals. If you don't like the sound a pedal makes you can sell and try many different pedals & not loose much money. If you don't like one of the channels in a channel switching amp, it's much harder to change that tone.

[phillyred79]

If you're someone who needs cleans for a lot of stuff start there first.. I used to be a purist in that I was a firm believer that the best tones come from the OD of nicely pushed tubes, but as I've matured I've heard/realized how important a good OD pedal can accentuate/shape and define your tone to get you that much closer to the ideal tones you hear in your mind. A good amp with a solid clean platform that takes pedals well is a Super Reverb. Channel switching isn't a must for me, but the more options I have the better.