penta-tonic said:
well my opinion is since he wants an amp with decent cleans and good overdrive tone my opinion would be to go for an amp designed for that. all the amps u guys have recommended are good for cleans but all require pedals to supplement. and its really hard to find a good pedal which can actually stand up to good tube driven overdrive from an amp. so i dont really see a point in buying something like a blues or pro junior and driving it with a pedal.
I have disagree with that. The point of a low wattage tube amp is its overdriven tone which can be achieved at lower volume.
The Randall and Hot Rod I suggested before have dual channels for switching between clean and overdrive, but they're a bit big for the sort of playing/gig requirements he's looking at.
When I (we) were talking about pedals to supplement it wasn't so much suggesting that he rely on distortion pedals for distortion but to use pre-distortion eq or booster pedals to alter the amp's overdriven tone, the "organic" way of playing with a tube amp. Sorta treating the overdriven tube amp like a distortion pedal in the signal chain. Which is why it is important that he gets an amp with the kind of cranked overdrive tone he likes as a base. That was how I used my old Crate 20W EL84 1x10" for small gig venues. Maybe except for when he just wants to drive (in the sense of driving a semi truck) a metalzone through it for that song that requires metale.
Don't want him to get too confused.
