the evolution of my guitar related toys started with a marshall avt100 amp and boss/digitech/mxr stompboxes. from these mass produced pedals i slowly accrued what others call "boutique" pedals that ranged from voodoo labs, barber electronics and fulltone stompboxes. playing them through a tranny (or a hybrid amp in my case) sounded like there's something missing and i knew I had to get a tube amp so i decided to invest (if thats the right word to use???) on a tube amp and bought myself a Peavey JSX 212. the sound difference was MASSIVE!! i was suddenly a tube amp devotee. i enjoy my pedals more than when i played them through a tranny.
i always believed that "boutique" pedals are designed for use with a tube amp in mind. the majority of high gain "boutique" distortion or "boutique" overdrive pedals would sound lame IMHO (sounds like crap!!!) when played through a tranny because there are no tubes to drive into saturation the way the pedals were designed to do.
a cranked tube amp and a great guitar can only do so much. it'll work if you play blues or if you want to sound like angus young. but if you wan't to paint sonic landscapes the way gilmour, the edge, hendrix do you'll need them stompboxes. it's like a painter with only charcoal and a paper to work with. sure he can do sketches but how many shades of black can you get. give him a canvass, paint and an assortment of brushes and he can do much more.
it's true boutique pedals sound better played through a tube amp but them tube amps are darn expensive. but it's all good though. whether you own "boutique" pedals and play them through a solid state amp because in the end, as the great eric clapton used to say:
"...it's in the way that you use it..."
just my two cents.
peace!
