i'd put my money on alterbridge.

//I'm going to get one of each....

Have you taken up guitar portia?

What I mean by that is I've been playing for ten years. I usually tend to use amp overdrives rather than pedals, but I got a Fender Twin recently and I would like to use a hotcake to push it into overdrive territory, or maybe the G2D for rocking out, since it doesn't have an overdrive channel.

No please, geek away. The mesa boogie dual rectifier was in some ways the worst amp I've ever owned. It was essentially the biggest distortion pedal in the world, with a pretty average clean amp (with no reverb) thrown in. In spite of having seven different channel settings (three channels, one with clean and dirty, two with vintage, modern and raw) I found the low gain settings totally useless (yeah ok you don't get an amp like this for those sounds, but still) and the modern setting to be totally over the top. The vintage was fine, if unremarkable. The amp kind of compresses everything you play, so it all sounds flat and lifeless - pretty much like Linkin Park or something equally awful. I had always wanted one of these amps, since I first started playing, but by the time I got it, I had really moved on in my musical taste. Before I sold it, I found myself actually going back to my Tech21 Trademark 60 more than the mesa - I just liked the sound better. I believe the mesas have their place, but to really get 'the' sound you have to push them to the limit - that's why Shihad and Metallica use them and get such good sounds out of them. Another issue was moving the fucking thing - pretty much a two man job. I could carry the cab, but it was a mission - they're bigger than marshall quads, and heavier too.

So I sold it, and bought a 1967 Fender Twin, re-tolexed by Mike Soldano in white (like the early 60s models), with oxblood grille, and a Gibson super-goldtone, a 60w tube amp which is basically the trace elliott velocette amp renamed after gibson took over. They are no longer produced. Everyone knows what a Fender Twin does - just glorious cleans and cavernous reverb. This is a particularly good one, I believe.

The gibson is my main amp - polar opposite of the mesa. Nice, dynamic clean sound on the first channel, which can be overdriven into really nice breaking up, cranked AC30 sounds, and then a quite Marshallesque dirty channel which does an excellent overdrive, with it's own unique sound. It also came with a five button footswitch, which allows you to boost the preamp on either channel (just a little extra gain, very cool) or play both channels at once - crazy! The channel mixing is not possible without the footswitch - which you have to buy seperately, but I got it second hand. I took it in to the rock shop north shore to get the reverb fixed up after travelling had damaged a tube, and one of the guys there, after playing it for five minutes, tried to order one from gibson for himself, only to be told they are no longer made. If you see one, grab it, it's destined to be a classic.

Ohter mesas are really nice - the Maverick combo is a really versatile medium gain amp (i.e. it will do anything but metal) as is my favourite mesa, the F-50. It's just the rectifiers that I have had much joy with. I think I will probably stick with combos from now on, the less power the better. No one needs a 100 w amp in NZ. I think Lucid tone are onto something with their 20w amps designed to be cranked. I still play my tech21 Trademark 60 too - amazing amp for around $1200. I've had it for six years and it's never had a single problem (it's solid state, but tech21 are famous for their tube emulation, they were the big name before Line6, still do it better imo). Recommended for anyone wanting a nice light practice amp which can do just about any sound pretty well - channel one is like a class A amp, channel two goes into Marshall/Mesa territory. Spring reverb, and a boost button on the footswitch which adds up to 9db of extra post gain. Great recording amp too - stick a 58 in front of it and it sounds like a stack.

Whew! Sorry, got pretty carried away with that answer.....

I couldn't really afford the Twin, so the guy let me pay it off over like two months. I have a huge student loan and other debts but I knew if I bought the Twin I would have a musical treasure for life. Only bummer is it's American voltage, but that's not the end of the world, since the amp will probably only be used in studios anyway, not gigged.

Yeah man those Gibsons are fantastic. As I understand it, the pick of the litter is a 30w Class A model, with one 10" speaker and one 12". Yum.

And for god's sake try before you buy if it is at all possible. Especially if you are buying from a store, there is no reason not to go in and have a good try of the pedal before forking over your $$$. Preferably take in your own guitar, plug into an amp that is similar to your own, and play the same stuff that you actually plan to use the pedal for.