looking for a new amp! help guys!

I'd suggest checking out the Hotrod Deluxe (Fender). Sounds like exactly what you want. Has the footswitch for the channels, beautiful clean, very nice overdrive. Decent reverb.

Give it a looksee.

thanks, but man, thats pretty expensive. I'm a college guy so I have little cash, anything cheaper, around the $ 250 mark?

anyone try the epiphone triggerman 60? that looks pretty cool with some built in effects.

Vox valvetronix has a tube poweramp and LOTS of effects. it comes in 30 and 50 watt...i find the 30 is pretty loud and it retails for about 280 cdn...so you should be able to get it pretty easyt for 250 american or less.

EDIT: you can use a footswitch but you have to buy that seperately...it still might be about 250 including that.

Vox valvetronix has a tube powerampWell, they do call it that, but it's not really. It's a tube preamp stage that's got an inductive load (a "virtual output transformer") that's supposed to make it sound like output tube distortion. I'm skeptical, not having heard one. But the real power amp in it is solid state.

either way, i think it's perfect for what he's describing and would highly recommend trying it out.

thanks guys I'm going to check the Vox out, but anyone try out the triggerman?

So does the Vox amp use a tube at all? or is it a digitalized sound?

Vox Valvetronix: Digitakl pre-amp, 1W tube section, xxxW transparant transistor poweramp. The AD30VT is a gerat amp for the money, use it myself with the band as well, very versatile, great cleans and overdrives. Does *not* come with a footswitch, you need to buy that later. Vox also has a new amp, around 199 for the 30W version. Includes the same valvetronix circuitry but is without modeling. So just two channels, a reverb and a supposedly good sound. Haven't heared it yet though.

In the $250 range not many tube amps can give you both proper overdriven tones and great cleanes, so I'd stay with non-tube for now. Some amps to check:

Roland Cube (either Microcube or 30W, not the 15)
Vox Valvetronix (either 15 or 30W version)
Line6 SpiderII (either 15 or 30W version, hate them myself but some like them)
Behringer GM serie (Gm30 or higher)

The Behringer GM series has two programmable channels (footswitch included), seperate EQ per channel, all kinds of connections included. The 30W version costs $99, so you can get yoruself some effects pedals as well, or get the huge GMX212 for $250 (2x60W, 2x12" speakers, seperate FX unit per channel). I've both the Vox and GMX212 myself, but the Cube is great as well. The Spider is *much* less in my opinion, but do try it out yourself.

Epiphone has a new line of small tube amps. Not sure if it will get yoiur to gigging volumes and I haven't seen them in Holland yet, but some folks around here seem plenty happy with them.

this triggerman from epiphone is 60w which, it isn't a tube, but seems like 60watts would be powerful enough to gig with. Anyhow, I've been looking at the vox valvetronix 50w as well, and am kind of narrowing it down between the two. So your saying the vox 30w valvetronix doesn't have modeling? Therefore doesn't have all the cool amp presets and effects?

The entire valvetronix series has modeling. There is another series which uses the same valvetronix poweramp circuitry but doesnt have modeling. The AD30 and AD50 are both pretty much the same, tone-wise. Listen to the AD60VT (which has a few extra nice tricks) at http://www.valvetronix.co.uk

I uses my AD30 at my last gig and I never needed to push the volume to the max.