Multi Effects Pedal for noobs

I picked up a V-amp on E-bay for exactly the reasons you state.
It does a decent job, and isn't too expensive, but I don't think I would take it out to a lot of gigs. The power cable/connector seems like it wouldn't take a lot of abuse.
But if you are planning on leaving it set up in your practice area, then it'll give you a lot of bang for your buck.

Thus begins your quest for tone and the ungodly amount of money you'll spend trying to find it..Ha.

There are a bunch of Multi FX pedals out there and I'm sure you can find something in your price range. Mulkti FX pedals offer many pedals in one which is plus.

Personally though in my limited experience is that Multi FX pedals do alot of effects OK but rarely to they do any really great like a single use pedal, but the are more compact and it'll cost you alot less than buying a bunch of pedals.

If your new I'd go with a multi FX you can proabably get soemthing pretty cheap that will be fine for now once you have some time under your belt then you can decide which way to go.

I have the RP355 which is the big brother to the RP155. You can find these for under US$200 (I paid US$165). I'm not sure what these go for in Canada but the dollars are pretty much at par so hopefully you can find it similarly priced. The 355 is much easier to use because it does have more knobs and footswitches than the 155 meaning that you can directly tweak the settings you want to and that you can control it during playing. Some of the cheaper modelers have fewer switches meaning that to adjust the model (and you will adjust the model) you have to go into sub-sub-sub-menus and scroll through a lot of options. It's much easier to adjust with a direct setting knob.

The sound on the 155 will be mostly the same as the 355 though I think the higher models have more amp and effects choices. The quality of the modeled amps is very good for what I play (classic blues, rock, and some power pop). I have heard that the high gain settings are also good but I don't play them so I can't vouch for that. There's a variety of good online reviews on Youtube.

Thanks for the comments. My local store does have the RP155 & 355 I will look into them in more detail. I did pick up a pocket pod but it is going back. I don't like the controls with all the hold this button and then press that button to get a menu etc etc. It also seems to hiss a lot and I can't seem to get rid of that. The store I deal with has a couple of units that had some good demo/how to vids on youtube (vox tonelab & Boss ME25).

Just checked with the local stores website. The Rp355 is $280 which is out of my price range and the vox is $199 which is at my max for price. I am not sure about the ME25.

I liked the loop functionality it looked like a lot of fun as well as the ability to record right onto my pc(I never really thought about doing that much before but it may be fun to make my own backing tracks etc)

What are some other functions these units have tha I may not be aware of? For example Phase shifting what does that do?

Oh, right.
The standard "what sounds does effect X make" question that almost everyone has at some point.
Sorry, I should have realized...

Here's the answer that helped me start figuring it out:
http://musicgearcompany.wordpress.com/2009/01/23/guitar-effects-pedals-monkey-explains-it-all/

Keep in mind that your Super Champ is a modeling amp - essentially it's a multi-effect amp modeler with a tube power amp.

Generally speaking, running an amp modeler into an amp modeler can muddy things up; you'd want to run a pedal with amp simulations into a "line in" or effects return loop on your amp, bypassing the amp's preamp, but the SCXD doesn't allow that.

If you plan to use the pedal unit with that amp, you want one in which you can turn off all amp and cabinet sims. I don't know if those Digitech models can do that; the RP500 can but is pricier; same with the Boss ME-70.

Some older units that don't bother with amp sims are the Boss ME-50 and ME-20, which you might find used locally or on ebay for well within your price range.

Thanks Kent I loved the "Monkey" explanations.

slejhammer: I like the effects on the Super Champ but I think it may be fun to mix and match which you can't really do with the SC. My thought was just to plug a multi effects unit into the amp and have the amp on channel one (clean). Are there problems with doing this? Man playing guitar is so much more than just playing guitar!

It could work fine, but remember "Fender clean" is not "flat and uncolored" like a PA system would be. So if your multi-fx unit has amp modeling, you're going to be running that into the Fender and mixing the two. So it might sound alright, might not ... Using only effects and no amp sims should be good; that's no different from using individual pedals in front of the amp.

The Digitech RP can be used as an effects only modeler with no amp modeling. All of the built-in presets have amp modeling on but you could either edit those or create your own and use the amp model called "DIRECT" which bypasses the amp modeling.

You might want to look for either RP355 or the others online and see if you can get a better deal. I got my RP from a store selling on eBay.