My guitar rig is simple. Guitar to Boss GT6 effects unit that has pre-amp modeling. I plug this into the effects return of my Marshall VS65R combo.

I basically use the Boss as the pre-amp. If I go into the normal guitar input the sound is quite crap no matter what settings I use. I do all of my tone fiddling in the gt6 'cos I don't want the fiddle on stage. All the big valve amps have too many fiddly bits. I just want the poweramp !!!!

I'm thinking about a bigger rig which can get the power stage to distortion and bring in the natural compression of the valves before melting the eyes of the people at the 3 tables in front of the stage.

Something like

Guitar
GT6
Rack mount valve power amp (which I'll house in a case) Marshall 20/20?
2X 2X12 ( or 1X12) speaker cabs. for stereo output.

This should give me around 40W RMS but will be plenty loud enough and then mike it up to the PA for big gigs.

Any advice will be most appreciated.

Cheers,

Keith