Greetings all.

I like to run the gamut from sparkly clean to very overdriven (more lead than rhythm). I alternate between a strat and a les paul. I have a Marshall DSL40C. Swapped all the tubes, biased it, put a WGS Invader speaker in. I like the tones that I can dial into it. Can get sparkly cleans on the green classic channel (though I'd want to tame the transients with a comp). The green crunch channel is pretty damn plexi sounding (way closer than expected for a $500 amp). And the red OD1 channel can pick right up where green crunch leaves off and get into singing leads territory with the gain knob only around 4, though those can sound just a bit fizzy (they cut though).

I messed around with a TS808 for awhile. Didn't really have a use for it on the green channel, but I did like it (set with low gain, so just served as a mild boost) in front of the red OD1 channel. Seemed to make the leads sing just a tad more, with a bit less fizz.

Then I got a King of Tone pedal. (My reward to myself for practicing my ass off lately. I had gotten on the list a long time ago but never made the purchase.) Jeez, with that thing I can now dial in pretty much any level of dirt I want on either channel (red or green) and on either mode (classic or crunch) of the green channel. It's too many choices.

I do find there's a difference in sound and feel between, say, going straight into the red channel (set to moderate gain) and, say, hitting the green crunch channel with the KoT overdrive and/or boost. Both of those sounds have roughly the same amount of dirt/overdrive, but they're different flavors. I know it's up to me and comes down to what I want, but I'm a little overwhelmed with the choices at the moment so just curious about others' thoughts on how you approach this.

Do you have a 2-channel amp? If so, do you use your overdrive channel to get the bulk of your overdrive? Do you prefer preamp tube overdrive instead of pedal overdrive for some applications?

Do you have a basic clean sound and a basic dirty sound that you switch back and forth between (by kicking a pedal on and/or switching amp channel)? Or do you have basically one sound and control the overdrive with the volume knob or maybe hitting a light boost?

I know this is rambling. Just looking for thoughts & ideas. Thanks in advance for your thoughts.