TS type pedal in front of amp?

Anybody run an overdrive pedal in the front of their GM36?
Its well known that Marshall players will run a tubescreamer or boss sd1 in front of their jcms to "tighten" up their sound.
OBVIOUSLY a jcm and gm36 are 2 totally different amps.
I was just curious if anybodys tried it and what the results were.

It's already been done BRGC, and it's already in your amp!  I've posted info on this a number of times so have a read of this thread:  H&K Input Buffer  People go ballistic when they read that the H&K amps have SS circuitry dotted about in amongst the valves.  They don't really know what they are talking about.  Well designed and implemented SS circuitry has no effect on valve circuitry!

The emphasis must be on "well designed and implemented" and that is where the problem arises.  When it isn't well designed or implemented, (like so many "boutique" pedals around produced by this type of non-tech techy), the impact is clear to hear.  It needn't be like that at all.  There is no such thing as a universal "transistor signature".  Top solid state circuitry is running at <0.01% distortion and that is utterly inaudible in the scheme of using a guitar amp.  And the term "distortion" covers every type of alteration to a signal that there can be.  If the signal is changed in any way, (the infamous "tone suck" for example ), that is distortion and it shows up in our measuring equipment.  If you can't measure it it plain 'aint there!  And if it isn't there you plain can't hear it!!!  And the flip side of that is that there are many things we can measure which ARE there but you can't hear because the measuring process is much more critical and accurate than our own ears which you can't believe at all.

I am currently running a simple single pristine toneless transistor buffer to be able to isolate the preamp circuitry from the Master Volume control in my Marshall JCM800 as its original design is a disaster!  The circuit I have designed and fitted has distortion at -53dB (0.2%) 2nd and -63dB (0.07%) 3rd harmonic, and that is for a 200V pk-pk input signal which is way way above what it will see in use.  At the more reasonable 40V pk-pk it shows -66dB second and -69dB 3rd which is 0.05% and 0.035%.  Frequency response is flat between 50Hz and 20kHz set by components in the design to deliberately limit it something which is sensibly beyond the requirements for guitar to not affect the rest of the amp's tone.  Without that it is flat down to below 2.5Hz and above 220kHz.  And the transient response shows well damped sharp rising and falling edges with no ringing at all.  It wouldn't pass muster in my hifi work but for a single transistor design in a guitar amp with valves generating 1 or 2 % distortion even when running clean that is an inaudible stage!

Anyway have a look at the other thread and see what you think.