This article presents a unified analytical framework to evaluate the bit error probability (BEP) of M-QAM, R-QAM and M-PAM modulation schemes for different types of fading channels, modeled with Hoyt, Rice, Rayleigh, Nakagami and Log-normal distributions. The mathematical development is obtained for maximal-ratio combining multichannel reception and assumes independent fading paths. The new BEP expressions are written in terms of the integral of the moment generating funcion of the instantaneos signal-to-noise ratio. The advantage of this approach is that it can be applied to any type of fading, and the integrals, even though they do not provide exact expressions, can be numerically evaluated.