AmpTalk.com

[hawary]

I play live alot and some of the times that i have to play live i dont get the chance to play on amps or bigger ones, anyways someone told me that instead of connecting my guitar to the mixer directly i could connect my guitar into an amp first (even if it is small) and take a line out from the amp into the mixer, it does sound better but i just wanted to know why ?
Thank in advance.

[johnny]

Dear Hawary,

Well, the advice you got was correct....playing through an amp works good for many reasons. First of all you have control over your sound at close range and also your amp acts as a monitor giving you a speaker nearby that is just your guitar. You can turn down to a sensible stage volume and then send a feed to the mixer so that you can be blended in overall with the other instruments and vocals. Even a small amp can give you a better guitar tone than you would get just going into the mixer.

Some guitar players, (not very many) do just send the guitar signal straight to the mixer w/ effects like distortion, chorus, etc added by the guitarist and then get it fed back through the monitors for themselves and the other musicians to hear. Who knows that may become the trend in the future but working with your own amp is usually the way to go. A professional can just walk in and play with just his amp, joining in with what is happening with out having to patch into a channel and have someone deal with his signal. A good quality modern amp will have a true emulated output that is not just a line level out to the mixer and will have the sound your actually getting with your amp go to the mixer which is what you want, or you can mic it up to the mixer which is usually how it is done by the pros/

I hope this helps in your understanding...

Johnny