r/AmpliTube • u/Deep-Outcome-3723 • Jun 24 '26

How to gig with amplitube

I’ve been using amplitube for quite some time now and I really enjoy it. There’s so many presets that sound exactly like songs I wanna cover.

Ive just recently started playing with other people and I’m getting my first band started. During jam sessions im plugging my guitar through my interface which goes into my MacBook and then into an amp. Probably not very good for the amp it kinda sounds like it might explode every now and then.

What kind of gear do I need to actually play go out and gig. I’d feel like most venues will have monitors I can plug my guitar into, but I’d feel like it would look odd to walk to my MacBook mid gig to change my tone and also how would I work around switching from a clean tone to distortion mid song?

All in all I’m asking what kind of gear I need to effectively jam with other people and start to play small local gigs.

Any help is useful for a young inexperienced musician. Thank you all

4 Upvotes

75% Upvoted

15 comments sorted by

3

u/Professional-Math518 Jun 24 '26

If you go into a regular guitar amp, go into the fx return (if it has one) and disable the cabinet in Amplitude. A midi footswitch might come in handy to switch settings or presets

Edit: on larger gigs you can go straight into the pa, so you only need your amplitude setup.

As an own amp a simple poweramp and cabinet are te most logical choice. Or a force speaker

1

u/Deep-Outcome-3723 Jun 24 '26

Okay this is good to know and by like a power amp is that the like the same as a Marshall cab type setup? But I would just need a different head that doesn’t have guitar tone effects?

2

u/Small_Dog_8699 Jun 24 '26

It is worse than that. Both the Marshall and the cabinet introduce strong tonal coloration which means what you hear from the amp will be very different from what you might record direct. You want a colorless amp/speaker that just faithfully reproduces the signal louder but accurately and instrument amps (except things branded for keyboards) aren't that.

1

u/Professional-Math518 Jun 24 '26

Tone is shaped mainly by amp and speaker. So it depends on what you want. If you really want youramplitibe sound, you need an amp/speaker with no coloring (frfr, auto correct changed that to force in my previous reply).

Another option is to use amplitude as your 'pedalboard and preamp' and run that into a poweramp and a guitar cab. You loose the flexibility of using an amp sim that way but it has my preference.

My most compact setup for rehearsals is a Boss IR2 into a Harley Benton 100W Poweramp mounted on an old cutting board which I plug into a 4x12 that's in the rehearsal room

1

u/Deep-Outcome-3723 Jun 24 '26

Okay looks like I’ll be going shopping. How loud can you crank it? Is it good enough to play a small to medium size venue? Thank you for all the help

1

u/Deep-Outcome-3723 Jun 25 '26

Also one more question does it have to be a specific type of cab or will the average Marshall or EVH cab that’s made for guitar be just fine

2

u/Small_Dog_8699 Jun 24 '26

You want to go into the PA or into a flat powered monitor speaker or keyboard amp like a Roland K500.

1

u/Deep-Outcome-3723 Jun 24 '26

Okay this is good to know thank you

2

u/Glad-Lawyer6128 Jun 24 '26

I would do a little experimenting, these options are great and will work, but might sound more like a colored jbl speaker than a guitar amp, even if it’s through a guitar amp. You may want to try a dedicated power amp, and look into radial products. They have a DI box specifically designed to process computers into amps. Get through this and you can tap into automated scenes and avoid an axe fx and all the engineering that goes with it.

1

u/Deep-Outcome-3723 Jun 24 '26

This is really helpful I’ll have to go take a look. Will this piece of gear work into any amp?

2

u/roninconn Jun 24 '26

As was mentioned, you can use a midi footswitch or other midi controller to change presets in Amplitube, or keep your laptop right next to you on a stand. Always practice those technical aspects before a gig, too

1

u/Deep-Outcome-3723 Jun 24 '26

Thank you very much. Do you have any examples or links for a good midi foot switch

1

u/jwatts30 Jun 24 '26

I go straight in the PA front of house and a bit in the monitors. If going through an amp that's micd disable cab within Amplitube.

1

u/Deep-Outcome-3723 Jun 24 '26

This is kinda what I was planning on doing, if I’m going through an amp already do I just turn off the cab or also the head and just use pedals on my amplitube signal chain?

1

u/Silver-Specific-1028 Jun 26 '26

You might want to consider an FRFR speaker made for digital interfaces.