Agreed, and that's sorta where I'm at. You can be an amazing player, but if you're playing through a cheap solid state practice amp, your tone obviously suffers. If you're serious about playing or performing, tone is vitally important. It takes a long time to dial in your "sound", and a lot of guitarists never find it.
That's putting a lot of trust in the house speaker system, but I bet it sounded ok. Modeling is still no substitute for a good amp rig, but I can see computers being practical for low profile bar gigs, as long as there's time to set up and sound check.Drunks in a bar can't tell what I'm doing.
Neither can I.
You and I will criticize tone but most people in the audience have no clue.
Last show I went to, there were computers on the stage, no amps.
Fucking modeling software? And brazen enough to show it?
At least throw an empty cabinet onstage so it LOOKs like a wall of sound.
That's putting a lot of trust in the house speaker system, but I bet it sounded ok. Modeling is still no substitute for a good amp rig, but I can see computers being practical for low profile bar gigs, as long as there's time to set up and sound check.
I always look at things from a recording standpoint. The more perfect the sound is, the better. You may not realize it, but even if you're drunk and don't know anything about sound, the show will seem better if the sound is better. If you have shitty sound, you better have a good stage performance to cover for it
When you're at that level you don't have to worry about a shitty sound guy or a crappy PA system, so it works. You're right though, we'll probably see more of that in the future. Buying Guitar Rig with Rig Kontrol is a lot cheaper than an amp and a bunch of pedals.
I got to use some of Garth Richardson's gear on our latest recordings; he's a big producer here in Vancouver. Man, he has a huge collection of stuff! I had a lot of fun fucking around with all his vintage amps and pedals, which have been used on a bunch of big albums.
Don't get me wrong, I am a fan of modeling. I own more than my fair share of modeling plug-ins for recording - thousands of dollars worth, now - and I own a Pod XT Live, and I use a Line6 2x12 for live work with the rock band. That said...
A real guitar and a real amp, recorded or amplified well, is almost always better. I'm not gonna write off modelers - I play with one all the time and it sounds better than my other guitar player's amp - but I'm switching back to tubes and real amps. A modeler can get you 90% of the way but the real deal is the real deal.