GarageBand as guitar amp for live gigs

[gianluca]

I'm pretty new to audio interface and digital music and I need some help.
My aim is to get some nice guitar tones (mainly clean, but some overdriven as well) for both home practice and live gigs.
I learned that an audio interface (Focusrite Scarlet Solo for example) is what you need to input the guitar in a Pc or iPad or iPhone;
software like Garageband provide amp simulators and stompbox pedal effects simulators;
So I'm wondering if I could play live with this setting: El. guitar -----> Audio interface ----> iphone ---> GarageBand (amp simulator & stomboxes) ----> PA audio or guitar amp line in.
Is there any cons?

[alltunes]

Just the general precarious nature of the iPhone would be enough to make me nervous.

I am more and more appreciating the beauty of the simplest of set-ups

El. guitar……> cord……> tube amp

[gianluca]

Just the general precarious nature of the iPhone would be enough to make me nervous.

I am more and more appreciating the beauty of the simplest of set-ups

El. guitar……> cord……> tube amp

I’m glad for you, like I’m happy for everyone who is able to master his tone directly in a tube amp whatever kind of venue, gig, reharsal session or home practice session.

Unfortunately I lay on the other side, among the few who has to spend time and time to set up his tone everytime the room, or the drummer, or the wheater, changes.

And, yes, a pocket rig which might help me to get my tone everywhere, like a keyboard player, would be very appreciated.

sorry for my poor english…

[Cunamara]

John McLaughlin used to tour with a similar set up, using a Mac laptop rather than an iPhone for the processing unit. I don't remember what software he used, it was detailed on his website with great specificity; I don't know if that information is still up though. Currently, from his description he does not use an amplifier on stage; he uses effect pedals, a preamp and goes direct to the PA.

Processing your signal this way through an analog to digital audio interface, into the phone, through the software, back out of the phone (possibly through another interface to go from digital back to analog?) and to the PA, there is a risk of latency problems (a noticeable timeline between playing the note and hearing it come out of the speakers). There also is the possibility of your tone sounding rather "artificial" but that actually may or may not be an issue. After all, you're not gonna be comparing it simultaneously was playing through a regular amp.

There are a number of pedalboard units that are designed to do this directly. You plug your guitar into one end of the box, plug the box into the PA and it does all of those things you're trying to do with one unit only. This is probably a simpler and much more robust way to achieve this. The HX Stomp and products from Boss and Line6 would be good places to start looking.

[gianluca]

John McLaughlin used to tour with a similar set up, using a Mac laptop rather than an iPhone for the processing unit. I don't remember what software he used, it was detailed on his website with great specificity; I don't know if that information is still up though. Currently, from his description he does not use an amplifier on stage; he uses effect pedals, a preamp and goes direct to the PA.

Processing your signal this way through an analog to digital audio interface, into the phone, through the software, back out of the phone (possibly through another interface to go from digital back to analog?) and to the PA, there is a risk of latency problems (a noticeable timeline between playing the note and hearing it come out of the speakers). There also is the possibility of your tone sounding rather "artificial" but that actually may or may not be an issue. After all, you're not gonna be comparing it simultaneously was playing through a regular amp.

There are a number of pedalboard units that are designed to do this directly. You plug your guitar into one end of the box, plug the box into the PA and it does all of those things you're trying to do with one unit only. This is probably a simpler and much more robust way to achieve this. The HX Stomp and products from Boss and Line6 would be good places to start looking.

thank you very much for your time and for the good advice.
I have the boss me-80 and it doesn’t suit my needs: not enough amp simultators, artificial drive tone, not so good clean tone: that’s why I was looking for alternative.
I’ll check the device you listed.

[John A.]

I think if you want to use a phone, one of the iRig variants is probably the simplest way to do this. There are a couple of variants that have all the right ins and outs you would need for this, and it's specifically intended to work with a phone (as opposed to some other audio interfaces that might be trickier to configure with a phone). It also comes with Amplitube, which is a little more straightforward than using plugins in GB.

[starjasmine]

You might want to check out the Mooer PS2 - if you get one, please share your experiences with us. The idea of a pocket-sized DSP with a small, simple four-button footswitch sounds, well, too good to be true! But the video demos are impressive. This box with footswitch is going for $299 on Amazon.

There's also a modeler in the same price range called the Hotone that gets some really nice sounds, but I saw one comparson video suggesting that the Hotone is more of a recording box that's not really suitable for live gigs because it's not able to store presets or switch easily between them. I can't find the video and don't want to post the wrong one, so if you are interested in this comparison, just google "Mooer PS2 vs Hotone" and about five such vids will come up.

HTH

SJ