Quote Originally Posted by Commodore 64
This thread is blowing my mind. I'm a noob, I know. But I can't understand how one would play live with out an Amp. How does the audience hear the guitar?
To expand on t_ross' point, my setup is guitar -> pedals -> direct box (which makes the signal mixer-friendly) -> personal monitor -> house/mixer

What the personal monitor does is take the XLR cable from the DI box and put it in my in-ear monitors (ear buds), with another XLR output to go to the house PA/mixer. I also have a monitor feed from the house with whatever mix of instruments the bassist and I want (we have a lot of aux loops on our mixer), and the personal monitor lets me tweak the levels of me vs. everyone else in my headphones.

As far as people hearing it, that's all from the house speakers and house amps. I'm giving the mixer the signal that I want put through the house speakers, and that's what's making it out into the mains for the place.

I guess that still might not make sense, but hopefully it helps.