Amp pedals - can you use them direct to a PA?

[Frank_NH]

The posting of the Britannia vero made me think about how "amp like" pedals are used, and I have a question.  Has anyone used an "amp pedal" - e.g. the Catalinbread RAH or WIIO - direct to a PA for gigging?  Would you need a buffer?  My thought here is that since the pedal responds much like the amp, you can take that sound right into a PA, much like a floorboard modeler (e.g. VOX Tonelab).  Also, I could imagine making a pedal chain with boosters, overdrives, delays, choruses upstream of the amp pedal.  I suppose I can experiment myself (and will) but wanted to get the thoughts of folks here.  Thanks!

[Beaker]

I've used my ROG Ginger into DI box into PA after my amp stopped working at a gig. Sounded great.

[Frank_NH]

Thanks Beaker.  Thinking aloud, is it feasible to put a balanced connector (rather than a 1/4" jack) at the output of an amp pedal to provide a cleaner signal to the PA?  I suppose a DI box (or a small mixer board) would do that for you too.

[Beaker]

An XLR connector on it's own is not ideal as it does not in itself, provide a balanced output. For that you need the DI.

JohnK has a DI unit drawn up on the contributions page - you can add that to any amp emulator pedal for straight to PA / straight to Recording desk use.

With this you have your unbalanced 1/4" jack for plugging into your amp, and a balanced XLR for plugging into the mixing desk. Don't forget that this way you can send a signal to your amp, and to the desk via the XLR simultaneously.

I've never bothered to add a DI to a pedal, or even build my own DI, as they are now so cheap that it is, IMO, not worth it, and anyway I have several DI boxes already, that I've had for years.

[alex.s]

I think you'll have more success with bass pres than guitar pres as the higher high end content and harmonics generated will likely sound very harsh and unnatural as a guitar speaker actually cuts a lot of top end, contributing to making our guitars sound as guitars as we know it.

I know the Britannia has a low pass filter at the end of it but don't know to which degreeit does tame the top end should you go straight into a PA or mixing desk for recording. Perhaps it could be worth adding a switchable cab sim (ROG's Condor seems to get high praise and the ROG name is one we've all learnt to trust anyway), to make it suitable as both a pedal and a DI'd amp sim?