How to make a rig road ready?

Quote from AxeSlash

Why ruin their experience just for your ego trip of having a nice sound on stage?

I have to agree that when using the KPA with cab, the monitor out EQ is your best friend (I usually cut the bass and boost the mids quite a bit with a closed back 4x12 type cab). However, whether it's with real amps or Kemper, if you can't get a good stage sound to start with, it's a little naive to think it'll be great out there in spite of all the FOH magic.

Someone who has played with real amps for a while will know what sound to look for out of the Kemper. These are generally not the sounds that provide "instant gratification" when noodling on your own. In my experience, even some of the big commercial profilers' material or some stock profiles are often not very well suited for live performance.

At first I recorded my (smaller) gigs and listened back to find out what worked and what didn't. For example, I'd put 3 or four slightly different profiles of crunch in one night and by listening back, find out which one works best and why. Rinse and repeat until you know what to look for. A year later I look back at my first performance profiles and usually they feel compressed, have too much gain and bass/treble. Still figuring out the perfect settings for reverb and delays. Now I stick mostly to one commercial profiler that I know is going for the same sounds I do.

I think lots of experimentation is beneficial, so even if you think one patch is good enough, you can try another one slightly different another night. If you can make it shine in an unfavorable environment, you'll also shine in bigger festival/stadiums with a top notch sound crew.

Quote from nightlight

I'd suggest that if you want to have everything sit in the mix, you and your band set aside one jam session to just set your levels and tones at *gig volumes*. Doing it at home alone without the band is a recipe for disaster. You all want to be together to set the tones and the levels so that you get maximum sonic clarity when you go live. An extra pair of ears really does wonders when finalising your tones.

It's guaranteed that not all venues will be the same, so your sound may change in different places. Even positioning your speakers differently can impact the sound. Best option in that case for on-the-fly setting is to use the EQ in the output section, should get you relatively the same sound wherever you are. If you play the same venue often, you can save those output settings so that you can recall them every time you play there.

This!

Quote from AxeSlash

there is a guy out front whose job it is to fiddle with his knobs(!) to make your sound work within the constraints of the equipment and room that it's creating sound in/through.

And this; let the sound guys do their job!

Well said Axeslash !

From my personal experience:
1. The guitar is meant to sit in the medium frequencies. While it's nice and fancy when you are alone to get a bassy, and mid scooped sound, it just doesn't work in the band context. So... keep that in mind when voicing your guitar tone

2. You just wont be able to rely on the FOH guy at everyshow, especially in small places. Learn how to sound good without the help of the PA, IE use a cab that you can use as your personal monitor or even as the main source of your sound when playing in small places. And of course, your direct sound should sound good too (find a way to profile your sound through your regular speaker that you can send to the PA, if you can)

3. that also implies... at some rehearsals, find the time to test/check the sound of the whole band (record it if possible). a FOH engineer, as good as he/she can be, cannot transform a bad sound... Garbage in, garbage out, so make your sound the best possible before hitting the stage, and learn how to get the best sound in any places you will play.