There‘s plenty of cool ways to use modelers and tube amps with lots of people blurring the lines between the two. Using a modeler’s preamp into a clean tube power amp and guitar cabs will usually keep up with a tube amp live. Then there are people using tube amps with ir load boxes to get awesome direct sounds. I think all of the technology is there and you can mix and match to get exactly what you want. I still love the grunt and rage that a high gain tube amp brings to the table, but once it gets miked and put into the foh, I’d almost prefer to send the carefully crafted tone of a modeler.... especially if the sound guy is a little suspect.
