Shure SM57 best bet for amplifying my amp live?

ICBM

vasselmeyer said:

I got a Palmer PDI09 (which is now discontinued) which sits between the amp and the speaker and takes a feed to the desk with an XLR. You can find them for very little money on auction sites and they are absolutely worth a punt. If you have a solid state amp, you don't even need a speaker load on it and I've used it for silent stage gigs.

It's probably worth mentioning that if your amp has another speaker jack - of any impedance - which doesn't automatically switch the main impedance when used, then it's better to simply connect the Palmer to that (you don't even need a speaker cable, a patch cable will do) rather than put it between the amp and the speaker. Doing that reduces the number of potential failure points in the speaker path which could leave the amp with no load.

markr76 said:

I might add though. We’ve both moved to two notes ir boxes. As Modulus mentions above. We get a bit more flexibility this way. We can attenuate our cabs on stage too and get less feedback problems with the PA.

This is also a better solution since it means the desk gets a consistent level and sound even if you alter the stage volume.