🚀 go-pugleaf

What are you recording? It's been my experience when recording live you have to give yourself plenty of headroom during the recording so you don't clip. Set your levels during soundcheck, assuming there is a soundcheck.
Try not to play with the levels during recording. Uneven levels during a song will give you plenty of problems in post.
Why don't you want to use the Amplitude effects after recording? There is nothing wrong with some sweetening of live material during post production. In fact I doubt there is a live album recorded in the last 30 years that hasn't been touched up in post production.