Designed primarily for live concerts and stage shows where backing tracks are used for orchestration, vocals and sound effects, SW8 employs an adjustable gate to detect a machine malfunction and automatically switch to a second backup machine to deliver a seamless performance. The SW8 will monitor any continuous audio signal such as SMPTE on the main playback system, and should the signal drop it will automatically switch to the backup. Switching can also be performed manually on the front panel, or by using a footswitch such as the Radial JR2. For larger systems beyond 8 channels, multiple SW8s may be linked together.