[Sheldon Radford]

Hi,

As Rob Scovill described he uses the HDx option cards to do "Virtual Soundcheck" and there are some nice benefits to doing so (easy to swap between stage inputs and Pro Tools tracks, gain changes arecompensated for).

You'll still be able to do a lot of useful things w/ FWx that you would normally do as part of a soundcheck - such as set EQs, experiment with different plug-ins and get dynamics and aux sends close to their proper settings - but it is different from using HDx in that it's a more manual process. As an example, you'll likely need to make minor adjustments to gain settings when going between FWx and normal stage inputs. This happens automatically when using HDx.

I recommend recording a few shows w/ FWx and playing them back afterwards, to get a feel for how it works and what its limitations are.

Sheldon