Grow Your Knowledge

In simple words, an audio plug-in is a program used as an add-on to your music production software (see "What is a DAW and what is a host? Is there a difference between the two?").  They allow you to add some functionality that’s not directly available in your DAW. 

There are three main categories of audio plug-ins:

• Effect plug-ins: These plug-ins allow you to play with different effects like reverb, EQ, distortion, etc. Usually, your DAW will already provide a selection of built-in plug-ins for effects but generally, you’ll probably want to look around for different options, especially if you’re looking for a very specific kind of sound.
• MIDI manipulation plug-ins: These plug-ins take your MIDI sequence and manipulate it in different ways. Arpeggiators are a good example of this. Some other examples of this kind of plug-in would be note repeaters or chord generation tools.
• Digital instruments: These plug-ins act as virtual instruments. Some excellent examples of these are our very own SWAM instruments.