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Many plugins come with their own graphical user interface (GUI), which often resembles their real life counter-part. For example a plugin simulating a specific distortion pedal may use a visual mock-up of the pedal with virtually knobs and switches that rotate and switch via click dragging.
The term ''VST'' is often synonymous with plugin. VST stands for Virtual Studio Technology, which is one of the most popular API's for programming plugins. However, there are other types of plugins, such as ''Audio Units (AU)'', ''Real-time Audio Suite (RTAS)'', and ''Rack Extension (RE)''. For a complete list of plugin format compability with DAWs, see [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_multitrack_recording_software#Plugin_support here]. Also, a piece of VST software may be a synthesizer rather than a plugin, although these are technically called VSTi's.
== Virtual Instruments ==