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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{{TM}}by Steinberg, which is one of the most popular API's for programming plugins. However, there are other types of plugins, such as '''Audio Units (AU)'''{{TM}}(Apple), '''Real-time Audio Suite (RTAS)'''{{TM}}(Digidesign), and '''Rack Extension (RE)'''{{TM}}(Propellerhead). 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/sampler rather than a plugin, although these are technically called VSTi's, a type of [[#Virtual Instruments|virtual instrument]].
== Virtual Instruments ==