J. Anthony Allen explains audio plugins as independent programs running inside a DAW like Ableton Live. He uses the BBC Symphonic Orchestra sampler from Spitfire Audio as an example, showing how plugins differ from Ableton's built-in instruments and effects, and how to find them in the browser.
Okay, moving on to plugins. Okay, now let me first explain what a plugin is and then I'll explain what this particular list is. So a plugin is its own little program. Think of a plugin as a completely separate program. Okay? Now these programs are designed to run within other programs. It's like program Inception. Let's use an example right here. BBC Symphonic Orchestra. Now, this is an instrument. This is a synthesizer. It's really a sampler. That is an orchestra library. So I can load that as an instrument onto a track. In fact, let's do it. It's got to go on a MIDI track because it's an instrument and it's big. It's got a lot of stuff to it, which is why it's going to take a minute to load. Okay, now this instrument pops open in a new window because it is not Ableton. It is put out by this other company called Spitfire Audio. So Spitfire Audio releases this instrument called BBC Symphonic Orchestra. And I can use it to play orchestra sounds. And it's a quite good sounding orchestra. So at some point I went and I bought this. This little program. I bought it. I think actually this version I have was free, actually, I think. But anyway, I got it and I installed it on my computer. And so any audio program that knows how to deal with this particular kind of program is going to be able to open it. If I open GarageBand or Logic or any other audio software on this computer, it's going to see this same program and it's going to launch it. Because these little programs are called plugins and they're designed to run within audio programs. Okay? So this list here is everything I've installed on my computer. It's kind of a lot. So you might have nothing in this list because you haven't installed a bunch of stuff. I bet you have a few things, actually that just kind of came with your computer. But I've been doing this for a long time, so I've installed a bunch of things. What's important to note here is that none of these are made by Ableton. Okay? These are all separate programs that run outside of. These are all separate programs that run inside of Live, and they are mostly instruments and effects. Okay, so if we go to this instrument tab here, these are instruments made by Live, they run within Live, and they are part of Live. If we go to Audio Effects, these are audio effects made by Ableton for Live. You can only get these in Ableton Live. If we go here, these are plugins made by anyone but Ableton There's a whole bunch of different companies that make these things. They're not Ableton. Alright, I'm going to close this.
