Apogee Boom User Manual page 28

Apogee Boom User's Guide
Thus, the Buffer setting is always a compromise between lower latency and more processing power.
Monitoring - One of the fundamental workflow choices you'll make is input monitoring - that is, how
performers hear themselves while recording. Boom offers two monitoring workflows, Software
monitoring and Direct monitoring, which are described below in greater detail.
Native DSP Processing - When you open and run plugins in your DAW software, they use your
computer's native CPU processing power to perform the required DSP, and are said to be native
plugins. If you've set the DAW Buffer to its maximum setting, you can run virtually thousands of
Apogee plugins from a reasonably recent computer - there's really a lot of native DSP processing
power available from your computer!
Hardware DSP Processing - Even though you can open thousands of plugins running natively on
your computer, hardware DSP allows you to process an interface input before it's sent to your DAW,
so you can sculpt your sound and record the results.
DAW (Audio Software) - The digital audio workstation, or DAW, is a specific type of audio software
that offers sophisticated functionality, including the ability to choose an audio interface independently
of the OS (operating system), manage multiple channels of input/output, support software or direct
monitoring, support software plugins, and offers adjustable throughput latency.
Many software applications (Spotify, Youtube, for example) include audio input/output but don't offer
the critical functionality for completely supporting Boom workflows. Nevertheless, these apps can
work with Boom when the OS is configured to use Boom for audio input/output, as described here.
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