The term "plug-in" and its origins

famous beagle

famous beagle

Well-known member
Hey y'all,

I'm editing a book right now, and in it, the author claims that plug-ins are so named because they mimic the effects of old. He says that, in the old days, these effects came to be known as "plug-in" effects because they were "plugged in" to the signal chain.

This was/is news to me. I don't remember ever hearing the term "plug-in" back in the days before DAWs. Do y'all?

Wiki says the term was coined in 1988 by an engineer who worked for Silicon Beach Software.

What say y'all?

Thanks!
 
AFAIK...the term came from the computing world long before it became an audio DAW/FX term...it was used to describe a component that you added to a program application in order to expand its functionality and/or features and/or that you "plugged in" additional code...and from there, when DAWs came along, it was extended to what we now call add-on FX/Processing.

I have never heard anyone use the term "plug-in" in the audio recording world pre-DAW.
With hardware, outboard FX/Processing is said to be "patched in"...not "plugged in".
 
Not if you're British. we of course have patch bays, but we also had plug-boards. Plug here was the pretty standard terms for a push in connector. If you had a compressor, you'd plug it in. 'Patch' was one of the US terms that crept in here gradually. The quarter inch jack plug was the standard connector for a very long time before these new fangled XLR things appeared. I always assumed the computer plug-in term was derived from the mimicking of the physical plugging in of processing kit like reverbs, compressors, limiters and graphics - at least that's my memory of how things were/are here in the UK. In fact, I think that I'd still shout across a stage "Plug in that compressor into 3 and 4 can you?" I don't think I'd say "Patch in that ...." It wouldn't matter of course, but I've been using "plug-in" before Sinclair ZX80 computers appeared?
 
Yes, we (Americans) said "plug in that cable" or things like that, too, back in the day. I used that more commonly that "patch that in" myself. But we never (that I know of) referred to a compressor or reverb, etc. as a "plug-in" effect. Sure you could "plug" a cable into it, but the specific term "plug-in" or "plugin" as a noun or an adjective was not in use during the analog days in the US that I'm aware of.
 
In 1970, I was learning to operate and program various data processing machines such as you'd find in any corporate data processing center.

There were no devices which were added via "plug-in", but as a verb these various sorters and keypunch machines were programmed by "plugging in" 1/4-inch jumper cables to a circuit board in various combinations, depending on the task required.

I have no idea if this may be relevant.
 
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