Engine: The core audio processing runtime. Instantiated by a host application, runs an audio thread, manages Synths on AudioBuses, and loads Plugins. Avoid: audio server, sound engine, runtime
Driver: A platform-specific audio I/O backend that feeds samples to and from the Engine. RtAudio is the desktop Driver; DummyDriver is used for headless or offline use. Avoid: audio backend, audio device
Plugin:
A shared library (.so/.dylib) that registers one or more SynthDefs with the Engine at load time. Loaded either dynamically from a directory or registered statically via function pointer.
Avoid: extension, module (conflicts with CMake MODULE library type)
SynthDef: A synthesizer definition registered by a Plugin. Describes the processing graph and parameters for one unit of audio computation. Avoid: instrument, unit generator, UGen
Synth: A running instance of a SynthDef inside the Engine, allocated on an AudioBus. Avoid: voice, instance, node (overloaded with the Node base class)
AudioBus: A multi-channel buffer used for audio routing between Synths inside the Engine. Avoid: channel, bus (acceptable shorthand in code)
Resource:
A Plugin-registered shared data object managed by the Engine, identified by a Methcla_ResourceId integer and typed by URI. Allocated/freed via OSC, acquired/released by Synths on the RT thread, accessed from the NRT context via perform_with_resources.
Avoid: instance (a Synth is an instance; a Resource is the thing the Plugin allocates), buffer (overloaded)
ResourceDef: A Resource type registered by a Plugin. Describes the configure, construct, destroy callbacks and the interface URI for one kind of shared Resource. Avoid: resource class, resource type
Soundfile API: A Plugin category that provides file I/O capabilities to other Plugins (disksampler, sampler). Multiple soundfile API Plugins may be registered; the Engine selects by capability. Platform implementations: ExtAudioFile (macOS), libsndfile (Linux). Avoid: audio file backend, file reader