Core Audio
More info
- Owner
- Apple
- Released
- 2001
- Type
- Audio framework
Apple's audio architecture in macOS and iOS — the reason an audio interface on a Mac usually works at low latency straight out of the box.
Core Audio was built for Mac OS X from day one, replacing the classic Mac OS Sound Manager. What made the difference was that low latency was part of the design: a hardware abstraction layer (HAL) with timestamped buffers and a high-priority real-time thread per device. Windows needed third-party ASIO for the same thing and got nothing comparable built in until WASAPI six years later.
On top sit Audio Units for plugins and CoreMIDI for MIDI. Class-compliant USB interfaces need no driver at all, and the Audio MIDI Setup utility can glue several interfaces into one aggregate device. That explains a good share of the Mac's standing in recording studios — it wasn't just the screens.