Mixing console
The device that takes many audio sources, shapes each one and sums them down to a handful of outputs.
At heart a console is a row of channel strips, a network of buses that gathers them up, and a master section on the right. Each channel has gain, EQ and often dynamics, and the fader at the bottom decides how much of it lands in the sum. Aux sends tap off parts of the signal for effects and for the musicians' headphone mixes, so a console is really making several mixes at once.
In the analogue era the desk was the most valuable piece of furniture in the studio, and Neve and SSL are still names that sell plugins. Digital consoles, with Yamaha's 02R in the mid-1990s as the breakthrough, made settings recallable, and the DAW then moved the whole desk into the computer. What remains on the table is often a control surface with motorised faders, because nobody wants to mix with a mouse.