Outboard
Outsource DAW plugin processing to external apps on the same machine. Reclaim your CPU.
This one isn’t released yet.
When a mix session has 80 tracks and a dozen heavy plugins, a single DAW process becomes a single point of CPU failure. The fix is obvious: spread the load across more processes.
Outboard is a plugin that, instead of doing the DSP itself, hands the audio off to an independent helper app running outside the DAW. Same machine, same RAM — no network, no cloud, no latency drama.
How it
routes.
In the
box.
Local-only by design
Audio travels between processes via shared memory on the same machine. No sockets, no LAN, no firewalls to argue with.
CPU isolation
A runaway plugin can't take your DAW down with it. Each helper runs in its own process with its own resource budget.
Drop-in workflow
Insert Outboard on a track, point it at the host app you want to run, and it behaves like any other plugin.
Host your own helpers
The helper app can host any VST3/AU plugin — including the ones that have always crashed your DAW.
Latency-compensated
Reports buffer latency to the DAW so timing stays sample-accurate even with multiple Outboard instances in the chain.
Session snapshot recall
When you open a session, the tray app restores every helper to the exact state it was in when you closed it.
Questions,
briefly.
Is this like AudioGridder?
Same spirit, very different mechanism. AudioGridder uses TCP/IP between machines. Outboard runs purely on one machine and uses shared memory, so there's no networking layer to misbehave.
Does it actually help if I'm on one CPU?
Yes — modern DAWs are bottlenecked by per-process scheduling, not raw CPU. Splitting heavy plugins across processes lets the OS schedule them across more cores.
Other tools
in the catalog.
Audio Funnel
Re-route any output, any app, into one tidy stereo pair — perfect for web audio and capture.
NAM Suite
Neural Amp Modeller host with pre/post plugin slots and four amps in parallel.
FileXfer
A fast, native Mac client for S3, SFTP, FTP and WebDAV — dual panes, resumable transfers, no Electron.
macOS Backup
Backups that are just folders. Dated, browsable, restorable by dragging.
Audio Converter
Batch or one-off audio conversion that does exactly what you expect — fast, native, no fuss.
Web Image Converter
Turn any image into WebP for a faster site — the one thing macOS won't do for you natively.