DAW mode is another operation mode for TM FX for all the people who are lost with the concept of TotalMix FX to have the middle row (audio from pc) and the patch bay character.
With DAW mode you only have 2 rows in TM FX: HW inputs and HW outputs (no sw playbacks).
Then you need to route fully in the DAW with the typical RTL (round trip latency) which can be big when using large buffers.
The very practical thing of TM FX is, that audio from the PC is not directly played out at the HW outputs.
Instead of this you see audio from PC in the middle row as so called sw playback channels.
They carry the same name as the physical outputs, but are "not yet" the physical outputs.
It is more like a patch bay. Because now you can choose for every physical HW output (bottom row) from which audio source you want to route audio, either from the HW inputs (top row) or from the SW playbacks (middle row) which has to go over the transport between PC and recording interface which needs a bit more time depending on buffersizes in use.
If you want you can get the routing of DAW mode in Full-mode with only one mouse click:
- TM FX -> Options -> Reset Mix -> Straight playback
BR Ramses - UFX III, 12Mic, XTC, ADI-2 Pro FS R BE, RayDAT, X10SRi-F, E5-1680v4, Win10Pro22H2, Cub14