I'm no signal processing guru, so I'm looking for a pretty basic explanation that I'll understand. I've seen this question about Phase Locked Loops, but I have a hard time understanding that, especially in relation to digital audio workstations (DAWs).
What I want to know is how DAWs align the phase of signals when sending them through AU or VST plugins. How do they know how much the plugins will delay a signal they send through it?
I may be mistaken in my assumption that any correction is actually necessary, but then how do DAWs correct for delay of each channel in parallel processing?