The dressing up of digital controls to mimic analog controls is called skeuomorphic although I have not encountered the term in a long time.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skeuomorph

Yes, the “digital version” that mimics the analog one. It was cute in the mid 90’s.

I want actual physical knobs.not sure what that would be called. Potentiometers?

Rotary encoders, I think.

Even better, I connect a midi keyboard so I can use its knobs and faders to manipulate the plugins. Much better feel, and for something like eq, it's nice to be able to manipulate multiple things at once

“…it's nice to be able to manipulate multiple things at once.”

Particularly if one thing affects another in a ripple-effect or chain reaction. It is great to be able to adjust at least two values at once. Keeps you from going back-and-forth adjusting in ever smaller increments to get to the settings you want.

Knobs on a mouse UI suck

Not this in this use case, in fact quite the opposite.

generally most want to have a knob they can adjust and not worry about the underlying value. It's in line with the philosophy of tweaking settings and not using your eyes to judge if its in the right position.

Halleluja!

But then you have to “draw circles” with your mouse?

The UI usually maps linear motion quite naturally. In real use the control is mapped to a physical knob via MIDI, if you'll be tweaking it on the fly.

I wanted to learn Ableton and have determined that it,s futile unless I get a MIDI controller

Absolutely untrue, but a MIDI keyboard will certainly improve the experience.

I hope you see this, just noticed your reply! Thanks for the encouragement, music production/DJing is something I really want to get into, so encouragement is extremely welcome. :) My problem when I tried using it was that the knobs were really difficult to adjust with my mouse, like it didn’t feel responsive. Am I doing something wrong?

No. There are so many plugins and so many knobs that you will never have enough MIDI control panels and time to set them up.