Oxford Drum Gate uses an intelligent detection algorithm to tell the difference between snares, kicks, toms and cymbals, rather than simply gating anything below a certain threshold, which means you can get quick, precise results, even on poorly recorded material. Furthermore, it employs frequency dependant decay and transparent levelling to tidy up performances, and features MIDI output for easy drum replacement or reinforcement.
The interface is split between three tabs - Detection, Decay and Leveller - to help guide your workflow while using the Oxford Drum Gate.
The Detection tab is where you will decide what gets let through the gate and what doesn’t, using a combination of transient detection and a machine learning algorithm specifically designed to identify both what you want to keep and what you want to gate out.
A graphical interpretation of the source material and how the transients are being processed.
Where the “type” of drum will be determined.
A secondary failsafe for keeping transients that you want to let through the gate, or gating transients that aren’t being removed by the first two detection mechanisms.
While this is the first step for determining what will be gated, Detect Transients also displays a graphical representation of everything that is happening on the Detection tab.
Any transient that is detected is assigned a marker arrow. Yellow arrows mark detected transients above the Open Threshold, and white arrows mark detected transients below the Open Threshold. All transients below the initial Open Threshold are gated, while all transients above are subject to the further detection mechanisms.
If no marker is shown over your transient, adjust your Transient Settings to detect it.
If some of your transients are not detected and marked, try adjusting the Transient Sensitivity slider. Increase Sensitivity to detect more and smaller transients.
Decrease Sensitivity if you see multiple markers on a single transient peak or markers during the decay of a drum hit. If you struggle to tweak Sensitivity to detect kick or tom transients, try increasing the SC Filter slider.
After you’ve set your Open Threshold, you can leave the plug-in to do the rest if you’re happy just using transients to trigger the gate. However, if you need more accurate detection, you can tell the Oxford Drum Gate what specific type of drum hit it should be listening out for.
The Match Transients section of the Detection tab is based on a machine learning algorithm which was designed to differentiate between different types of drums. The meters above Kick, Snare and Tom show how the Drum Gate is determining the probability of what it hears could be, and you can adjust the threshold to allow less clearly defined hits through.
Clicking on your desired drum type will only let that type of hit through the gate. When Drum Gate correctly determines what hits it can hear, you no longer have to battle with the Open Threshold to balance the level of unwanted transients. For example, if your snare channel has lots of quiet ghost notes, but also some significant kick drum bleed, the Oxford Drum Gate can easily ensure that only the snare is allowed through the gate - even if the transients of the kick drum are louder on the snare channel - by using Match Transients to determine that the kick drum hits have not been performed on a snare.
This is the final detection method for fine tuning what gets let through the gate if you’re still having problems after the Detect Transients and Match Transients. If you have a snare hit that is not being correctly identified as a snare, you can loop your DAW over the specific transient, click “Learn Unmatched”, and that transient will be allowed through the gate, with a green colouration in the Detect Transients section so it is easy to spot in the interface.
Similarly, you can use “Remove Matched” to gate out hits that are being incorrectly allowed through the gate, for example, a tom hit that has been mistakenly categorised as a snare.
Additionally, you can use Learn Unmatched as a custom gate to control any kind of source, without a Match Transients drum type selected.
This is where you’ll control the release of the gate, or the tail of your transients, after the Detection tab has decided what to keep and what to gate. Every transient that is allowed through the gate is drawn here on the Decay tab’s the waterfall graph.
Each new transient draws frequency (horizontal) over time (vertical) on a dynamic waterfall graph. You can use the Decay fader on the left to tune your default decay time. Because that time is plotted vertically on the graph, you can think of pushing the Decay fader higher for a longer release time, or pulling it down lower for a shorter default decay.
When gating drums, you may not always want the entire frequency range to be affected in the same way. For example, when gating a floor tom, it could be more beneficial to have a longer release time in the low end, whilst keeping a very short release time in the high end to control cymbal spill. This is when you would use Resonant Decay, to let a drum resonate naturally while applying the processing sooner to the rest of the frequency range.
The Resonant Decay is controlled by the yellow frequency band above the waterfall graph.
Often, softer hits sound “shorter” than louder hits. If they are gated with the same decay time, you might end up shortening the loud hits to let the softer ones through without spill, or conversely, you’ll set the decay to be appropriate for the louder hits, and end up with too much spill coming through at the end of softer hits.
Turning Shorten Decay up automatically adapts the decay time based on the level of the transient so that you don’t have to compromise in either direction. This is most effective on hits with a lot of dynamics, for example, a snare with a mixture of loud backbeats and soft ghost notes.
The amount of attenuation applied to the gated signal. For example, -80dB (or the slider all the way down) will provide maximum ‘hard’ gating. If you only want to duck the gated signal to retain some of the spill to keep a more lively feel, then you could apply less Gain Reduction.
The Leveller tab is designed to add a final flourish of consistency to your drum hits after they’ve been gated but before they’re sent to your chosen EQ, compressor or other effects. Oxford Drum Gate’s Leveller affects dynamics transparently so that you can use a compressor after the fact to focus on tone rather than trying to fix an inconsistent performance.
The Leveller has two “targets” - Loud and Soft. For some drum hits and genres, this may be surplus, but on some instruments, like a snare, having a differentiation between loud hits and quiet hits such as ghost notes allows the Drum Gate to keep a performance dynamic and realistic whilst also increasing the consistency between hits.
Use the Split fader to determine which hits are Loud (above the fader) or Soft (below the fader).
The two dotted horizontal lines over the Leveller tab represent the target volumes of the split Loud and Soft transients. Use the Loud Target and Soft Target faders to set your desired target in decibels, and use the Levelling faders to transparently improve consistency between peak levels and bring each transient closer to its target level.
Use the Auto-Set Leveller tool to set your Split, Loud and Soft Targets and Levelling parameters automatically. For best results, let the Auto-Set Leveller listen to the most dynamic part of your track so that it can determine the best Split threshold.
These controls appear next to all three tabs so that you can monitor the plug-in’s output at any point during your workflow.
The Oxford Drum Gate can output the transients it lets through the gate directly to a virtual instrument or other MIDI-compatible source, for fast drum doubling or hit replacement. Use the Settings to change which MIDI note should be performed per hit.
Some hosts do not allow MIDI output from an audio channel, or don’t perform it efficiently enough to use the Drum Gate as a live instrument controller. In these circumstances, you can use the Capture button to save your performance into a buffer, which can then be dragged into your session as a MIDI file.
Use the ? button to open a handy Quick Guide, if you need a reminder for how to use certain functions within the plug-in.
This is a soft bypass of the Drum Gate’s processing for a quick before and after of your work.
Adjust the plug-in’s output from +20dB to -20dB.
| Supported Sample Rates (kHz) | Native Latency (in samples) |
|---|---|
| 44.1 | 2889 |
| 48 | 3144 |
| 88.2 | 5777 |
| 96 | 6288 |
| 176.4 | 11554 |
| 192 | 12576 |