Oxford Drum Gate 2
The deal
$127 at KVR Marketplace (down from $169.99) - 25% off. Sale ends July 16, 2026.
What it is
Oxford Drum Gate 2 is a drum detection and gating plugin from Sonnox that uses timbre-based analysis instead of simple threshold-based detection. It identifies kick, snare, hi-hat, and tom hits individually, removing bleed between channels while preserving ghost notes and subtle dynamics. Available in VST3, AU, and AAX for Mac and Windows.
Who it's for
Mixing engineers and producers working with live multi-mic drum recordings where bleed between channels is a constant problem. It handles alignment and gating without the false triggers and artifacts that plague generic amplitude-based gates.
Key features
- Timbre-based drum hit detection identifies kick, snare, hi-hat, and tom types by sound character rather than just amplitude, eliminating false triggers from bleed
- Time, polarity, and phase alignment locks all drum tracks together automatically
- Adaptive Decay adjusts release time based on hit velocity so gates respond naturally to dynamics
- Sample-accurate MIDI export lets you trigger samples or external processing from every detected hit
