What's the deal with Oxford Plugins....

Sort of but better. They’re just priced on sale for today’s market which they should’ve been years ago.

SSL are dysfunctional circuit models and standard textbook digital products. Now with oversampling. The native plugins have nothing in common really with the analog hardware and are from c200 digital console or before. The new ones are circuit models. The best plug they sold was the X-Verb developed by Relab which they replaced with the Flex Verb that sucks.

Waves Renaissance are the closest but more smoothed out or one trick.
Renaissance EQ is a decramped eq like Oxford EQ but less filter shapes.
Renaissance Compressor has more program dependent release (opto or electro, arc) than the Oxford Dynamics compressor but no way to switch to a completely different process for parts of the transfer curve. Longer lookahead, lower fir filter limiting modulation rate of compressor. Darker sound.
Renaissance reverb kinda sucks compared to the Oxford Reverb but that dense metallic tone can be cool. It’s better than bx rooms and dverb.

UAD Precision has some crossover.
UAD Cambridge EQ is a worse Oxford EQ. UAD Precision EQ is better and is a Maselec clone.
Precision Maximizer is inflator with oversampling.
Precision Limiter is different, less flexible, and doesn’t work as well. Not true peak like Oxford limiter auto comp feature.


Slate and rest of UAD are a bunch of analog emulations of various dysfunctionality. Usually with 4x oversampling.

I bought a bunch of Oxford stuff the last time they went on heavy discount (within the last year, I think it was the first time I’d seen a sale like that) and I love ‘em. I use Dynamics, Drum Gate, TransMod and Envolution constantly. I use Voca pretty regularly too.

I didn’t like the EQ or de-esser as much as FabFilter so I didn’t buy those.

I also bought the noise reduction/restoration type plugs from Sonnox, but haven’t needed to use them yet.

What is the latency like on these Oxford plugins?

The EQ is extremely well-behaved under the microscope, er, PluginDoctor. Also, the knobs react smoothly and the ranges and frequencies are chosen sensibly. That's worth a lot, in my opinion.

Anyone else reading his in Seinfeld voice?

The Oxford plugins are simply put an all out attempt at the state of the art , that have stood the test of time. Everything is ported from the Oxford Console, way ahead of its time. Among those of us who were lucky enough to sit behind one, all we do is wonder what if Sony took pro audio seriously?

I don’t think Sony coded the plug-ins IIRC it was Paul Frindle.

They created the hardware they ran on.

Peter Gabriel had one in his writing room!

I use Transmod a lot on drums, late in mixing. Where things are sitting really well, but I think 'I'd like that snare to have a little less attack (or a little more)'. It sculpts like magic, super transparently.

I use Envolution similarly sometimes, but more often I use that on room mics or piano or something where I want to extend ambience.

Super nice tools.

how does it compare to the fabfilter ProG?
edit; watched some vids on this, how the F did I miss this? Seems incredible, gonna get it

On sale for $39 here(possible scam?)
edit; just bought it, it's in my ilok so it's legit

www.pluginboutique.com/products/5750-Oxford-Drum-Gate?currency=USD&force_country=US&gad_source=1&gclid=Cj0KCQiA_9u5BhCUARIsABbMSPsN5VXOE0GYRz_EwO9rbHu-V0fKso_mfcB78J1mjUzF1uNfP_L2OkYaAoddEALw_wcB

The Oxford dynamics and eq (with gml option - I almost always use the GML setting) are my default go tos. I only have a few other eqs and compressors I might grab for very specific things. But otherwise I do everything with those. And they’re really powerful and sound good you just have to understand how they respond in order to set them well.

How does Drum Gate compare to Silencer? I know that's a question asked many times but, well... here's one more.

Drum Gate looks way more flexible but are the results that different in the end? I guess it's got some transient shaping tools built in which is nice. But in terms of the actual isolation of drum hits, is this more effective than Silencer?

I didn’t have luck with Silencer but use Drum Gate for kick and snare. For toms, I usually just do manual editing and if cymbal bleed is really bad use something like Izotope to kill that which allows me to keep the sustain of the drum in tact.