Oxford Drum Gate 2 dropping hits and how to try and fix them

Oxford Drum Gate missing or misdetecting transients in your project? This article will help!

Oxford Drum Gate 2 introduces significant architectural changes designed to deliver substantially improved audio quality, detection accuracy, and useful phase and time alignment, all in real time. 

As a result, the software now requires considerably more system resources than the plugin's predecessor, the original Oxford Drum Gate

While these improvements allow for higher fidelity and more consistent results across modern systems, they also mean that users running modest or older music production setups may experience performance limitations, including increased CPU load, higher memory usage, and reduced session scalability.

This is not a regression in optimisation, but a deliberate engineering trade-off: greater processing depth and accuracy in exchange for higher hardware demands.

We understand that this change will not suit every workflow, but we are committed to being transparent about the requirements so users can make informed decisions based on their systems and priorities.

Below you will find suggestions on how to free up your system's resources to allow Drum Gate 2's best performance - 

1) Reduce External App Usage

• Closing any external applications not being used - e.g. Spotify, Web browser etc, will allow your system's OS the resources it requires to complete the heavy multi-thread processing Drum Gate 2 requires for accuracy and best performance.

2) Keep Buffer Size Large in DAW

The buffer is a short chunk of audio your DAW processes at a time - 

• Small buffer = low latency, high CPU stress
• Large buffer = higher latency, lower CPU stress

Small buffer size example - 64/128 samples

Large Buffer size example - 1024/2048 samples

Unless tracking/recording, most of the time a larger buffer setting is better as it drastically improves system stability and reduces the possibility of running into problems as a result of low system resources. Problems can include - 

• Audio dropouts
• Pops/clicks
• CPU overload errors
• Random playback stops

While using Drum Gate 2, we advise setting your DAW's buffer to the highest size that your system will allow for best results and performance.

4) Track render/commit/freeze 

Rendering Drum Gate 2's processing across your drum mix after completing alignment and gating will free up resources if required.

3) Still having problems? - Try capturing the MIDI instead!

Like it's predecessor, Drum Gate 2 can capture the transient data and generate MIDI notes. 

Simply refer to the MIDI capture menu on the right-hand side of the GUI - 

1. Click Capture
2. Playback the audio clip from start to finish, or complete an offline bounce if your DAW supports this
3. Return to the Drum Gate 2 GUI, and use the 'Drag' button to move your newly generated MIDI data on to a MIDI or instrument track 
4. Change Drum Gate 2's input mode to 'MIDI' 
5. Route MIDI to Drum Gates input - Please note, the routing process varies from DAW to DAW

This method then bypasses the detection engine that determines the different drum types, and the gate will now open when triggered by the MIDI data instead.