Drum Gate 2

Drum Gate 2 is a machine-learning powered drum-processing plugin. It became the fastest-selling Sonnox product to date.

As Product Lead I defined the strategy, drove the technical R&D, and designed the UX, taking it from a plugin with a solid but limited v1 to something professionals trust on serious sessions.

The core strategic decision was about which technical direction to pursue. Competitors were moving towards blind source separation, which produces impressive demos but leaves audible artefacts in production. Our v1 used a simpler ML classifier that avoided those artefacts but couldn’t do everything users needed.

Rather than chase the competition, I prototyped and made the case for a hybrid approach: a state-of-the-art ML classifier handling the things ML does well, coupled with novel classical signal processing to achieve source-separation-like results without the downsides. That meant designing a new spectral decay algorithm that let drum resonances ring naturally while still removing background noise, giving the sonic benefits of source separation without the artefacts.

The improvements in classification quality unlocked workflow simplifications that hadn’t been possible before, which shaped the UX direction. Better model confidence meant the interface could do more automatically and expose less, rather than asking users to compensate for the system’s uncertainty with manual controls.

I also led R&D for new features, including a drum-specific time alignment engine which ensures that multi-mic’d recordings sound as tight and punchy as possible.

“What used to take hours now takes minutes with no compromise! Oxford Drum Gate 2 makes average drums EPIC!”

Tom Lord-Alge – Blink-182, P!nk, Fall Out Boy

“I don’t know what kind of magic you’ve put in there, but it’s pretty outstanding, even on complicated drum parts with lots of bleed. V2 is a huge improvement over the original, and much friendlier to use.”

Ryan Hewitt – Red Hot Chilli Peppers, The Lumineers, Noah Kahan

Role • Product Lead – strategy, interaction design, algorithm design, ML integration, cross-functional delivery