About - Sonnox Plug-Ins History
Sony Oxford evolved out of a group of dedicated audio professionals who first worked together in the early 1980s. Having spent many years designing analogue and digital consoles for a leading British manufacturer, five engineers started a new Company in 1988 which was called Oxford Digital. Over the subsequent years the team slowly expanded, until in 1993 it became Sony Oxford. The original group of engineers has been together for over two decades and still forms the core of Sony Oxford. The current team totals over 200 man-years of experience in the pro-audio industry.
One of Sony Oxford's major product designs has been the OXF-R3 Digital Mixing Console, or 'Oxford Console' as it's often called. This huge undertaking, a no compromise high end digital audio system, was conceived by Oxford Digital in the late 1980s and productised for release by Sony in the mid 1990s. Virtually everything, including audio DSP chips and software design tools were designed at Oxford since, at that time, it was impossible to buy DSP technology with enough power.
As times and techniques moved on, and technology became cheaper with increasing power, we began to focus on how we could leverage the Oxford technologies into audio workstations. We became a development partner with DigiDesign and began work in order to create the Oxford EQ for Pro Tools. At the same time, we started work on the infrastructure for our e-commerce scheme which would be instrumental for sales and registration of our new software products.
In September 2002 we started selling the CD boxed versions of the EQ around the world, and things went well for us with our first plug-in product. We received numerous highly appreciative remarks relating to our EQ. Here's a flavour from the kinds of comments we received:
"Oxford EQ, absolutely fantastic, I know nothing like it... The GML option is stunning. It’s heaven for Plug-in Users... This is without doubt the best Plug-In EQ there is."
"It’s the best EQ I have heard with Protools to date"
"Your Oxford EQ with the GML option is wonderful, I never expected digital EQ to sound so good!"
"We are thrilled with the Sony EQ and all the professionals who have come to our studios... always ask; where did you get this EQ?"
Spurred on by this success, we decided to port our EQ to TC Works PowerCore. We followed this with a version of the OXF-R3 Dynamics section, then two newer plugins (the Inflator and the TransMod), which didn't figure prominently in the console and needed significant re-working for the plugins market. Our latest release is a brand new Reverb for ProTools, which has all the benefits of a modelling Reverb in terms of control, yet can produce results similar to a convolution reverb without time-consuming location set-ups.
In April 2007, the plugins business was spun out of Sony to become a new and independent entity called Sonnox. Currently Sonnox has a total of 6 individual products available for 5 platforms, and we provide flexible bundles which offer up to 40% savings on multiple plugins. The EQ and Dynamics are effectively ports of the original OXF-R3 units, but later plug-ins include major enhancements and completely new processes as the Oxford Plug-Ins now give us an additional vehicle for creativity. All the ideas we had during the early days of the Oxford Console design, along with more recent innovations, are available for development as plug-ins. Processing power is continuously expanding to the extent that DSP requirement is now much less of a concern. Our most difficult challenge is deciding which plug-in process shall we work on to create next!
Looking to the future, Sonnox is committed to expanding its plugins business with frequent introduction of new products and support for additional platforms. We are working hard to grow the world-wide distribution channels for our products. We're introducing innovations such as the MediaPack, which allows simple and flexible purchase of our products from any outlet - and you can add licences with a single phone call!
However, it all comes down to a passion for audio. We take a no-compromise attitude to our designs. We put extreme care into the quality, the functionality and the performance; we agonise over the user interface; we test, test and re-test; and we listen to feedback from our customers. We take great pride in our after-sales support. We want to provide you, the audio professional, with the innovative tools you need to undertake your job with more creativity, more flexibility and more efficiency.
We hope you like our products.
One of Sony Oxford's major product designs has been the OXF-R3 Digital Mixing Console, or 'Oxford Console' as it's often called. This huge undertaking, a no compromise high end digital audio system, was conceived by Oxford Digital in the late 1980s and productised for release by Sony in the mid 1990s. Virtually everything, including audio DSP chips and software design tools were designed at Oxford since, at that time, it was impossible to buy DSP technology with enough power.
As times and techniques moved on, and technology became cheaper with increasing power, we began to focus on how we could leverage the Oxford technologies into audio workstations. We became a development partner with DigiDesign and began work in order to create the Oxford EQ for Pro Tools. At the same time, we started work on the infrastructure for our e-commerce scheme which would be instrumental for sales and registration of our new software products.
In September 2002 we started selling the CD boxed versions of the EQ around the world, and things went well for us with our first plug-in product. We received numerous highly appreciative remarks relating to our EQ. Here's a flavour from the kinds of comments we received:
In April 2007, the plugins business was spun out of Sony to become a new and independent entity called Sonnox. Currently Sonnox has a total of 6 individual products available for 5 platforms, and we provide flexible bundles which offer up to 40% savings on multiple plugins. The EQ and Dynamics are effectively ports of the original OXF-R3 units, but later plug-ins include major enhancements and completely new processes as the Oxford Plug-Ins now give us an additional vehicle for creativity. All the ideas we had during the early days of the Oxford Console design, along with more recent innovations, are available for development as plug-ins. Processing power is continuously expanding to the extent that DSP requirement is now much less of a concern. Our most difficult challenge is deciding which plug-in process shall we work on to create next!
Looking to the future, Sonnox is committed to expanding its plugins business with frequent introduction of new products and support for additional platforms. We are working hard to grow the world-wide distribution channels for our products. We're introducing innovations such as the MediaPack, which allows simple and flexible purchase of our products from any outlet - and you can add licences with a single phone call!
However, it all comes down to a passion for audio. We take a no-compromise attitude to our designs. We put extreme care into the quality, the functionality and the performance; we agonise over the user interface; we test, test and re-test; and we listen to feedback from our customers. We take great pride in our after-sales support. We want to provide you, the audio professional, with the innovative tools you need to undertake your job with more creativity, more flexibility and more efficiency.
We hope you like our products.
Website www.sonnoxplugins.com
Sunday, 12-Oct-2008 08:40:06 BST
- © 2007 - 2008 Sonnox Ltd