When you're a senior mastering engineer/mixer with a discography like Chris Athens, you get to use almost any gear you want. Working out of his comfortable room at Sterling Sound in downtown New York, he's helped the likes of Coldplay, Ben Folds and Beastie Boys make their records sound better. It should come as no surprise then, that when he turns to software for processing, it's Sonnox Oxford plug ins.

What Sonnox Plug-ins do you run in your system?
The Oxford Dynamics and the Oxford EQ.

Since you combine both analog and digital processing, how do they fit into the overall picture?
I mix in Pro Tools with a large xlr patch bay that connects the Pro Tools outputs to my analog EQ's and compressors and my Dangerous 2-buss. Sometimes, when I need a specific flavor, I'll run a track or stem through my analog path and record it back into Pro Tools.

Often though, most of my track eq and compression happens in the box with the Oxford plug-ins. From there I will stem out the mix through my analog gear, which then gets summed through the 2-buss and then passed through my mastering gear for final stereo processing. I master and mix simultaneously. In essence, my mastering rig becomes a very high-end stereo buss.

Which model do you use the most?
The Oxford EQ. I find it very transparent - although it can have character, depending on which one of the four EQ curves you select. They are relatively intuitive to use and they simply sound great. The interface is cool too. I use the Dynamics quite a bit too, and I've had good results with the Inflator.

Any specific applications that it works best on?
I frequently set it up like an analog console with an EQ and Dynamics on every channel. The EQ and Compressor are my main track EQ's, I use them on pretty much everything.

What would you like to see next from Sonnox?
A simple low/high pass filter plug-in would be convenient. Maybe some mastering-specific stuff.

Interview and editorial provided by Rich Tozzoli