Having a great-sounding synth is one thing, but it’s not really worth much if you don’t use it to make some great-sounding music. KV331 Audio’s SynthMaster is certainly a mighty-fine plugin synth, and now the company is inviting you to prove just how well you can use it by entering the SynthMaster Track Contest 2018.
KV331 Audio was established in 2012, and brings together a dedicated team of engineers, musicians and sound designers who’ve set about creating high-quality software instruments for computer-based musicians. SynthMaster is its flagship synth, and has won numerous industry awards. In fact, it was voted the best plugin synth in the world by MusicRadar users in 2016 - that’s no small achievement when you consider the strength of the competition.
The track contest is open to any licensed user of SynthMaster, SynthMaster One, SynthMaster One iOS, SynthMaster Player or SynthMaster Player for iPad. If you’re not a licensed user then you don’t need to feel left out, as KV331 Audio’s ‘All for $4 Sale’, which runs throughout October, means that you can currently get your hands on SynthMaster Player or the SynthMaster Player iOS Pro Upgrade for - you guessed it - $4. SynthMaster and SynthMaster Player preset banks are also being offered for $4 each.
Your submitted track needs to be between three and five minutes long and, as well as SynthMaster sounds, can also include external effects, vocals/vocal samples, drum samples and drum synths. Real and sampled acoustic instruments are allowed, though they shouldn’t comprise more than 20% of the track. You can’t use any synths other than SynthMaster, either.
You can check out the full list of rules and the voting procedure for selecting winners below, but the main thing to be aware of is that you have until 15 November to submit your track. Prizes will be as follows:
- 1st place: will receive $1000 cash + SynthMaster Everything Bundle Upgrade license.
- 2nd place: will receive $600 cash + SynthMaster Everything Bundle Upgrade license.
- 3rd place: will receive $400 cash + SynthMaster Everything Bundle Upgrade license.
- 4th-10th place: will receive SynthMaster Everything Bundle Upgrade license.
- Other participants: will receive 2 preset bank licenses for free.
The rules of the contest are:
- Any licensed user of SynthMaster, SynthMaster One, SynthMaster One iOS, SynthMaster Player or SynthMaster Player for iPad can enter this contest. Users who don't have a license yet (but would like to enter the contest) can purchase a license during KV331 Audio’s ‘All for $4’ Sale through October.
- The submitted track should be between 3 to 5 minutes.
- The following are allowed to be used during the production of the track: External effects, Vocals / vocal samples, Drum samples / drum synths, Acoustic instruments / sample libraries of acoustic instruments are allowed in a limited fashion: Up to 20% of the tracks in your project file can contain acoustic instruments/sample libraries.
- The following are not allowed to be used during the production of the track: External synths (hardware or software, doesn't matter)
- Presets from SynthMaster expansions or user presets can be used. Participants can request the two free preset banks they’d like to use in their song during the song contest period.
- Participants are encouraged to design their own presets as user presets will have up to 10% weight during final voting.
- Participants are encouraged to shoot videos of their projects and share on Instagram/YouTube as video content will have up to 10% weight during final voting. The Instagram videos must feature the following tags in their descriptions: #synthmaster #vst #vsti #synth #songcontest #musicproduction. Participants can publish as many Instagram videos as they like during their music production process.
- The song links should be submitted to KV331 Audio by November 15, after being uploaded to file sharing services like Dropbox or Google Drive. The song should be in 320kbits/sec, 44.1kHz stereo MP3 format. While submitting the song links, participants should also include the following information as well: Name of the DAW applicatio, Names of the presets used in their song, Custom presets they designed during the making of their track, if there’s any. (not required, but will earn up to 10% extra points!), YouTube link of their project video, if there’s any (not required, but will earn up to 10% extra points!)
- Users should use KV331 Audio’s ‘contact us’ page for submitting the necessary information.
- All songs will be uploaded to a new playlist on KV331 Audio's SoundCloud channel and announced on their Facebook channel between November 16-November 20.
- Public voting for the tracks will take place on KV331 Audio’s SoundCloud and Facebook channels between November 21-November 30. Likes on participants’ Instagram/YouTube videos will also be counted towards public voting. There will also be a private judge voting for the tracks. The judges will be determined by KV331 Audio internal team. The breakdown of the voting will be as follows: 50% public voting, 30% private judge voting, 10% Instagram/YouTube video content, 10% custom preset design
- The top 10 results will be announced on January 20 and cash prizes will be paid in 7 business days via PayPal or wire transfer, after receiving an invoice from the winner.
- User presets will be released as a public preset bank on KV331 Audio’s website after the contest.
- KV331 Audio might require the top 10 contestants to submit their project files for the following purposes: a) to verify that the track has been created exclusively with SynthMaster, b) to create promotional content