If you’ve been honing your production skills during lockdown, now’s the time to show them off, because KV331 Audio - developer of the rather excellent range of SynthMaster software synths - has announced the 2020 SynthMaster Track Contest. And, if you’re talented enough to win it, you could be taking home not only a suite of superb KV331 Audio software, but also $700 in cash.
Here’s the deal: the contest is open to any licensed user of SynthMaster, SynthMaster One, SynthMaster One iOS, SynthMaster Player, SynthMaster Player Free or SynthMaster Player for iPad, and your challenge is to create a three to five minute track featuring one or more of these instruments that you think is good enough to beat all comers.
This track can also feature external effects, vocals/vocal samples and drum samples/drum synths. Acoustic instruments and sample libraries of such instruments are also allowed, but shouldn’t comprise more than 20% of the tracks in your project file.
External synths - whether hardware or software - can’t be used, though participants are allowed to use presets from SynthMaster expansions or user presets. You can also request two free preset banks to use for the duration of the contest period.
That said, you’re strongly encouraged to create presets of your own, as these will carry up to 10% of weight in the final vote to determine the winner. You might also like to think about shooting a video of your project and sharing on Instagram or YouTube, as video content will also have a 10% weighting in the final vote.
Any shared videos (you can create as many as you like) should feature the tags #synthmaster #synthmasterone #synthmasterplayer #vst #vsti #ios #auv3 #synth #songcontest and #musicproduction.
A link to your finished song needs to be sent to KV331 Audio by 16 August. You can upload it to a service such as Dropbox or Google Drive in 320kbits/sec, 44.1kHz stereo MP3 format.
When submitting your song, you also need to provide the name of the DAW you used, the names of the presets used in your song, any custom presets you designed and links to any videos you made. This information can be submitted via KV331 Audio’s Contact Us page.
After the closing date, all songs will be uploaded to a playlist on KV331 Audio’s SoundCloud channel and an announcement will be made on the company’s Facebook channel between 17 and 20 August. Public voting, which accounts for 40% of the final results, will then take place between 21 and 31 August (a SoundCloud ‘Like’ counts as a vote).
Another 40% of the final result voting will come from a panel of judges (this will be created by the KV331 Audio team) with the remaining 20% made up of the 10% for video content and 10% for preset sound design.
The contest prizes are as follows:
• 1st place: will receive $700 cash + SynthMaster Everything Bundle license
• 2nd place: will receive $500 cash + SynthMaster Everything Bundle license
• 3rd place: will receive $300 cash + SynthMaster Everything Bundle license
• 4th-10th place: will receive SynthMaster Everything Bundle license
• Other participants: will receive two SynthMaster or SynthMaster One preset banks for free
The Top 10 winners will be announced on 15 September and cash prizes paid within seven days via PayPal or wire transfer. User presets that are submitted will be released on KV331 Audio’s public user library.
KV331 Audio will also require the Top 10 winners to submit their DAW project files to verify that the track has been created exclusively with KV331 Audio products and to create promotional content.
Finally, all Top 10 winners will have the chance to be featured in an album that’ll be released by KV331 Audio on streaming services. All included tracks will be professionally mixed and mastered, so stems will have to be provided.
And that’s it: good luck, and happy producing! Full details are available on the KV331 Audio Facebook page.