Left to right: Terry Grant, Brandon Thompson, Mark CottonIn 2013 the Pro Tools Expert Award was based around a product and were won by Maag for their EQ2 plug-in, deservedly so, they make great products and know how to take care of their users.

In 2014 we decided to change things a little and broaden the awards, so we asked you who you thought were the companies that consistently delivered great products in 2014 and the companies that have consistently taken care of their users in 2014. In November we asked you to nominate brands in the two categories, innovation and Customer Service and you nominated a wide range of brands.

Voting And Prizes

At the beginning of December 2014, we announced the top five brands in each category and asked you to vote for your favourite. We also announced there would be prizes for 2 lucky people who nominated the winning brand in each category and they will win these prizes…

• iZotope - A Mix & Master Bundle 
• Zynaptiq - one plug-in of your choice. 
• Acon Digital - one plug-in of your choice. 
• Sound Radix - one plug-in of your choice. 
• McDSP  - one plug-in of your choice. 

Then one lucky person who voted to choose the winners will win these great prizes… 

• Zynaptiq - ZAP bundle (all four of their big plug-ins)
• iZotope - A Studio & Repair Bundle
• Nugen Audio - Stereopack, Visualizer 2 & MasterCheck
• Acon Digital - A Total Bundle
• FXpansion - BFD3
• Sound Radix - A Radical Bundle
• Sonnox - Pro-Codec Version 3
• Plugin Boutique - BigKick, VirtualCZ and 10 Loopmasters Artist Series packs of your choice
• McDSP - Classic Pack Native v5
• Sounds In Sync - A 31day rental license for EdiLoad.

The Winners Of The Pro Tools Expert People’s Choice Award 2014

We can now announce all the winners. The winning brand for the Most Innovative Brand is Focusrite Novation with iZotope coming a close second, and the winning nominee is Brandon Thompson in the centre above. 

I nominated Focusrite because of their stellar products and support. I recently have been implementing a Dante audio distribution and recording system using their RedNet 6 and D16 product line. The ease of use of integrating four of the RedNet 6 interfaces into my Madi based Digico SD9 consoles has been outstanding. I am using RedNet to stream up to 128 channels of perfect Dante audio to and from their RedNet PCIe card and into ProTools native (32 channels) and Logic Pro X. Additionally I’m able to use two of the RedNet D16 AES interfaces to move dozens and dozens of channels of audio to and from video embedders, audio feeds and monitor desk tie lines - it just works, and it works well. I’m planning on using the iZotope Mix & Master bundle for putting that last bit of polish on mixes that are heard by hundreds of people every week via our weekly highlight videos. Zynapitq Pitchmap will be a great creative pitch based tool to have. Acon Digital will provide me with a great Verberate plug-in for great, natural sounding reverbs. Sound Radix Pi sounds like an awesome plug-in to have when mixing to guarantee phase interactions are kept in check. Finally, McDSP’s TEC nominated AE400 eq can be used on individual tracks during mix-down to sculpt perfect dynamic equalization for each of my sources. 

The overwhelming winner for the Brand With Best Customer Service is also Focusrite Novation with more than half the votes, with Universal Audio, the runner up, and the winning nominee is Mark Cotton on the right above. 

As a freelance Audio Engineer & Producer it’s great to know that if I have a problem or just a simple question Focusrite will always be there to help. They treat me no different to a much bigger customer & always give me an amazing & quick response, the perfect customer service in my eyes.

As producer of The Bletchley Park Podcast these plug-ins will become invaluable tools to help me capture first hand histories from surviving Veterans and to restore historic artefacts. Creating and saving history for future generations.

Moving on to the overall winner from the voting section, the winner is Terry Grant on the left above.

Wow. So excited to have won the giveaway. The plug-ins will be put to good use on some upcoming sound design projects. I’ve been producing house and downtempo for a number of years now, and have been supplementing the income by producing sound sets and loop CDs out of my home studio here in Nashville, TN. I tend to use a lot of found sounds, and I do a lot of sampling from vinyl as well, so the restoration and analysis plug-ins in particular will come in handy. I’m also about to try my hand at foley for a series of videos being produced by various YouTube partner networks, and I’m sure I’ll have many chances to experiment with the new toys there as well.

So there you have it, two awards with all the nominations coming from you, and the winners voted by you.  Focusrite Novation are the Pro Tools Expert People’s Choice for both innovation and customer service in 2014. Congratulations to Focusrite Novation.