Everyone who voted for the shortlist, chosen and voted by you, was entered into the prize daw to win one of nearly 40 prizes. Here are the first batch of winners of prizes from iZotope, Exponential Audio & Nugen Audio.

iZotope

Dave Nelson - Winner Of iZotope RX5 Advanced

Music has been in the fabric of my life since I was a teenager.  I have my parents to thank for that.  They supported me through all of the trials and tribulations of a young and aspiring artist.  Thanks to them I enjoy music every day of my life!

After decades of being a weekend warrior and road musician I decided to give up the stage and focus my efforts in the studio.  I've been at this for about 11 years now.  I started out working exclusively "in the box" but have recently upgraded my home studio into a hybrid digital/analog process that I'm really enjoying.  My results are continually improving and I am always looking to expand my work.

The addition of Izotope RX5 Advanced to my rig will be really helpful in dealing with plosives (in vocal work), will provide the tools to remove the hum and hiss that I sometimes get in pre-recorded electric instrument tracks, and will provide me with the Insight Metering Suite.  This is especially important to me because I intend to expand into some niches that will require documentation of broadcast compliant loudness standards.

All-in-all this is going to be a significantly meaningful addition to my studio arsenal.  Thanks Pro Tools Expert - you ROCK!!!

Chris Coates - Winner Of iZotope RX5 Editor

I am an ex RAF pilot, currently working as an airline pilot. My wife and I have always been hobby musicians, earning a few bob here and there, but over the last few months we have been writing, recording and mixing our first album. I am very excited to have won the RX5 and the arrival of the prize will be perfectly timed with the opening of our studio and a move from hobby to semi-professional status. It will give us many more options and may open up a couple of opportunities for us. It really couldn't have come at a better time and perhaps will appease the people who complain that it's always professionals that win. I am currently building a new purpose built studio in a shed like James. Thanks to Mike and the whole Pro Tools Expert team.

Linda Taylor - Winner Of iZotope RX5 Editor

I’m a guitarist, producer, most people know me from my work on "Whose Line Is It Anyway?"  Crazy show, I’ve been doing it about 17 years or so.  Talk about lucky…

I’m a guitarist by trade, but we all know that’s not enough anymore and you’ve got to be a little of everything.  So my ‘hats’ include composition, recording, mixing, producing…kinda the whole thing.  I’m frequently called to do complete tracks based off a simple song demo and my clients enjoy that I’m their one-stop production experience.  They want help and another ear conceptualizing what the song is and could be, and they want a fully produced, mixed, ready to go anywhere track.  And of course they want it quickly.

That’s where iZotope RX5 will come in.  Squeaking acoustic guitar strings, maybe a few too many chirping birds and shuffled chairs on the track (oh no, not on MY tracks), rescuing audio where it needs a little help. I’m looking forward to having iZotope RX5 in my workflow.  Thank you iZotope and Pro Tools Expert!

Stefano Bonzi - Winner Of iZotope RX5 Editor

I have been using iZotope plugins for years now, they are incredibly reliable and most of the times they get where no other audio processors can. I already own iZotope RX5 Audio Editor (along with Alloy 2, Break Tweaker, Nectar 2 Production Suite, Ozone Advanced 7 and Trash 2).

I was born close to Milano, Italy, and after a few years career in a local rock band I got the opportunity to get a degree in Music Production and Technology at the Hartt School of Music, at the University of Hartford in Connecticut. I moved to Los Angeles, CA a few years ago, and after an initial struggle I was able to realise my dream to build my own studio in the West LA area. I have a pretty successful Vocal Tuning service that has led me to amazing collaborations and mixing projects.

I produce local bands and international musicians, working with talented people from Australia, Europe and Asia. I'm a ProTools fanboy (yes I'll admit it) and ProTools Expert has been helping me for years to expand my knowledge and skills.

Because I already own iZotope RX5 iZotope very kindly gave me an upgrade to RX5 Advanced and I'm so happy with the prize, I couldn't ask for better! Thank you so much!! This prize will help me getting the job done faster and better, allowing me to expand my work to post-production. In a city like LA it's almost a must.

Murray Webster - Winner Of iZotope RX5 Editor

As well as Studio recording I also do many live shows that I also record, both multitrack and Stereo "desk mixes", therefore RX5 would be an ideal tool for post production work on these recordings which nearly always need to be "cleaned up". I am very pleased to have won this, l've never won anything before!

Espen Hollund - Winner of iZotope RX5 Editor

I live on the west coast of Norway and in my spare time I do both live sound mixing and some mixing in my project studio at my home. My setup consists of a Pro Tools 12.4 Native system, a good old DIGI 003r, and a MOTU 8pre. I have been a Pro Tools user since 2008 and with the latest updates I see no reason to change that. I’ll stick to what I know best.

I mainly work on my own projects, but occasionally I have customers wanting me to mix recorded live shows or they come to my studio to record vocals, guitars or e-drums. I also mix the speeches from a local church. I’m sure iZotope RX5 will be the perfect companion in working on the sound on these projects, as there sometimes are a lot of noise on the recordings.

I would like to thank Pro Tools Expert for giving me the chance to win the iZotope RX5 Package. What a pleasant surprise on a Monday. The team at Pro Tools Expert are doing such a fantastic job in bringing the community together and I look forward to many more articles and tutorials. I have learned so much from you guys, and I am sure there is more to come.

Robert Shiloni - Winner Of iZotope RX Final Mix

I’m 42 years old and I live in Israel and I’m a happy father of my two glorious 4-ys-old twin daughters. I was lawyer for a few years and about 10 years ago I decided to stop it, because I felt that it is not for me. Since I was 15 I was a singer in several rock bands, and this led me right into the world of sound. I finished a sound school and started to work in film productions, first as a boom operator and then as a recording mixer and this is my main job right now, and on the way I’m getting closer to audio post production. 

I'm running a little home studio, I’m working on Pro Tools 12.4 with pleasure and freeze:) boosted with a good old Command 8 (working fluently). I have an RME Fireface UCX interface and a pair of Dynaudio monitors.

As a sound editor I’m using the iZotope RX4 on each every project, they have the won the Brand of the Year with reason. I was looking for a good true peak limiter for a few months, and I received these marvellous news from Pro Tools Expert! 

A high quality bundle from one of my favourite developers! I will use the RX Final Mix bundle in every project, I have won not just a great true peak limiter, but a flexible dynamic eq as well, which will help me in dialogue mixing for sure! 

Raoul Brand - Winner Of iZotope Ozone 7 Advanced

Wow, thank you! This is pretty special and will definitely add more power to my plug-in folder.
I am a freelance sound editor & designer and already use Izoptope's RX4 Advanced pretty much on every project that involves dialogue. (Actually I picked up a lot of brilliant tips from Mike's RX tutorials when I started out using these great plug-ins!)

In my current work I don't get to master music very often but I think that I can employ the Ozone suite for mastering my designed sound FX. Also I can see how I could create a very useful setup for mastering voiceover tracks. I will keep you posted how I get on with it. Best wishes to the whole Pro-Tools-Expert team and thank you for the fab work you are doing for the community."

Vincente Finamor - Winner Of iZotope Ozone 7

I have worked for more than 25 years in audio and voice over, sound effects, producing as well as sound imaging for radio and television. Currently I work with productions for various medias, finishing audio, creating sounds or even mixing for my clients. 

Now with this new tool pack from iZotope certainly help me get even better results that will be powerful and pro. This update of Izotope comes will be a big help to me. 

Many thanks to the whole Expert team, Russ, you, and keep up the wonderful work.

Max Sladek - Winner Of iZotope Iris 2

I am a German DJ and Junior Audio/Mastering Engineer from Nueremberg. Already as a child I had a passion for music. I was playing trumpet for many years. Then I started to DJing and learned some skills in working with turntables, mixer and effect boards. I had a lot of projects with bands from Hip Hop, Funk over Rock to Drum and Bass. At the same time I got my radio experience working by the oldest Hip Hop/Funk/Soul radio-show in Germany, called Ghettoblaster.
 
5 years ago I was working with a band in a recording studio doing some samples and got much interested in audio engineering. That inspired me to enter a private academy and to learn more about recording, mixing and mastering techniques. I was working further with projects for different bands.
 
Since 2012 I have been working with Pro Tools 10/11 and using it for almost all my projects. That helped me to start working as freelancer. I really like to keep me up to date, with new equipment and gear on the audio market, but I also want to stay focused on my workflow especially with plug-ins.
 
I am looking really much forward to working with the IZotope Iris 2, which I am going to use in my post production project. And I would like to use it for sound-design and remix. I had tested the Ozone plug-ins from IZotope for a mastering project and was positively impressed. My opinion is this company a deserved award winner.

Exponential Audio

Christopher Bourque - Winner Of Exponential Audio Stereo Bundle

My recording history has revolved around audio post and music recording (mostly classical). I've been working as a freelance engineer in Houston, TX for the last 18 months focusing on audio for film and video but I spent the previous 15 years as the senior audio engineer at a post specializing in localization of Japanese animation. Since my departure I'm focusing on audio post for independent films, score mixing, sound design or final mix in 5.1. When I'm not mixing in studio I record for the local classical/NPR station tracking chamber ensembles as well as the Houston Ballet Orchestra and Houston Symphony Orchestra.

My studio consists of a three workstation dual-operator room running a mix of TDM & Native HD with my main rig running PT|HD 11 Native. On that rig I have been using Exponential Audio's PhoenixVerb Surround as my go to reverb for surround and stereo mixes. It's extremely DSP friendly as I have many surround instantiations built into my templates and seldom hit my CPU threshold. Sonically, I find it very useful for sounds that I'm trying to keep in natural environments; which happens a lot with ADR and foley mixing. It's very quick to give me what I need when I need it. I've used it on everything from sound design elements, score mixes and principal ADR for room matching. It does it all and does it well!

I was so pleased to discover that I was the winner Exponential Audio's prize in the Brand of the Year drawing. In addition to that, I received an email from Michael Carnes stating that he was going to award R2Surround and the stereo reverb bundle to compliment my PhoenixVerb Surround and Excalibur bundle. I'm certain that they will all find places in my templates as they vary depending on the project. They just sound to good not to.

Nugen Audio

Tamas Dragon - Winner of Nugen Audio Halo Upmix Plug-in

I’m a scoring engineer, re-recording mixer at the Palace of Arts (MUPA) Budapest, recording, editing and mixing all sorts of stuff from live broadcast events through concert recordings to feature film scores. As I wear many hats from dialogue editing, music record-edit-mix to full re-recording I can honestly say that I’m never bored. I admit that I’m a workaholic, obsessed with this vocation. I’m so mad that I really love all sorts of things from miking up an orchestra to edit tiny bits together into some evocative sound effect.

Many times we have archive material or simple stereo mixes from different sources that needs to be properly up-mixed into 5.1, but this is not that easy as it may sound. I even made a test awhile ago where I tried different up-mix plugins (Nugen’s Halo wasn’t available at that time) and at that time I came to realise that it’s even harder than I thought. You must need tools which can keep the Centre almost untouched while creating a believable immersive surround sound from the source, yet it must maintain the integrity of the source. Very, very few tools can do this properly.

Nugen Audio Halo is honestly a lifesaver for me, because I know the company, use their products daily so I’m sure I this up-mix plugin won’t disappoint me.

Frankly when I’ve received the email, I thought it’s some joke for the new year, now I feel like a child who get another huge Christmas present. What a great start of 2016! Thank you!

Jørn-Arild Grefsrud - Winner of Nugen Audio ISL 2 Limiter

I am a music producer/engineer with my own Pro Tools-studio in Norway. I've been doing this for 20 years, professionally for the last 8. I work across many genres, but prefer music that has at least some element of a human playing something. My favourite gear is -  UA Apollo, Neve 1073, Focal SM9, & Arturia Minibrute.

Although the loudness war has passed its peak, I think that the people saying it's over are wrong. As long as there are clients mentioning "louder", loudness is a part of what we do in the studio. But I love dynamics and air in music, so the quality of your limiter is extremely important. If this limiter is as good as people are saying, I'll see if it's possible to wear out a plugin!

Mike Vicek - Winner of Nugen Audio Visualizer 2

I am a Brazilian music producer and songwriter, currently working mainly in the advertising industry. I am part of a team at Satelite Audio, the most awarded music production facility in Brazil. In 2015, we have won three Gold and one Silver Lion at Cannes - including one Gold in Best Song Adaptation, which was produced by me for the film “Everyone Is Gay” The Silver Lion was for Best Soundtrack of the Year for the film “Leica 100”  we just lost out to John Lewis’ “Monty the Penguin”! Satelite Audio has also won in 2015 the first Grand Prix of Brazil’s history with “Leica 100” and also the first Grand Clio.

Prior to my current position, I used to live and work in the UK, where I had my own music production company. This shot was taken at Satelite Audio’s main control room. This is where I work everyday and I believe it is only fair to show this place instead of my currently chaotic home studio! I don’t have much spare time to play with it - let alone tidy it up!

It is fantastic to win such a nice and useful plugin such as Visualizer 2. It will certainly help a lot making decisions at the final stages of mixing and mastering.

David Mason-Cox - Winner Of Nugen Audio MasterCheck

I am a musician, songwriter and sound engineer based in Sydney, Australia. I set up a project studio ten years ago while recording my fourth album, the first of mine to be fully recorded in the digital domain.

While working on my own music I somehow found the time to record and produce other artists. This has kept me busy ever since; recording CDs in genres ranging from contemporary pop through jazz and Latin, to classical guitar and violin to traditional Australiana and Irish folk music. Pro Tools and other DAWs have given me the freedom to record, edit and mix in ways I could only dream of in the good old days of tape.

These days some clients are asking for their preliminary mixes to be delivered as mp3 files and I sometimes struggle with the dynamic compromises involved. Nugen Audio’s MasterCheck plug-in will be a valuable addition to my toolbox because it will help eliminate some of the guesswork involved in the process. I look forward to using MasterCheck and thank Nugen Audio and Pro tools Expert for the opportunity to do so.

There we go the first 15 winners of nearly 40 prizes in our Brand Of The Year Award prize draw. Watch out for more posts with the rest of the winners.