There are prize packages for the top three entries based on votes by the judges as well as two random draw prizes:

FIRST PLACE Package

PreSonus AudioBox 1818VSL ($499)

The flagship in PreSonus’ new generation of USB 2.0 audio/MIDI interfaces, the AudioBox 1818VSL takes hardware/software integration to the next level and delivers a combination of features, audio quality, and value that is unprecedented in this product category. Using your computer CPU and PreSonus Virtual StudioLive™ (VSL) software, AudioBox VSL-series interfaces provide reverb and delay effects and the same Fat Channel compression, limiting, semi-parametric EQ, and high-pass filter, as the PreSonus StudioLive™ 16.0.2 digital mixer— all with inaudible latency. It’s a great choice for project studios, performing bands, school music labs, and a wide variety of corporate installations and other contractor applications.

This is a pro product all the way, with high-end 24-bit, 96 kHz converters; Class A XMAX™ preamps; ADAT optical I/O; S/PDIF coaxial I/O; word-clock output; and MIDI I/O, housed in a heavy-duty, rack-mount metal chassis.

Furthermore, thanks to the power of VSL, the AudioBox 1818VSL includes a 26×8 software mixer. As a result, with just an AudioBox 1818VSL and your laptop or other computer, you can mix a studio session or live show featuring a full band—all while monitoring and recording with or without real-time processing! And you can do it simply and easily, with no hardware mixer, no outboard effects rack, and minimal wiring, thanks to the tight integration between PreSonus hardware and software.

AT4050/LE LIMITED EDITION Multi-pattern Condenser Microphone ($995)

To celebrate Audio-Technica’s 50th Anniversary, A-T has introduced a special limited edition AT4050/LE Anniversary Microphone in a silver-colored metallic finish with blue accents. A unique serial number is etched on the surface of each AT4050/LE. The limited edition offering comes with a beautifully crafted wooden carrying case.

With three switchable polar patterns, the large-diaphragm Audio-Technica AT4050/LE exhibits a remarkable combination of qualities: high-SPL capability with transparent and airy uppers/mids complemented by rich low-end qualities. Its dual large diaphragms are gold-vaporized and aged for consistent, outstanding performance. A precision-machined, nickel-plated brass acoustic element baffle provides rock-solid element stability and exceptional sensitivity.

Ideal for studio use and live sound productions with vocals, piano, strings, drum overheads, guitar amps, and more.

PreSonus Studio One 2 Professional ($399)

For those who want it all, we offer Studio One Professional, which has everything in Studio One Artist and Producer and adds the Project page, an integrated mastering solution; fully licensed Melodyne Essential pitch correction; SoundCloud™ support; Red Book CD burning; video playback and sync; and five more Native Effects plug-ins: Groove Delay, Multiband Dynamics, OpenAIR, Pipeline, and IR Maker.

Studio One is a new, integrated approach to recording music, from tracking to mixing to mastering and distribution. It’s a creative environment built for intuitive use, speed, and efficiency–and yet it’s robust enough for the most complex productions.

Two years ago, we launched Studio One with the promise that artists of all levels, from beginner to seasoned professional, would find Studio One a serious alternative to the intimidating, bloated offerings currently considered the standards. Since then, Studio One has won multiple prestigious awards, reviewers have praised it to the skies, our Studio One forum has been buzzing with ideas, and musicians, producers, and engineers have flocked to our amazing new DAW in large numbers.

The reasons are simple: Studio One lets them work quickly and efficiently and delivers the features they need and the impeccable audio quality they demand. When you can work faster, more creatively, and more effortlessly, making music is even more fun.

Home Studio Corner’s Production Club ($497)

The Production Club is Joe Gilder’s flagship training course. It’s a 12-week course, where he walks you step-by-step through the recording process. You’re basically looking “over Joe’s shoulder” as he records one of his songs from start to finish, everything from pre-production to recording to mixing and mastering.

KRK KNS-8400 headphones ($199)

KRK Headphones provide a precise listening experience that takes you from personal studio to commercial studio to on-the-go track evaluations — and they allow you to accurately enjoy your music with the consistent voicing philosophy and honest reproduction top producers, studio musicians, performers and engineers have come to trust. KRK headphones provide incredibly natural frequency response that gives you a reference standard unaffected by your location. Day or night. Studio or home. Without disturbing others. Without compromising your tracks. Passionate about music and interested in experiencing the artist’s vision as it was intended to be heard? Then experience KRK.

The KNS 8400 — with their ability to reveal exactly what you have on the tracks is an ideal choice for critical listening. Being able to discern the most subtle differences in pitch, timbre and tone helps you to get it right every mix, every take, every performance. Isolating memory foam in the ear cushions delivers improved low end response and because they gently conform to your unique head shape you’ll be comfortable wearing them all day.

Production Advice’s “How to Master with Multiband Compression” ($67.00)

• What is multiband compression ? How it works – and why you would want to use it
• Ian’s “default settings” – a great starting-point preset for beginning to work on almost any genre of music
• Simple “rules of thumb” – straightforward methods to avoid common mistakes and get great results
• Detailed, in-depth discussion of all the parameters – find out how many frequency bands to use, how to choose crossover frequencies and what ratio, attack and release times to use, plus much much more.

Audiofile Engineering’s Quiztones app for Mac ($19.99) or for iOS ($4.99)

Quiztones is a frequency ear trainer for amateur and professional audio engineers and musicians. It uses frequency-altered tones, noise, and musical loops to train your ears and help develop more acute listening and frequency recognition skills.

Quiztones will sharpen your ears & frequency recognition skills, improve your mixing & EQ’ing chops, prevent noise buildup in your mixes & recordings, eliminate the need to sweep for frequencies

Intro & Outro Credit (priceless)

Your song as the new intro and outro theme on Inside Home Recording.

SECOND PLACE Package:

PreSonus AudioBox 44VSL ($299)

The AudioBox 44VSL is the second model in a new generation of PreSonus USB 2.0 audio/MIDI interfaces that take hardware/software integration to the logical next step. Using your computer CPU and PreSonus Virtual StudioLive™ (VSL) software, AudioBox VSL-series interfaces provide reverb and and delay effects and the same Fat Channel compression, limiting, semi-parametric EQ, and high-pass filter, as the PreSonus StudioLive™ 16.0.2 digital mixer— all with inaudible latency.

Furthermore, thanks to the power of VSL, the AudioBox 44VSL includes an 8×4 software mixer. As a result, with just an AudioBox 44VSL and your laptop or other computer running VSL, you can mix a studio session or a live show featuring, say, a guitar duo with vocals, a small band, a DJ rig with mixer and stereo synthesizer, or a panel discussion—all while monitoring and recording with or without real-time processing! And you can do it simply and easily, with no hardware mixer, no outboard effects rack, and minimal wiring, thanks to the tight integration between PreSonus hardware and software.

To top it off, while the classic PreSonus AudioBox USB is a fine-sounding unit, the new AudioBox VSL series sounds even better, with 24-bit, 96 kHz recording and top-of-the-line PreSonus XMAX™ preamps.

PreSonus Studio One 2 Producer ($249)

Studio One Producer includes everything in Studio One Artist and adds support for ReWire and AU/VST plug-ins, MP3 import and export, and additional third-party content.

Studio One is a new, integrated approach to recording music, from tracking to mixing to mastering and distribution. It’s a creative environment built for intuitive use, speed, and efficiency–and yet it’s robust enough for the most complex productions.

Two years ago, we launched Studio One with the promise that artists of all levels, from beginner to seasoned professional, would find Studio One a serious alternative to the intimidating, bloated offerings currently considered the standards. Since then, Studio One has won multiple prestigious awards, reviewers have praised it to the skies, our Studio One forum has been buzzing with ideas, and musicians, producers, and engineers have flocked to our amazing new DAW in large numbers.

The reasons are simple: Studio One lets them work quickly and efficiently and delivers the features they need and the impeccable audio quality they demand. When you can work faster, more creatively, and more effortlessly, making music is even more fun.

REthink Mixing Series from The Recording Revolution ($165)

REthink Mixing is the ultimate mixing tutorial for real home and project studio owners like you. Why? Because you get to watch me mix tracks that were recorded with home studio equipment in some guy’s basement. Not a slick basement studio, just your regular old basement!

Over the course of 8 in-depth videos, you’ll watch as we transform these raw (and in some cases rough) tracks into a punchy, clear, and professional sounding mix that you can be proud of. I literally mix the entire song in front of your eyes, with no further tweaking happening in between videos or behind the scenes. Nothing is held back as I invite you into my personal mixing workflow!

Production Advice’s “How to Master with Multiband Compression” ($67.00)

Audiofile Engineering’s Quiztones app for Mac ($19.99) or for iOS ($4.99)

Quiztones is a frequency ear trainer for amateur and professional audio engineers and musicians. It uses frequency-altered tones, noise, and musical loops to train your ears and help develop more acute listening and frequency recognition skills.

Quiztones will sharpen your ears & frequency recognition skills, improve your mixing & EQ’ing chops, prevent noise buildup in your mixes & recordings, eliminate the need to sweep for frequencies

Bragging rights (again, priceless)

Your song used as bumper / feature theme music on Inside Home Recording

THIRD PLACE Package:

Presonus AudioBox 22VSL with bundled Studio One 2 Artist ($179)

The AudioBox 22VSL introduces a new generation of PreSonus USB 2.0 audio/MIDI interfaces that take hardware/software integration to the logical next step. Using your computer CPU and PreSonus Virtual StudioLive™ (VSL) software, AudioBox VSL-series interfaces provide reverb and and delay effects and the same Fat Channel compression, limiting, semi-parametric EQ, and high-pass filter, as the PreSonus StudioLive™ 16.0.2 digital mixer— all with inaudible latency. Now you can monitor and record with or without real-time dynamics processing and EQ!

Studio One Artist delivers all of the core audio and MIDI recording and editing features, plus a wealth of 32-bit effects plug-ins and virtual instruments. Unlike other “entry-level” DAWs, it imposes no limits on track count and plug-in instantiations, or editing features.

Studio One is a new, integrated approach to recording music, from tracking to mixing to mastering and distribution. It’s a creative environment built for intuitive use, speed, and efficiency–and yet it’s robust enough for the most complex productions.

Two years ago, we launched Studio One with the promise that artists of all levels, from beginner to seasoned professional, would find Studio One a serious alternative to the intimidating, bloated offerings currently considered the standards. Since then, Studio One has won multiple prestigious awards, reviewers have praised it to the skies, our Studio One forum has been buzzing with ideas, and musicians, producers, and engineers have flocked to our amazing new DAW in large numbers.

The reasons are simple: Studio One lets them work quickly and efficiently and delivers the features they need and the impeccable audio quality they demand. When you can work faster, more creatively, and more effortlessly, making music is even more fun.

JumpStart” Complete Bundle from The Recording Revolution ($125)

Whether you’ve been to a prestigious audio engineering school or you started mixing music as a hobby, one thing is for sure: we all need to know some foundational basics to the art of mixing if we ever expect to make killer pro mixes. The JumpStart series of videos provide that foundation and are your roadmap to better mixes!

Without wasting any time, each JumpStart video tells you exactly what you need to know to start seeing the mixing results you want.

Production Advice’s “How to Master with Multiband Compression” ($67.00)

 Audiofile Engineering’s Quiztones app for Mac ($19.99) or for iOS ($4.99)

Quiztones is a frequency ear trainer for amateur and professional audio engineers and musicians. It uses frequency-altered tones, noise, and musical loops to train your ears and help develop more acute listening and frequency recognition skills.

Quiztones will sharpen your ears & frequency recognition skills, improve your mixing & EQ’ing chops, prevent noise buildup in your mixes & recordings, eliminate the need to sweep for frequencies

Bragging Rights (again, priceless)

Your song used as bumper / feature theme music on Inside Home Recording.

RANDOM DRAW PRIZES:

Production Advice’s “How to Master with Multiband Compression” ($67.00)

 Audiofile Engineering’s FiRe 2 – for iOS ($5.99)

Our industry leading professional field recorder for iOS just got completely redesigned and rebuilt from the ground up. Although widely recognized by audio professionals as “best in class” we decided to skip the tweaks and create a next generation product incorporating many of the features our users have requested since FiRe’s initial release.

FiRe 2 will again revolutionize what you expect from a portable recording application. FiRe was the first iPhone recorder to display an accurate audio waveform in real time, the first to support markers, Broadcast WAVE metadata, and the instant downloading of files in multiple file formats. FiRe was the first application on any platform to offer native SoundCloud integration.

Audiofile Engineering’s Fidelia – for Mac ($19.99)

Fidelia is a high-definition audio player for sophisticated music lovers. With support for all contemporary audio file formats and an elegant interface that focuses exclusively on music, it gives users the power and the freedom to organize, customize and savor their digital music collection at the highest possible fidelity in any circumstance. If you’ve invested in premium audio hardware, you should have the best audio software.

Just as an HD television enables viewers to enjoy high-definition video, Fidelia provides a gateway to high-definition audio by supporting a wide range of high-quality formats – including FLAC, which iTunes does not support. As artists in every genre increasingly turn to high-quality formats, Fidelia gives discerning listeners a way to hear their music as it was meant to be heard.