Results for Christmas

The Unfinished has introduced its Advent Calendar, offering free patches every day until Christmas.

I shall be creating free patches for Absynth, FM8, Massive, Omnisphere, Synthmaster and Zebra.

As well as giving away free synth presets, I shall be releasing new commercial soundsets, creating discounts on existing ones and also running competitions to win all my soundsets – not just the ones I’ve made, but every soundset I will ever make!

There will also be new music as talented composers and producers create new demo tracks for my existing synth collections. Plus there will be one or two bonus free soundsets for some of the best free vst synths out there.

There’s going to be lots going on (except perhaps sleep!) so bookmark this page to keep up to date with all the Yuletide news.

More information: The Unfinished

Audio-Technica has announced the final six shortlist of its alternative Christmas track competition.

It launched the competition in October and has received a huge wave of diverse entries from all across the UK and some from further afield.

The aim of the new music competition was to seek out fun and vibrant alternatives to the age-old tradition of Christmas carols and songs. The nationwide competition was launched through the company’s Facebook and Twitter channels, with entrants required to submit video entries via YouTube.

The online competition was not restricted to any particular type of music so bands, DJs or music producers from any genre had the opportunity to show off their skills.

The competition’s judge, Steve Levine, acclaimed producer and chairman of the Music Producers Guild, joined the team to carefully sift through the entries and create a shortlist of six finalists. The judging panel want the public to make the final decision on the best entry by voting for the track they believe should win the top prize of £500 worth of Audio-Technica equipment.

You can vote for your favourite video by visiting this online poll. The winning entry will be announced on Thursday 23rd December.

More information: Audio-Technica / Alternative Christmas Tune Competition

Tonehammer has kicked off this year’s Gnomehammer season, offering various free virtual instruments until Christmas.

We have all received poor xmas gifts in life … whether it was handmade insults like socks or sweaters, a low-carb cooking book or a set of meditation tapes.

Gnomehammer is proud to follow this lackluster tradition by regifting last years entire Gnomehammer fruitcake collection for free until December 25th 2010.

This strange collection of quasi-musical oddities was mostly captured in one epic recording session somewhere around Thanksgiving im 2009 at the Tonehammer studio, involving lots of Belgian beer, balloons, helium, oxygen deprivation, us and a few of our closest friends. While there is a bit of a winter or even some sort of pseudo-Christmas theme running through this library, it’s definitely intended to fitin well with content from Tonehammer’s Antidrum and Mini series of libraries. The library includes a wide range of comedic sounds from authentic helium choir (yeah – we sucked down a whole tank of 2He) to drum kits from snow- and ice sounds – from human beat box through PVC ensembles to manipulation of childrens balloons – from glockenspiel to sleighbells etc.

Microhammer “Gnomehammer”

• Free downloable until December 25th 2010 (normal price $19 on www.microhammer.com)
• Articulations include: Snow Drums (drums made from snow sounds), Wintery Pod (drums made from throwing stones on ice), Toy Glockenspiel, Holy Ambiencs, Gnomish Choir (aka Helium Choir), PVC Beatbox Ensemble, Luftballon.
• Intelligent editing and programming.
• Read me (.pdf) install, patch and hint documentation.
• 47 instrument patches, 1405 samples, 531MB installed, 313MB .rar download.
• Sample resolution and source format: 44.1Khz/16/24Bit mono- and stereo .wav format.
• Format(s): Kontakt, SFZ and .wav.
• Note: Native Instruments Kontakt 3.5 and later. Full retail versions required for Kontakt instruments.
• Note: Free Kontakt Player does not support this product. Full version required.
• Note: This product is derived from previous, Tonehammer “Gnomehammer” collection.

Tonehammer will be posting something new every day until December 25th, 2010.

More information: Tonehammer

Ohm Force has announced a limited time Christmas promotion for its products.

Well, Christmas will arrive soon, and the end of this year is also getting closer. Our hearts become more tender and our thoughts more reflexive. We all would want to be able to spend more time with our friends, and with our passions, and… talking about that, our loyal studios – temples of our inspiration and expression – surely deserve an upgrade to start 2011 with the right foot, don’t they?

For only two or three coins from your holed pocket, you’ll be able to grab some new – and competent! – swords and splinters for your ever evolving skills on sound sculpting and sonic battleship. How would you be able to fight for love, otherwise?

We’re talking about this year’s Christmas promo, that will offer a pair of -40% discounted plug-ins each December’s friday! This Friday 3rd December we’ll start with the Mobilohm and the Hematohm. Next week there’ll be another discounted pair, and so on, until the Friday 24th December, when we’ll celebrate the holiday with a discounted ALL-ALL Bundle!

The discounted plug-in pairs will be announced at least two days before each Friday.

This Friday (December 3, 2010) there is a 40% discount on Hematohm and Mobilohm, available by using the promo codes below at checkout.

• 40% off Mobilohm: PHASING-MOBILOHM
• 40% off Hematohm: HEMATOHM-IN-OUR-SOULS
• 40% off both plug-ins: MOBILOHM-HEMATOHM-NEED

Ohm Force has also announced a new Cohmpetition:

this time, and for the first time, a poetry one! Yes, musicians are artists first of all, and we know that you can touch your audience’s emotions either with notes or words! Get inspired by the poems we’ll post starting from tomorrow and write your own ohm-inspired poetry. The best 3 poems will grab Ohm Force bundles.

More information: Ohm Force

Time+Space has announced a number of deals and bundles for the Christmas season.

The season of goodwill has arrived at Time+Space with almighty gusto as the UK’s largest soundware distributor announce a collection of special deals, exclusive bundles and gifts ideas that offer unbelievable savings and value for money.

Available deals & bundles include:

• Complete Ableton Live Tutorial Bundle which includes Focal Press’ Ableton Live 8 book, ASK Video tutorial DVD bundle and a selection of Ableton samples  – all for just £79.
• Garritan Christmas Bundle featuring Personal Orchestra 4 and Jazz & Big Band 3 for just £159!
• Spectrasonics Stylus RMX comes bundled with Zero-G’s ‘Total Rex’ (which contains over 15,000 samples and is worth £99.95) at no extra cost!
• Rock Guitar Bundle includes Vir2′s award winning Electri6ity and BASiS for just £299!
• The Complete Reason Tuition Bundle delivers Reason 5 and Record 1.5 tutorial DVDs from ASK Video plus Zero-G’s The Big Reason (includes 6500+ samples!) for the special price of £59 instead of £151.93!
• Dance/Urban Music Production Bundle combines Toontrack’s award winning Beatstation software, plus ESI’s U46XL audio interface, Cubase 5 LE, EZdrummer Lite and a 100MB pack of free samples for just £109 instead of £228!

More information: Time+Space

Audio-Technica, one of the world’s finest manufacturers of audio equipment, has launched an online search for the most entertaining alternative Christmas track.

The popular music manufacturer is looking for fun and vibrant YouTube video entries from the underground music scene that put a positive new spin on the age old tradition of Christmas carols.

The nationwide competition, which is being judged by Grammy & Brit award-winning record producer and chairman of the Music Producers Guild Steve Levine, is being formally launched via Audio-Technica’s social media channels of Facebook and Twitter.

The online competition is not restricted to any particular type of music so bands, DJs or music producers from any genre have the opportunity of scooping either the top prize of £500 or five runners-up prizes of £100 worth of Audio-Technica equipment. As an extra incentive the first 100 entries will all receive a free pair of Audio-Technica ATH-CK51 headphones worth £30 each.

Harvey Roberts, senior marketing manager at Audio-Technica commented: “We are really excited about this competition as we think it might help bring some added impetus to music during the Christmas period. Every year we hear the same few songs, so it would be nice to see something new and creative. The truth is we have an awful lot of musical talent in this country and we just felt that a competition like this would help give them some extra inspiration.”

Roberts continues: “The competition is an open book for musicians, they can do a quirky cover version of a Christmas carol or song or they can write a whole new piece of music themselves – we don’t mind it’s the creativity that matters. We want people to express themselves and have some fun making music. Who knows someone might even pen a brand new Christmas hit.”

The competition runs from 25th October 2010 until midnight, 12th December 2010. The winning entries will be announced on Thursday 23rd December 2010.

More information: Audio-Technica / Alternative Christmas Tune Competition