KVR Audio Readers' Choice Awards 2013 - The Results (Better Late Than Never!)

The plug-in voted Best Overall Instrument Plug-in is, drum-roll please - u-he's comprehensive and versatile Zebra (or as my British colleagues like to call it, "Zebra").

There were no real surprises when it came to the Honorable Mentions in this category, with the big hitters Alchemy from Camel Audio, Kontakt and Reaktor by Native Instruments and Omnisphere by Spectrasonics all up there with loads of votes.

If one votes for Zebra as the best overall instrument then it sure follows that Zebra would be the Best Synth Plug-in as well. Nuff said...

The Honorable Mentions in this category go to Massive from Native Instruments and u-he's other synth powerhouse, Diva, with SynthMaster by KV331 Audio and, again, Alchemy from Camel Audio doing well too.

In the most lopsided vote, Kontakt won Best Sampler plug-in. Taking more than 10 times the votes than the next most popular sampler plug-in, Kontakt is clearly the Sampler of choice for an ever expanding group of content developers and the platform is well-maintained by Native Instruments.

The Honorable Mentions in this category go to MOTU's Mach V and a surprise appearance by FXpansion's Geist, which is kind of in a category by itself. TX16Wx Software Sampler by CWITEC and HALion by Steinberg also did well in the fight for best-of-the-rest.

Toontrack's Superior Drummer was the winner in the Best Drum Instrument category. They continue to support this platform with new libraries every few months that keep the same superior level of quality.

Honorable Mentions go to Battery and Maschine from Native Instruments, Addictive Drums by XLN Audio and the MicroTonic drum synth by Sonic Charge.

In the Best Analog-Modeled Instrument the winner is... um... Er... Diva, from u-he, again.

Honorable Mention goes to Z3TA+ from Cakewalk, proving that if you make a great product you don't have to change anything (other than porting it to the Mac) or add new features to keep it relevant.

Reaktor, the graphical modular software music studio by Native Instruments, was the winner in the category. This is a testament to its longevity (it was first hatched in 1996 as "Generator") as well as its quality.

Voting in the Best Overall Effect Plug-in category was so close that three products should be called out: ValhallaVintageVerb (Valhalla DSP), Reaktor (NI) and Guitar Rig (NI) were all within a couple of votes of each other.

Honorable Mentions go to Saturn by FabFilter and Alloy by iZotope.

In a bizarre twist of voting, although ValhallaVintageVerb (jointly) won the Best Effect Plug-in category it only came second in the best reverb category (WTF !?!?!). It was a very close second to its ValhallaDSP stable-mate ValhallaRoom though! Congratulations to ValhallaDSP.

Honorable Mentions to the excellent Aether by 2CAudio, the Lexicon 224 Digital Reverb by Universal Audio and the venerable free Ambience by Magnus @ Smart Electronix.

The Best Dynamics Effect Plug-in category winner is The Glue by Cytomic. It probably doesn't hurt that they are blessed as the compressor of choice by the developers of Ableton Live.

Honorable Mention goes to Pro-C by FabFilter, with DC8C by Klanghelm doing well too.

The runaway winner in the Best Mastering Effects Plug-in category is Ozone by iZotope. A comprehensive program from a company that is doing cool things.

The Honorable Mention goes to T-RackS CS by IK Multimedia.

Native Instruments Reaktor makes it a komplete sweep in the "Creative" categories, taking the Most Creative Effect Plug-in title too. There is plenty of community respect for this powerful tool and a lot of people developing Reaktor Instruments.

Honorable Mentions go to CamelSpace by Camel Audio and Glitch by Illformed.

IK Multimedia's guitar modeling plug-in Amplitube was the big winner in this category. Amplitube was one of the first products in the modeling category and their Custom Shop is a creative way to keep the plug-in current and relevant.

Honorable Mentions go to PSP's Vintage Warmer and Virtual Buss Compressors by Slate Digital.

Sort of newcomer (in the last 10 years anyway) REAPER from Cockos was a surprise winner over the more established sequencers. Justin Frankel has shown us that it's never too late to bring a DAW to the marketplace...

Honorable Mention goes to Cubase from Steinberg. Yamaha continues to develop the DAW, and pairs it with a growing number of hardware products. It was a pretty tight category with Live by Ableton, Logic Pro by Apple and Studio One by PreSonus making good showings too.

Ableton Live was the runaway winner in the Performance DAW category. Its elegant design lends itself especially well to DJs and rehearsing bands. To Ableton's credit the design has remained consistent in its presentation of the program's primary elements, a very important feature for people performing music and don't want to have to think about anything else.

The Honorable Mention goes to FL Studio by Image Line.

The winner in the Best Mobile App for Recording should not be a surprise for anyone that does music on an iPad. GarageBand is an amazingly comprehensive program for $5 bucks.

The Honorable Mention goes to Auria by WaveMachine for both getting the votes and for hanging in there with the Empire.

There are two winners in a virtual tie: FL Studio Mobile by Image Line and the free Alchemy Mobile by Camel Audio. Both apps have built in step sequencers as well and sound generators. In the case of FL Studio a user can import their files created on the mobile version to the desktop version. In the case of Alchemy, many of the desktop version sound libraries can be imported and a user can control the desktop version from their mobile device.

An important Honorable Mention goes to Audiobus by Audiobus Pty Ltd. It received a bunch of votes from people who know how important IAC is on any new platform.

ValhallaVintageVerb by Valhalla DSP wins this after also taking Best Effect and narrowly missing out on winning Best Reverb.

The Honorable Mentions go to Permut8 by Sonic Charge, EQuilibrium by DMG Audio and Kirnu by Cream.

The winner in the all-important Most Customer Focused Developer (AKA Best Support) category is, not surprisingly, u-he. This proves that if you provide great customer experience (support, communication, listening, etc.) you're going to get great customer feedback.

The top 5:

1. u-he
2. Camel Audio
3. Valhalla DSP
4. Native Instruments
5. FabFilter

Again, it's appropriate to mention the top 5 in the category because it means they are all doing a great job.

Three from the previous category are here again. In order of their finish they are:

1. u-he
2. Native Instruments
3. FabFilter
4. Audio Damage
5. Sonic Charge

This was another extremely close vote that requires mention of two products, unsurprisingly the Best Sampler and Best Synth and Instrument winners: Kontakt and Zebra.

The Honorable Mentions go to three other hugely successful plug-ins: Reaktor by Native Instruments, Diva by u-he and of course Omnisphere from Spectrasonics. This is a solid showing for Omnisphere, without any major updates (see Z3TA+ above) in several years. It's a huge program with a huge library of sounds, and there's an iPad controller to boot.