Crowning the Champion of the Beats: The GPU Audio Beat Battle Winners

After an intensive month of beat making madness, GPU Audio has crowned it's champion of the beats! The competition challenged producers to submit beats of 1 minute or more, using the GPU Audio plugin suite to process elements within their mix. Over $2,000 of software prizes were on offer, provided by Sonible, Audio Thing, MNTRA, Bedroom Producer Blog, TeamMBL, Ani Klang and more.

The competition took place on GPU Audio's Discord server, and was launched with an exclusive live event there. A free sample collection was offered to aid the creative process, which is still available now! This free drum pack features over 150 royalty free samples, including Kicks, Snares, Hats, Cymbals, Percussion, and more - available for download by logging into the GPU Audio download area (sign up for free here if you haven't already).

With the competition under way, GPU Audio ran a midpoint event with Dash Glitch to discuss beat making techniques and share the best free plugins which could be used in the competition. Soon after, the closing date came around and we moved onto the voting round. This consisted of a 'World Cup Style' format with 32 teams placed into 8 groups of 4, which would be voted on in the GPU Audio Discord Server. The top 2 from each group would then go into the round of 16, which would lead to quarter finals, semi finals, a 3rd placed playoff and a grand finale at the end of August.

With a host of entries to choose from the Discord community stepped up to vote on their favourites - and after a week of voting the final four were selected for the grand finale! This came in the form of a Live Discord Event, where the team were joined by renowned Techno producer Ani Klang for a listening and voting party! This event allowed Discord users to listen to the entries together, share their thoughts and feelings live, and then vote on the ultimate winner. Let's find out the results...

Listen to the winning entries on Soundcloud here.

In fourth place we had Kairos with Riot Nebula - an atmospheric, kick heavy track, loaded with mood and cinematic energy. In third was Exorcist, with his track Aerials - a lofi instrumental track with subtle melodic elements that had a refreshing air of space. And so we go to the final two, with the overall runner up being Thund3r with his track Nexrad. This expertly-produced ethnic track, features some excellent sound design elements and a warm, driving bassline. And so to the winner.

Huge congratulations to the winner COFFEE CAT with this incredible track 'Intention' which was by far the most popular entry - with an Amon Tobin on Speed Garage vibe, with some incredible warbling lead synths, incredible organic elements and untethered percussive happenings. Spectacular stuff and a perfect way to round off the competition.

Coffee Cat told us that the Beat Battle "Was great fun and I really enjoyed designing new sounds, harmonic distortion exploration and very much looking forward to what the future holds for everyone involved. Biggest thanks to the GPU Audio Team for holding the event and huge thanks to the sponsors, AudioThing, Ani Klang, Bedroom Producer Blog, MNTRA, Sonible and TeamMBL!"

Thanks to everyone who entered, and made the competition the success it was. Look out for more community events soon.

Download the Free Sample Pack here.

Join the GPU Audio Discord here.

Sign up to the GPU Audio Website to download our plugins here.