With plugins starting from just $24 the Universal Audio Rocktober deal is the best place to power up your productions ahead of Prime Day

A laptop with the Avalon channel strip plugin running on it

(Image credit: Universal Audio)

Universal Audio’s hardware recreations are amongst the highest-rated out there, delivering some incredibly accurate digital recreations of classic console and outboard gear to the comfort of your home studio. Ahead of the soon-to-arrive Prime Day music deals, there’s an amazing sale over at the official UA site with plugins starting from as low as $24.

The sale will last the whole of October, which gives you a good amount of time to decide what to purchase, but there are no guarantees that certain plugins won’t come off the sale price so I wouldn’t hang about too long. The sale means we’ll be well into the Black Friday plugin deals territory too, as I expect to start seeing those arrive early in November this year.

Save big in the Universal Audio Rocktober sale with plugins starting from just $24

I’ve been using UA plugins for many years now in my own productions, whether that’s in projects recorded purely at home in the box or full-on studio productions with 20-plus mics on a drum kit. They make up some of my most used plugins no matter what I’m working on, and five of my favourites have got a discount in the sale, making it a great way for you to level up your own productions.

Another bit of outboard gear I’m very familiar with, the Avalon BT-737 Tube Channel Strip can be characterised with a single word - clean. Seemingly no matter how hard you push it them the preamps still remain incredibly transparent, delivering a glossy sheen to whatever signals you feed it. With preamp, opto-compressor, and EQ I use it a lot for vocals, but it’s versatile enough to take a shine to pretty much any instrument.

The API 500 series is one of my favourite bits of outboard in the studio I work in, so when I’m at home the EQ plugin is one of my top choices. An engineer friend of mine described it as ‘revealing’ and I can’t put it any better than that. Even when you start getting into boosting frequencies in the realm of 12dB it still somehow manages to sound good, and despite being initially confusing, I find the two-tiered knobs really quick and easy to use once you get used to them.

Another plugin I use on pretty much everything, the Oxide Tape Recorder is a regular customer on my drum bus, adding punch and low end warmth to the overall kit sound. It’s super easy to use unlike an actual tape machine, meaning you can apply it effectively with a minimum of fuss. It’s great for getting that final bit of warmth onto any instrument, and is really effective used on buses to help glue everything together.

While I don’t have an actual one of these to use, it doesn’t stop me from putting the SSL 4000 G Bus Compressor on pretty much all of my productions. It works amazingly on a drum bus for adding punch, as well as on the master bus for helping add that final touch of cohesion in the mix-down phase. I love how it’s really easy to get a good sound out of it, and the built-in presets give you a strong starting point even if you’re not an expert in compression.

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Matt is a Junior Deals Writer here at MusicRadar. He regularly tests and reviews music gear with a focus on audio interfaces, studio headphones, studio monitors, and pretty much anything else recording-related. Matt worked in music retail for 5 years at Dawsons Music and Northwest Guitars and has written for various music sites including Guitar World, Guitar Player, Guitar.com, Ultimate Guitar, and Thomann’s t.blog. A regularly gigging guitarist with over 20 years of experience playing live and producing bands, he's also an alumnus of Spirit Studios, where he studied studio engineering and music production.

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