While the Amazon Big Spring Sale is currently in full swing, to be totally honest, it’s not really the place to be for music-makers. If you’re looking for cheap accessories to pick up or consumer tech for your home, then admittedly, there’s some good stuff there, but actual gear for music production? Fuhgeddaboudit.
Instead, I think you should go check out the Universal Audio Winter Mix Tape deal on their official site, which, rumour has it, will be ending very soon. You can bag 10 out of 51 UA plugins for just $99 all-in, which is an absolute steal considering what’s on offer. It’s doubly great because you can pick stuff that’s missing from your current collection, so you don’t have to inadvertently buy any plugins you don’t really need.
I frequently use UA plugins in my own productions, so I’ve picked out three of what I think are the best plugins available in the sale. The rest you’ll have to pick yourself! First up is one of my currently most used channel strips, the API Vision Channel Strip Collection. It consists of mic pre, low and high pass filters, a gate/expander, compressor/limiter, and an incredibly powerful EQ, essentially all the mixing tools you need in one screen. I’m a particularly big fan of the EQ section, and once you get around the slightly weird dual knobs, you will easily find yourself boosting frequencies by 9dB yet finding they sound absolutely amazing.
The Empirical Labs EL8 Distressor Compressor is another must-have in the sale. I use it a lot on drums, whether I’m slamming a snare or using it to parallel compress the entire bus. It’s one of the most recommended bits of outboard gear for any studio, so having the power of it in your DAW can be a real boon to your productions. It works great on other sources too, like guitars and vocals, working equally well whether you’re just taming the peaks or crushing a signal into oblivion.
Finally, it might seem dull on the surface, but I love the SSL 4000 E Channel Strip. The workflow is super simple to use, and the lack of visual feedback means you listen with your ears and not your eyes when adjusting the sounds. Like the API, it features a pre, filters, gate, compressor, and EQ sections, but it is slightly easier to use at first. You might think, ‘not another channel strip’, but having a variety of flavours of EQ at your disposal is a really neat way of adding some variety to your mixes without drastically changing your workflow.
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