Cyber Monday plugin deals 2024: Last chance software savings
Cyber Monday is over but you can still save big on VSTs and music software
1. Quick links
2. Editor's picks
3. Vocals
4. EQ
5. Compression
6. Delay
7. Reverb
8. Saturation
9. Soft synths
9. Guitars
10. Drums
11. Free plugins
Well, the Cyber Monday plugins are officially done for another year. If you're late to the party, then we're sorry to say you've missed some awesome savings but not all is lost, there are still plenty of deals hanging around for now.
I did most of my plugin shopping at Plugin Boutique during Cyber Weekend, and you can still save big with discounts of up to 95% off a wide range of software. I've noticed some plugins now have even bigger discounts than they did on Black Friday, with the Arturia V Collection getting a further $100 reduction, whilst one of my favorite reverb plugins UAD Sound City has dropped from $174 to just $39.
Some popular plugins like the FabFilter suite and Soothe 2 have now returned to full price, but no doubt they'll be back on sale soon, and we'll cover it when they are. Until then, you can shop the links below for all the major sales that are still live, as well as the remaining handpicked deals from the MusicRadar team.
⚡ Cyber Monday plugin deals: Quick links
Cyber Monday is over now, but here are our favorite last-minute deals.
- UA 1176 collection: A bargain at $29
- Waves Platinum Bundle: 67 plugins just $129.99
- ShaperBox 3: Get $89 off at Cableguys
- UAD Sound City: $310 off
- IK Multimedia Total Studio 4 Max: $450 off
- Arturia Pigments 5: Save $100
- Vocalign 6 Standard: Save $60
- Sonnox Oxford Limiter: Down to $29
- Soundtoys: Up to 75% off
- ADPTR Metric A/B: Just $39.99
Here are some links to all the post-Cyber Monday sales that are still live:
- Plugin Boutique: Up to 92% off
- Waves: 3 for $49.99
- Antares: 50% off everything
- Avid: Save 33% on Pro Tools
- Guitar Center: Software savings
- IK Multimedia: $450 off plugins
- Loopcloud: 6 months free
- Loopmasters: 60% off samples
- Positive Grid: $150 off BIAS FX 2
- Sweetwater: $100s off software
- Native Instruments: Up to 50% off
🥇 Editor's picks
Waves Platinum Bundle: was US$1,999, now US$129.99 at Waves Audio
Packing 67 bundles into one all-encompassing package, the Waves Platinum Bundle is the perfect place to start your producing journey. Bought individually at full price they'd total a massive $1,999, but a ginormous $1,869.01 discount brings back into reach of the majority of music makers out there.
This 8-plugin bundle spans a virtual compilation of Moog effects pedals. These plugin versions of the well-regarded line of Moog foot-switches replicate the authentic sounds accurately, including analog delay, saturator and stage phaser
NI’s longstanding software bundle series has really benefited from the company’s merger with iZotope and Plugin Alliance. The combination of NI big hitters kontakt 8, Massive X and Guitar Rig 7, alongside iZotope’s excellent Ozone 11 mastering suite, plus a generous crop of effects and sampled instruments, make for a really well-rounded package that’s very tempting given the 50% discount. For our money, the Standard package is the sweet spot value-wise, but the more expansive Ultimate and Collector’s Edition bundles are also 50% off.
Probably the greatest collection of soft synths ever amassed, Arturia's V Collection X has got a phenomenal $300 discount at the moment at Plugin Boutique. Packed full of useful presets, synths, instruments, and samplers, this is the ultimate collection of software instruments for home producers, professionals, and sound designers.
An all-encompassing software that will cover off all of your music-making needs, IK Multimedia's Total Studio 4 Max has got a gigantic $450 discount on their official site. Comprising thousands of instruments, a huge selection of plugins, and countless effects, it's an all-in-one solution for making music at an unbelievable price.
Rigid Audio is sadly closing down - but before then, it's kindly offering its Everything Bundle at a superbly low price until the end of the year. There are 39 products included, with over 12,000 sounds and presets to explore!
Native Instruments recently gave its DJ software a long-needed overhaul. New features include AI stem separation, flexible beat grids and a fun mini drum machine. Overall, v4 has a well-rounded feature set and smart-looking interface. Its best feature, however, is that unlike many DJ apps, there’s no subscription or paid add-ons involved. You can pick the software up for the thoroughly reasonable discounted price of £90 and have access to everything Traktor has to offer. For home DJs or simple pro setups, it’s a good deal.
This MPE-leaning, expressive synth can be picked up with 40% off the standard price. Morphing and shaping kinetic synth pads, leads and atmospheric textures are the order of the day with Equator2. Though the company is best known for its extraordinary range of Seaboard MPE instruments, its their ultra-flexible soft-synth that we tend to reach for most frequently.
🎤 Vocal plugin deals
Antares Auto-Tune Pro: 50% off at Antares
Probably the most famous vocal plugin of all time, Antares has slashed a massive 50% off perpetual, annual, and monthly licenses for the encompassing tuning software. Nearly every modern record uses vocal tuning in one form or another, and so should yours.
🎛️ EQ plugin deals
Gullfoss is an intelligent EQ plugin that forensically diagnoses what's going wrong in your mixes - and can correct those issues at will. It's a recommended pick-up.
A fantastic deal on an intelligent and easy-to-use EQ that will point out where you're going wrong, and fix your problems without breaking a sweat. Sonnox has a wealth of experience in this field and Claro is built on their expert knowledge.
Another unmissable deal on perhaps the ultimate EQ control room. With parameters for fine-tuning your frequencies beyond most other plugins on the market. You shouldn't miss this one.
📉 Compression plugin deals
Even if you already own a 76-style compressor plugin, this is one of the best Black Friday plugin deals I've ever seen. Normally retailing at $299 it's got a humongous 90% discount, taking the price down to less than your average family takeaway. Capturing all the characteristics of the original hardware units, I reach for these plugins a lot when I'm mixing.
If you want to instantly amp up your home recording efforts, you should buy this plugin right now. It's got a huge $206 reduction over at Plugin Boutique and is designed to be placed at the very end of your mix bus. The Sonnox Oxford Limiter will hugely increase the loudness and clarity of your mix without clipping. We've just bought one ourselves, and it's had an instant effect on our mixes, helping bring our tracks to life at the mixdown stage.
🔁 Delay plugin deals
Probably my all-time favorite delay plugin, Soundtoys EchoBoy has been used at one point or another on pretty much all of my productions, and I regularly see it appearing in professional studios too. Packed full of lush analogue delay tones and with unparalleled flexibility in tweaking, with $150 off at Plugin Boutique it's a must-have for your plugin folder.
With its excellent selection of analog-flavored delay tones, Baby Audio's Comeback Kid is a great choice if you're in the market for a delay plugin. It's already pretty cheap by plugin standards, but a $40 discount at Plugin Boutique has brought it down to just $29, an absolute steal.
Read more: Baby Audio Comeback Kid review
This sublime emulation of a modern hardware classic is on sale for $59 instead of $89 until December 27th. ZDV can concoct some genuinely captivating delays with those big front-panel knobs demanding you to get creative, manually mangling up its impressive filters. We heartily recommend you add it to your delay-roster
🌌 Reverb plugin deals
I already own UAD Sound City Studios and it's quickly become one of my most used plugins. I use it to liven up drum room sounds, add space to guitar tracks recorded via plugins, and give a sense of space to vocals.
This reverb goes beyond stereo and has been tailor-made for 3D and spatial mixing. With support for up to 7.1.6 channels, this particular reverb/space-shaper is a real boon for making those mixes sound even bigger
📼 Saturation plugin deals
One of the most popular saturation plugins in the industry, Soundtoys Decapitator is a standard in studios across the globe. Versatile enough to cover a light dusting of vibe all the way through to all-out sonic destruction, this is one plugin that should be in every producer's arsenal. A $61 discount over at Plugin Boutique makes it a fantastic early deal to take advantage of.
If the thought of a plugin with a million options on it brings you out in a sweat, you'll love Baby Audio's Super VHS. Simple, yet powerful, it's capable of subtle character changes right through to all-out mangling of whatever sound you want to feed it. Down to just $9.99 from $69, you're saving yourself a hefty $60, brilliant value.
🎹 Soft synths
This sound design-angled synth is a modern soft synth classic, presenting multiple different methods for processing sounds, spanning wavetable, granular and harmonic synthesis types alongside traditional analogue routing
Grab this officially endorsed software version of an Oberheim classic, complete with extended polyphony of up to 16 voices, detune and vintage controls for vintage character and expanded software-only functionality
Current offers a fluid, modern way of achieving instantly captivating sonics. Built on 5 parallel sound engines and a flexible modulation section. Current is fuelled by The Stream, which allows users to import samples, wavetables, presets and sounds directly into the instrument.
🎸 Guitar plugin deals
Less than half price for three of the finest amp plugins you'll find anywhere? Trust Thomann to deliver this Black Friday. The classic tones and versatility of the Fender Deluxe Reverb, AC-30 Top Boost, and Marshall Plexi are all here waiting for you.
Probably the best guitar VST deal we've seen this Black Friday, at IK Multimedia's website if you buy Amplitube 5 Max or Tonex Max for $99.99, you'll get the other completely free of charge. With a huge array of accurately modeled and captured guitar tones, the combination of both bits of software means you'll be well covered for guitar tones for the considerable future.
🥁 Drum plugin deals
An ultra-powerful way to increase the punchiness of your drum recordings - or replace them entirely - Steven Slate Drums Trigger 2 is used by many pro engineers to augment their drum tracks. It's incredibly accurate bleed suppression needs to be heard to be believed, and it comes loaded with loads of great samples too. A $70 discount at Sweetwater makes it a must-have if you want to add some pro sheen to your drums.
🆓 Free plugins
Valhalla DSP Supermassive: Free
Once you've used Valhalla's Supermassive reverb plugin it's honestly difficult to believe it's free. Packed with larger-than-life sounds it is perfect when you want to add some ultra-spacious tones to your recordings. I regularly use it on ambient tones in my recordings, and it's great for vocals too.
❓ Cyber Monday plugin deals: FAQ
When do the Cyber Monday plugin deals start?
Cyber Monday isn't 'officially' until Monday 2 December, but last year things kicked off much earlier than that, so it pays to be prepared. Waves got the wheels in motion with a sneak peak at the deals they planned on launching in November, followed by a natural segue into their Early Bird plugin deals at the start of November. Discounts were applied to a mixture of Waves classics, sought-after analogue outboard emulations as well as signature plugins from some of the world’s biggest producers, including Chris Lorde Alge, Joseph Jack Puig, Butch Vig and Andrew Scheps to name just a few.
Will we see more Cyber Monday plugin deals sooner than the day itself? Judging by previous years, that's a strong horse to back. Whether we see more brands than just Waves jumping on the early doors bandwagon remains to be seen.
You can also expect the deals to continue well into the week following Cyber Monday.
If you're using Cyber Monday to save money on Christmas gifts, our guide to the best Christmas gifts for musicians is great for inspiration.
What deals should I expect?
Loads of music software sites will be taking part in the Cyber Monday plugins bonanza, so we'd recommend signing up to mailing lists of your favourite retailers now to get the jump on the best deals when they do come around.
Of course, if you'd rather not deal with the stress of searching through endless deals yourself, as we get closer to the event our experts will be pulling all-nighters to uncover the very best Cyber Monday plugin deals and publishing them on this page.
We’d recommend bookmarking this page - as well as our main Cyber Monday music deals hub page - while you remember.
So we know there will be deals. But what should you be looking out for? We've covered enough of these events to know a thing or two about what to expect. Seeing as plugins are downloads rather than physical products, they won’t sell out. A more realistic consideration is that some of these deals might be time-limited to just a day or two, or perhaps only a few hours, so we’d recommend you don’t ponder a purchase for too long.
Discounts can range from a few $/£ off a cool sample pack to massive percentage discounts off huge swathes of music production software.
Great deals come in all shapes and sizes. There are a few key types to look out for:
- Single item - A single product or plugin with a great discount
- Site-wide discounts - A single discount percentage on a large range of products across a site
- Discount codes - Load your basket to a certain value and redeem a discount code for money off your basket contents
- Added value deals - These include multi-buy discounts, or additional products or software for free when you buy certain items
Whichever deals you go for, you can guarantee there will be silly savings up for grabs, so if you’re planning on updating your studio or adding to your collection to boost your music production set-up, it’s well worth marking your diary for this year's Cyber Monday plugin deals.
Can I get free plugins on Cyber Monday?
Yes! Many sites offer a free plugin to celebrate Cyber Monday and as a way to tempt you onto their sites, so you could feasibly take advantage of the Cyber Monday hysteria without spending a thing.
Once again, Waves is a sure bet when it comes to free stuff and last year they gave customers the Lil Tube Saturator plugin completely free. Usually all you have to do is provide them with an email address to get your freebie.
And Auto-Tune masters Antares gave customers multiple plugins to choose from without spending a dime. You could choose from one of three Auto-Tune plugins and keep it forever, even after your subscription period ends. You could pick either Auto-Tune Slice (a hybrid synth and sampler), Auto-Tune Vocal EQ (an EQ designed specifically for singers), or Auto-Tune Vocodist (for that Daft Punk/Kraftwerk vocoder effect).
Elsewhere, Slate Digital released a brand new plugin, Fresh Air specifically for Cyber Monday, and gave it away for free. You can still pick it up for nothing today.
Which sites are best for software deals on Cyber Monday?
We have personal experience shopping software at a varity of retailers and we know the ones we trust and where we've had a great experience. These are the places we will always recommend first.
For us, on Cyber Monday there are a small handful of places that we would point your towards and it's a mix of software developers and retailers.
Developers we trust include Waves, IK Multimedia and Native Instruments. They all run great sales and we know they're above board. Buying software from them is a breeze and they all offer fantastic customer service.
Special shout out to Plugin Boutique who sell plugins from hundreds of fantastic brands.
Specialist online music retailers have become better on the software front, too. Where you used to only be able to buy physical copies of DAWs, it's now easy to access direct digital downloads at places like Sweetwater, Guitar Center and Thomann of all your favourite plugin brands. And the best thing is that, because software is a download rather than a physical product that needs shipping, you can go for the seller that has the best price!
🛒 How to prepare for this year's Cyber Monday plugin deals
1. Create a wishlist early - The most sensible way to take advantage of this year's Cyber Monday plugin deals is to know in advance what you’re looking for. This will make searching much easier, rather than having to trawl through loads of deals you don’t want to find the ones you do, or pondering title you don't need.
2. Work out what you actually need - Check out your favourite brands, see what you need and will genuinely use - don’t waste your cash and fill your basket with stuff you'll never load. Has there been a raft of new software launches lately? If so, perhaps the old version will be massively discounted for Cyber Monday? You could start by checking out our guide to the best Waves plugins.
3. Consider your music production goals - What do you want to achieve with you music production goals for the next 12 months or so? Is there software that will help you hit them? Or do you have an unfinished track that needs some extra sauce? Now could be the time to invest.
4. Clear some space - Something else you should consider ahead of time is whether you have enough space on your machine to account for all these additional downloads! Get rid of any unnecessary bloat on your laptop or PC now, or you might want to consider picking up one of the best external hard drives in our guide.
🧐 How we choose which plugin deals to cover
Here at MusicRadar, we are experts in our field, with many years of playing and product testing between us. We live and breathe everything music-making, and we draw on this knowledge and experience of using products in live, recording and rehearsal scenarios when selecting the products we recommend.
First and foremost, we are players and creators, and we want to match like-minded folk with the right products for them, at the best prices.
For us to recommend a deal on music software or anything else it has to be a product we rate that’s a genuinely great price or part of a truly fantastic bundle. It’s also important that we only recommend retailers where you will have a positive shopping experience.
🤔 Why you can trust our choices
We spend a lot of our time scouring software retailers for fantastic deals on our favorite plugins. Not only is it our job to research and recommend the best gear in our buyer’s guides and reviews, but we’re also dedicated to helping musicians get the best deals on the stuff they need, too. After all, the only thing better than new gear day is a hearty discount.
We cover a lot of the big sales events throughout the year, including Memorial Day, 4th of July sales and Amazon Prime Day, and we have a good view on which products are likely to receive the biggest discounts and when, the prices they’ve been in the past and which deals are genuinely worth a look.
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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 home 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 performed everything from jazz to djent, gigging all over the UK in more dingy venues than you can shake a drop-tuned guitar at.
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