Black Friday plugin deals 2025: Get the lowdown ahead of the biggest sale of the year

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.

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 $1,800 discount brings them back into the reach of the majority of music makers out there.

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.

Universal Audio Showtime 64 Tube Amp plugin: Free!
The latest guitar plugin from Universal Audio replicates a very famous Fender Showman amplifier, giving you massive clean tones and bags of headroom from the comfort of your DAW. It's available completely free of charge over at the official UA website, so is a complete no-brainer for adding another great tone to your collection.

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 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.

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.

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.

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. It's already cheaper than it was last year, so well worth picking up if you want to add better depth to your mixes.

I love using the Thermionic Culture Vulture on my bass guitar tracks, but it’s a versatile saturation plugin that can be easily utilized across the full depth and breadth of your productions. It can do everything from subtle to thickening to full-on sonic destruction, and the plugin includes some features you don’t get on the hardware, including a mix knob and stereo link function.

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.

Containing stunningly accurate recreations of the holy trinity of guitar amp tone in the Fender Deluxe Reverb, the Marshall Plexi, and the Vox AC30, this guitar bundle is great if you want iconic tube tones from the comfort of your DAW. I use these regularly to back up recorded guitar tones from the studio, and they do a scarily convincing job of replicating the real thing. It now also contains the Woodrow 55 amp, which while lesser known is still a great tone to have in your arsenal.

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.

Universal Audio Showtime 64 Tube Amp plugin: Free!
The latest guitar plugin from Universal Audio replicates a very famous Fender Showman amplifier, giving you massive clean tones and bags of headroom from the comfort of your DAW. It's available completely free of charge over at the official UA website, so is a complete no-brainer for adding another great tone to your collection.

One of my must-have plugins for Black Friday, Soothe 2 has quietly taken the music production world by storm thanks to its ingenious resonance suppression. It looks like an EQ, yet operates partly like a compressor, making it an initially confusing plugin. What you need to know is that it tames harsh, edgy resonances in your mix and despite appearing complex, is incredibly easy to use and see results with. It's got a huge $70 discount over at Sweetwater at the moment, making it perfect timing to get your hands on it - you'll thank me later.

The one plugin I've seen in every professional studio I've been to, FabFilter's Pro-Q 3 is the industry standard for EQ. Ultra versatile with a fantastic UI and loads of clever features, it allows you to sculpt your tones exactly to your liking. A $45 discount at Plugin Boutique makes this a must-have.

Probably the greatest collection of soft synths ever amassed, Arturia's V Collection X has got a phenomenal $200 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.

The ultimate drum software just got a massive $100 discount over at Sweetwater. Packed full of ultra-realistic drum tones with endless tweakability, whether you're recording entirely in the box you're looking to sample replace, or backup real-world drum recordings, Superior 3's offering is unparalleled.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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, makes for a really well-rounded package that’s very tempting given the massive discount.

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.

The excellent 3D granular effects tool Dust from SoundMorph is a go-to creative paintbrush of ours, with its uniquely intuitive interface offering up vast sonic scope. Sound can be spawned by the plugin’s own library of samples, triggered by MIDI or sequencer, or – if used as an insert effect – via your track’s audio and then processed via its particle-based ecosystem.

This incredibly realistic, physically modelled virtual piano suite's Standard or Pro versions are reduced this weekend over at Sweetwater. It's one of the best piano suites around, and allows users to explore a range of officially endorsed piano models from the likes of Steinway, Bechstein, Petrof and more. Plus, with version 8, Modartt have thrown in classical guitar and a salvo of percussion instruments