If some form of magical elves did not arrive with music tools you’ve had your eyes on, here’s some good luck: several big sales are still running, from Max for Live devices to gear. Whether they’re called “holiday” or “end of year” … let’s just call it the end. We have arrived at the terminus.
Best of the software sales: SSL, AAS, Soundtoys, Eventide, UA, and more
Software deals have become somewhat commonplace, to the extent that they can blur together. But here are a few that go beyond the regular sales — the deepest discounts of the year. Via Plugin Boutique, there are also some additional free gifts through January 4.
SSL Fusion Bundle is 93% off (usually four figures), for the entire SSL Fusion bundle. Vintage Drive, Stereo Image, Compressor, EQ, Transformer, the whole lot for under a hundred bucks. Worth writing home about. At Plugin Boutique through January 5 (think that’s an exclusive, too).
AAS runs their winter sale through January 19 with 50% off everything they make. Direct from AAS or via Plugin Boutique: Applied Acoustic Systems. And that means it’s a good time to go back to my Multiphonics CV-3 review:
Soundtoys are also sparing with their sales, and the holiday sale ends January 1. That includes up to 66% off individual plug-ins and bundles. A great place to start if you’re new to the Soundtoys universe is Effect Rack, which includes all their stuff in a single rack interface, now including the new SpaceBlender, plus a lot of creative presets. Check Soundtoys’ official site or Soundtoys @ Plugin Boutique.
If you’ve had Eventide or Newfangled Audio stuff on your radar, now is really the best time to buy. Eventide is running up to 80% off their one-of-a-kind legacy of tools and bundles, including the brand-new H3000 Factory Mk II. Newfangled Audio is running up to more than 60% off, including their excellent Invigorate compressor and Generate synth and other signal processors that sound like nothing else. Both sales run through January 5.
Universal Audio Holiday Sale runs through December 31. Now, UA may be suspect #1 for bombarding us with deals, but this one is the steepest, with up to 85% off and custom bundles that are inexpensive enough that you can potentially forgo their subscription but still wind up with the stuff you need. And I just really like things like Capitol Chambers and Hitsville Reverb Chambers, which even in a competitive market no one else is really doing.
K-Devices has up to 80% off in their Winter’s Edge sale. (Not sure when that expires!) I need to try Magma (above), and I’ve already reviewed Fauve earlier this year (below). Good stuff.
And some more, too:
Baby Audio – up to 60% off (more as part of bundles) through January 4. That includes the Best of Baby Audio Bundle exclusive on Plugin Boutique, which includes the three that I use pretty often, the Crystalline reverb, Parallel Agressor, and Smooth Operator. Not everything is on sale, but it’s worth a check.
Minimal Audio at 50% off through December 31 — more with bundling. Wave Shifter for 25 bucks? Current 2.0 at half off (yes, even with the Season of Polysynths)? Tempting! Plugin Boutique also has their Advent bundle — Current synth, Rift distortion, Evoke vocal effect — at nearly 60% off. Reminder:
AIR Technology – up to 40% off through January 11.
MNTRA Instruments – up to 55% off through January 8 – see my write-up:
Sugar Bytes has up to 62% off their insanely wonderful stuff, like the Graindad granular effect and patchable Nest sequencer. Through January 4.
Gear from Perfect Circuit
Perfect Circuit is running their End of Year Sale. If you slept on my past hardware round-up, a lot of the same gear is back again for one last chance. And non-sale items work, too, with code HOLIDAY10. It looks like that all ends at — the end of the year, so get what you want then pop the champagne, I guess!
It’s easiest to just browse through all the Eurorack and synth and audio production goodness above, but maybe the best pick of this is $40 off the already appealing analog multi-filter from Stylophone, which readers asked about but I didn’t get my hands on. (Only so much time in the year…) It looks and sounds great, though:
Oh yeah, and I can just dream about this (heavily discounted) system, The Turismo System Eurorack Modular Synthesizer. It’s the feature image because it’s pretty. That’s all.
Isotonik Studios: best of Max for Live
Isotonik has selected 30% off its 12 most popular products of the year. These were introduced in the twelve days leading up to Christmas, but they run through January 1.
I’ve written about a few of these — some favorites (and many of these are available as bundles, too):
Maya by Monomono – Gorgeous Juno-inspired 6-voice polysynth with MPE; CDM review
Dillon Baston’s Superposition, the probabilistic concatenative multisampler(!) — I think I didn’t review this because my mind was too blown. Just go get it. Dillon’s full-length walkthrough above. Plus —
Coalescence by Dillon Bastan, the neural concatenative multisampler. (same, above)
Pigra by Mudjaq — covered some of Mudjaq’s other stuff, but this is a superb delay with experimental potential of its own.
Push:Euclidean Mode by Mark Towers — generative grooves on Push; see review
LayerLab is a stochastic sample layering tool. What’s beautiful about this is, if you’ve got a folder of samples, it can just layer these in creative ways. Total genius, especially for those of us who collect files of stuff. Drop right into that wormhole:
ClyphX Pro by nativeKONTROL is a classic and easy to recommend. There’s no single better one-stop shop for customizing control in Ableton Live; this is absolutely where you’d start, with a powerful customizable action system that goes even beyond Control Surface scripting and other hacks.
Sweetwater year-end clearance
Sweetwater is running their “year-end clearance” sale with up to 50% off through December 31. And that means everything, like if you were waiting for an accordion or an open-box deal on a vibraphone. (This is why it’s good I don’t own a house and a car and have some cash lying around, because I would absolutely add a vibraphone to my life.)
For instance, see $50 off the Universal Audio SP-1 Pencil Microphone Pair with Hemisphere Modeling.
Through this sale, I am also made again aware that accordions are actually more popular than workstation keyboards. Check the current discounted deals here:
DealZone: Year-End Clearance Sale
Now this again has a bunch of stuff I’ve written about, but right now, Sweetwater is the US exclusive location for Push 3 and Move — including $999 for Push 3. (No, the Ableton store on Reverb doesn’t have them at the moment; I checked.)
Ableton Push 3 Control Surface
Ableton Move standalone instrument
Guitar Center — mom??
Okay, Guitar Center is running what it calls The Mother of All Clearance Events, at up to 70% off through January 7 — and yes, we’re talking recording and audio, not just “guitars.” That includes some appealing studio bundles (including studio monitors), ideal if you’re building a project studio. And there’s a 30% off sale for Roland and BOSS, too.
Manifest Audio, modulation to sonification and more
Let’s finish on some software. Manifest Audio continues to make some of the deepest tools for Live and Max for Live, with constant updates — and of course Noah’s excellent livestreams to catch up on how he’s imagining ways of using these.
All those Max audio, Max MIDI, modulators, MIDI tools, sonification, and Live Racks are 30% off — everything. It’s code BOX30XO through January 2.