From plugins to mics and headphones, there's no shortage of bargains this Black Friday
We’re at the business end of the year already which means only one thing. Bargains galore.
Black Friday and the lead in to Christmas produce some of the best deals for musicians, engineers, and producers to level up their setups looking ahead into the new year.
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It’s the most wonderful time of the year to load up on plugins, but if the growing list of digital sales aren’t enough to satisfy you – how about some hardware to get into here?
Here’s a list of some of the best deals to tuck into. To start, Audio Technica have Black Friday deals available on some of their best selling and most used mics and headphones.
Audio-Technica BP40
What’s the deal? Up to an additional 30% off at selected retailers!
Mixdown says: The BP40 is Audio-Technica’s broadcast-style mic. The BP40 is a dynamic microphone, so it doesn’t need phantom power to operate the internal mic preamp, but can also handle high SPL signals like guitars, rooms, and drums. The large diameter diaphragm inside allows increased detail, clarity, and low-end to be captured more clearly through the diaphragm itself, in this case with Audio Technica’s patented floating-edge construction. Guitarists and bassists will be familiar with the humbucking coil used in the BP40, meaning it features two coils that are flipped out of phase to cancel any noise and hum out of the signal entirely for super clean and clear recording. The BP40 is great for podcasting, radio, interviews, or as an all-round recording mic in the studio because of its ability to capture everything from 50Hz to 16kHz in great detail. The low end is balanced and dynamic, rolling off slowly below 100Hz, while the high end is honest, clear, and articulate. While there’s other broadcast style mics on the market, the BP40 is a refined design, taking what Audio-Technica has learned from their successes and applying it to the BP40. The BP40 would be a welcome addition to anyone’s mic locker, even if you had a couple in there already. Heck, get one for every source!
Baby Audio Crystalline
What’s the deal? 51% off their marked price!
Mixdown says: With particular focus on the Crystalline, Baby Audio’s reverb plugin, it’s easy to see why their products are being heard on more and more mixes. The Crystalline’s controls are laid out into more user-friendly categories: reflections, depth, cleanup, and shape, each with three controls to put together the perfect reverb. Default settings offer a massive, bright hall sound, and dialling it all back can give you a dark and present room – and everything in between. While there are handy settings like modulation and a built-in gate, the Crystalline is a super clean, roomy reverb that offers various levels of ambience. The size control instantly pulls the drum kit forward and back in your mix, and the shape and clean up settings allow you to further refine the reverb, either by EQ’ing it internally, dampening, or shaping. The transient control allows you to emphasise or understate the transients, for entirely different sounds. Pulling the transients out of the reverb sound allows the spot mics on a drum kit to poke through a busy mix, while pushing the transients gives the drum kit the spotlight. Heck – use both at different stages of a mix. The Crystalline quickly gives a great-sounding room ambience that can sit well within a busy mix, giving the drums life without being overbearing like some other reverbs on the market. It can be as tasteful as you like, or it can sit back and give depth to an otherwise static sound. Nice-sounding rooms or super effected, wet, and modulating reverbs are a few clicks away thanks to the Crystalline from Baby Audio. Best of all, it’s on sale now!
Audio-Technica AT2040
What’s the deal? Up to an additional 30% off at selected retailers.
Mixdown says: While discussing broadcast and podcasting microphones, it’s difficult to go past the AT2040. Marketed as a podcast and home recording mic, the AT2040 is still an accessible choice for people recording sources that need clear dynamics and a broad frequency response. The chassis lends itself to being positioned on a boom arm, making it great for content creators and gamers, giving you clear audio thanks to the internal shock mount and hypercardioid pattern. The hypercardioid pattern gives you a bit more room sound, making for a less sterile end result. It also features an internal pop filter for even the most animated podcast guests, what with their popping plosives and sizzling sibilance. The Audio-Technica AT2040 is a controlled mic that can handle high SPL and will pick up everything from 80Hz to 16kHz, meaning that while it’s not ideal for instruments with a low of low end like a kick drum, it’ll naturally roll off low mud on sources such as guitars, voice, and strings. This means you’re recording a clean signal from the start, without the need for much clean up after the fact, so you can continue creating without getting bogged down. The AT2040 is on sale now and would be a welcome addition to those looking to level up their YouTube, streaming, or content creation station.
Baby Audio Bundle
What’s the deal? 30% off their marked price!
Mixdown says: If the Crystalline has introduced you to Baby Audio for the first time – why not really get to know them? Baby Audio’s entire bundle is available and on sale right now at their website. Baby Audio creates workhorse, utility plugins with a modern interface and contemporary looks. While not particularly modelled on any one piece of gear, their plugins such as the TAIP, Smooth Operator, and Spaced Out offer tape saturation, dynamic rebalancing, and ‘lush ambience’ for the masses at great prices during their Black Friday sale. Much like the Crystalline, all of Baby Audio’s plugins offer great tools to the producer and engineer, without any particular focus on recreating famous pieces of kit, but instead a practical layout for when inspiration strikes and you need a sound fast. Options like the IHNY-2 offer parallel compression in a click, with a quick blend control available. Add some ‘80s colour with the Super VHS, with particular note to the ‘magic’ control that does that thing! The aforementioned Spaced Out blends delays, echoes, and ambience for as much or little ambience as you like. Great for filling in the gaps in sterile recording or for a full on wall of sound. The Baby Audio Bundle is on sale now with all of these plugins plus a few more for 30% off, and that’s eight new tools in your belt to give shape, depth, colour, and character to your productions. Baby Audio’s plugins look like no other because they behave like no other – so give your mix that unique spin.
Audio-Technica ATH-M70x
What’s the deal? Up to an additional 30% off at selected retailers.
Mixdown says: Audio-Technica headphones are seen around more than any other, and for good reason. They’re affordable, consistent, and reliable, often more so than their more expensive counterparts. The ATH-M50x are some of their best selling headphones ever – so why not grab the next tier while they’re on sale? The ATH-M70x are professional-grade monitoring headphones for both recording and mixing. Their sleek good looks are coupled with a closed back for superior isolation, fold flat design, and three detachable cables depending on your needs or – let’s be honest, your mood. A closed back design is often preferable because less sound leaks out the back, meaning you’re at no risk of bleed getting into a recorded track with a sensitive mic in the room, and you’re also not losing any signal while doing critical listening and making those fine EQ adjustments and notches. And on the subject of EQ’ing, there’s not much you’re missing with the ATH-M70x, the drivers being able to reproduce everything from 5Hz to 40kHz with startling accuracy. For those of you reading along – that’s close to double the range of human hearing, so you won’t miss a thing with the ATH-M70x. As I write these words, the ATH-M70x are being added to my shopping list, and it’d be amiss to be missing from yours.
Soundtheory Gullfoss
What’s the deal? 40% off their marked price until December 1!
Mixdown says: We recently reviewed the Gullfoss from Soundtheory, and lucky for you readers it’s now on sale! The Gullfoss is part dynamic EQ, part master bus glue – and it couldn’t be easier to operate. The Gullfoss uses intelligent ‘recover’ and ‘tame’ controls to either bring background sound forward in the balance, or to control and tame sounds that are too present and in your face. This can be used to great effect for stereo rooms for example, where you can rebalance a loud snare or cymbals, or bring up the ambience that’s lost beneath booming shells. Alternatively, you can level out a master bus before diving into more in-depth processing. What’s more – there’s an output gain knob for clean gain if you need it before limiting! A really handy one to have in your back pocket for either mastering or levelling out stems you’ve received for mixing, grab yourself a full licence of the Gullfoss over this Black Friday period!
Audio-Technica AT2020USB+
What’s the deal? Up to an additional 30% off at selected retailers.
Mixdown says: Conventional microphones with XLR connections are all good and well, but they require an interface and nice preamp to to maximise their effectiveness. So what about those who need a simpler solution? There’s not many simpler ones than the AT2020USB+, Audio-Technica’s highly sold AT2020 with a USB connection for direct digital recording. Podcasters and content creators aren’t always audio-focused, they’re people focused, so Audio-Technica reimagined the AT2020 with a USB connection, headphone output, and volume controls for latency-free monitoring of your recording. What’s more, you can blend between computer and mic audio so you can hear playback from the computer mixed with your vocal, all on the chassis of the mic. The AT2020USB+ is a condenser mic so it’s equally usable for foley and field recordings, and its mobile design means it’ll fit in your bag along with a laptop – no need for an external soundcard, recorder, or interface. Being a digital microphone, the record out is at 16-bit, 44.1kHz digital audio, so it’s on par with all streaming platforms. The condenser design means it reproduces detail accurately, and while conventional condensers require 48V of phantom power, the AT2020USB+ is bus-powered via USB. It’s compatible with Windows and Mac alike, comes with a tripod desk stand, and is on sale for Black Friday.
RipX DeepCreate
What’s the deal? 30% off their marked price!
Mixdown says: Now that you’ve got your mics and playback sorted – let’s get into the music making part shall we? For those of us inclined to methodically analyse our favourite mixes, or for producers wanting to sample, remix, and reimagine music entirely – Hit’n’Mix has something for all of us. We’ve reviewed their RipX DeepAudio and DeepRemix software before, and DeepCreate is on sale for Black Friday to help you put it all together. Born from the same brains as the amazingly complex technology they use to seamlessly pull apart stereo stems, DeepCreate allows you to easily integrate your recorded, sampled, ripped audio, and MIDI into a single place. In a word, DeepCreate is a matrix for all your sources to converge, with a timeline editor to compose, write, and create with access to all your instruments, both digital and analogue, in the one place. VST instruments and audio are oftentimes split up very separately in a DAW, and DeepCreate’s purpose is to bring them all together to help you focus on the creating. DeepCreate features sequencing, audio effects like pitch shift and time-based effects, as well as being able to access all your sources in a well laid-out interface. It can be used as either a standalone app or a plugin in your DAW, DeepCreate is on sale for Black Friday.
Ableton Live 11
What’s the deal? 20% off Live 11, Push, and all Packs from November 16.
While Ableton is known as the go-to for electronic music producers, its powerful processing goes beyond synthesised sounds. The Live 11 Suite is a collection of plugins and processing tools designed for both music creation, and performance of that music. The Ableton Live 11 Suite is everything you need to compose and sequence MIDI, then stretch, affect, and modulate signals with the Spectral Resonator and Spectral Time processors. Ableton Live adjusts tempo in real time, so you can push and pull your music depending on the vibe of the room, as well as having effects available to be manipulated on the fly while keeping your beats to the grid. Ableton Live 11 Suite includes everything you need to record, comp, and splice audio, allowing you to record audio and MIDI before shaping it into your composition. Once your piece is ready for mixing, you can use EQ, reverb, and compression plugins to shape your sound to make it unique. Finally, Ableton Live also allows you to perform your music for the masses, offering effects and DJ-style controls to improvise with the safety of your original sounds to fall back on. Ableton integrates seamlessly with synths, controllers, and audio outputs, so you can send and receive signals from wherever you need to at any stage, from the birth of an idea to performance for a stadium of screaming fans. What’s not to love? Don’t miss out, Ableton Live 11 Suite is on sale now
