Black Friday 2017

Recording, Mixing and Producing
#1

What are you all excited about this Black Friday? I haven’t bought anything yet, but here’s a few things I’m sorta thinking about:

60% off Melodyne Assistant to Editor upgrade. ($99)
I’ve had this plugin for years and use it on every song to fine-tune the vocals. The upgrade would give me the Direct Note Access feature, which could be really cool for doing the same thing with guitar playing. The one hesitation I have is that this sort of editing pretty much sucks to do, and takes a lot of time, and if I have the tool I might over-use it. But… I don’t think this software goes on sale very often, so if I think I’ll ever want it now is a good time.

30% off Tina Guo Acoustic Cello Legato ($69)
This is an instrument I’ve been eyeing for a while. It’s not an extraordinary sale, but I might pick it up. Just a gorgeous instrument that I think I would use.

30% off a year-long SoundGym membership
Been thinking about trying out the Pro version of this site. I already have the TrainYourEars software, but that only works with EQ training (though it does it well!) This site has 9 different “games,” to help train your ears. I think it could be fun…

And I got an email last week about a Sonarworks Black Friday sale, but haven’t heard anything from them yet. That was already something I was planning to buy, so I figured I’d wait and see if I could get a discount.

And I’m interested to see what Embertone has to offer. I have a 50% off coupon for them that I need to use before the end of the year. I’m not sure I can combine it with other offers, but I figured I’d try. :slight_smile: The Joshua Bell violin looks very good to me.

Also, not Black Friday related, but just wanted to say that Spitfire Labs is really cool. I plan to buy more of those in the future. The only downside is that you can’t find samples for most of them, to hear what they sound like. I was actually thinking it might be fun to buy all of them and make a series of demo videos. I’m sure a lot of people would find that useful.

In general I find I’m not that interested in a lot of plugins anymore. I feel like I have what I need, with a lot of room to grow my skills. Same goes for synths and keyboards and percussion. A gap would be realistic sounding orchestral instruments… which is why I’m still looking into those. But I don’t need a ton. I can do a lot with my guitar, too, and I have fun trying to make cool sounds by combining different FX plugins. Eh, anyway I’ve gone on for long enough! What deals are you looking at?

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Black Friday/December Deals!
#2

Been perusing the on-sale pages at AudioDeluxe this morning with this very same thought, wondering if there are any unmissable deals going. They always run major blowout sales for BF, and then take an additional discount in the cart on top of that. Pretty much my go-to site for plug purchases.

As I mentioned in another thread, Mixcraft Pro Studio is on blowout for 99 bucks, which is a killer deal (full price is $179).

Also likely to go for Izotope RX Elements, which is on sale for $29 (full price is $129). Most Izotope products are sitting at about 60% of full price there. I may do the upgrade from Ozone 7 to 8, as well, have to look into whether that’s worth it for me.

Most IK & Boz Digital stuff is at 50% or even less; ditto Addictive Drums & Keys. Looks like entire product lines are on sale, such as Overloud, Softube, UVI, Plug & Mix, and a huge number of Waves products.

Hope this helps!

#3

Oh nice, I didn’t know about AudioDeluxe.com. I tried to create an account and keep getting an error… maybe their servers are overloaded at the moment. :frowning:

#4

I was completing a purchase just minutes before you posted this, so hopefully it’s a short lived problem…

#5

I always wait until cyber Monday. Black Friday it’s usually too dangerous to leave the house around here, people being trampled. I also refuse to buy from stores that open at 6PM on Thanksgiving. That is disgusting, because now these retail workers have to miss dinner.

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#6

Oh my gosh I just made my first purchase, on Embertone. Spent about $160 (my 50% off coupon stacked so I got 75% off a lot of stuff!) I didn’t really want all of these, but a handful of them were only $6 each or so, which is a fine price for a bit of fun. :slight_smile:

Ended up getting: Chapman Trumpet, Sensual Saxophone, Herring Clarinet, Jug Drums Complete, Joshua Bell Violin (the only really big purchase, but I already knew I wanted that one,) Tiny Grand, Crystal Flute, Ocarina, Shan Bawu, Shire Whistle and Jubal Flute.

Oh the possibilities!

And my wife just got done shopping Steam sales. We sure do love a good deal around here. I think she gets it from me though. :smiley: Also, this shit totally overshadows actual Thanksgiving. It’s more like “Happy Sales weekend! Let’s fuel up with some Turkey.”

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#7

As far as melodyne goes, the upgrade from essential to editor is only $150 right now, and apparently there is no special deal going from essential to assistant, so it’s still $150 as well. I might have to get editor.

#8

Gotta have this in here somewhere…

#9
#10

That’s what I got too. The shire whistle and Crystal Flute were all I got this year. I’ve been considering the Tina Guo cello, but I guess I have enough cellos to where I don’t really need it.

I’m still on the fence about the Cinesamples cinewinds pro. I have cinewinds core and love the way it sounds, but all I really want is the english horn. The extra flutes are cool, but I feel like Embertone satisfies those well enough.

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#11

I ended up getting a few Waves plugins. Hadn’t been plugin shopping in a while :slight_smile:

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#12

I’ve been looking at all the Waves plugins. It appears that all of them are on sale. Many of them have huge discounts…, yet I still haven’t bought anything…I’m very careful with my money and not much of a consumer. Toys and gadgets are less necessary than we usually believe them to be…Too much junk is a burden.
…Having said all that. I did order a 32 inch tv from Best Buy, to use as a computer monitor for my DAW (Reaper).

Waves plugins look tempting but I won’t buy unless I demo them first and am certain I’ll use them. Right now I’m demoing the CLA drums, CLA vocals, and the vocal doubler. By the time I’ve figured out if they’re useful to me, the sale will be over…In fact, I think the sale has already ended…Looks like I won’t be getting these plugins after all.:grinning:

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#13

I wasn’t planning on it, but I got a Waves plugin too. I demo’d the Abbey Road Plates and really liked the sound of it, so picked it up. I was worried because a lot of people said it was a huge CPU hog, but it was fine on my machine. Maybe they updated it with a bug fix at some point.

A lot of other ones seem cool, but… eh I just couldn’t justify it. I’m sure that different compressors and EQs and “give my track that extra special something” plugins are all a little different, but I’m just not sure I’d notice. What did you get?

#14

I upgraded melodyne and got the waves ssl bus compressor.

Waves seem to have deals all the time, so if somethings not on sale now it probably will be again before long.

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#15

I upgraded Melodyne too. I have to say I’m not happy with DNA so far. I tried it on a finger style acoustic guitar track, and even making tiny changes to the timing of notes resulted in pretty horrible distortions. Maybe I’m doing something wrong. :confused:

+1 to that. I feel like Waves doesn’t even take their own prices seriously. Maybe they’re taking advantage of the mindset some people (like me!) have where it’s like “oh 80% off what a good deal!” when it was really just marked up to begin with.

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#16

I picked up the vocal bundle, CLA1176 and the SSL G series buss compressor. I’ve been wanting that comp for a while. :slight_smile:

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#17

Cool, it’s so great when something you already want goes on a big sale!

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#18

+1
I only ever bought the Waves plugins on sale. I saw a few on sale for this year’s BF I had bought some years ago that were - at the time I bought them - almost ‘legacy’. They are actually charging more now for those on a big sale than what I paid some years ago! When there is such a disparity between MSRP and the “big sale” price, it’s hard to take their pricing seriously. On just about anything like that I figure the very minimum rock bottom price they’ll take is probably the true ‘value’.

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#19

That’s disappointing, I haven’t even tried messing around with that yet, I just wanted the extra vocal editing features so I would have been fine with Assistant, but Editor was the same price.

$29, every Waves plugin is worth $29.

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#20

Yeah, I might have to wait til the next big Waves sale…Maybe next black Friday/ Cyber Monday, but likely they’ll have a good sale much sooner than that.

I’m actually still seeing some Waves plugins on sale, but I’m going to demo them before deciding whether I should buy them or not. There’s just so much to choose from!