What better time to restock your plugin folder than Black Friday? Been holding off on that pair of headphones, which is just a tad too expensive? They may well be on offer right now. Black Friday 2025 is finally here, and we’ve been tracking down the best deals on music deals across all the biggest retailers so you don’t have to.
All the biggest audio retailers are offering discounts, including Thomann, Sweetwater, Reverb, and Zzounds. Plugin fans, fret not, Plugin Boutique is also hosting some of its best deals of the year.
The team here at MusicTech are searching for the very best Black Friday music deals to save you scouring the web yourself. We’ve included a list of the best deals below, but to save you some time, here are just some of the places we’ll be searching across the weekend for savings:
Quick links
Plugins
Get into Steinberg’s world with significant money off some of its top tools, like 40% off Dorico Pro 6 (and upgrade versions), the powerful SpectraLayers Pro and Elements, both with 39% off, making them £175 and £45 respectively, and Wavelab Pro 12 (£209) and Elements (£42) also see steep discounts. A chance to get your hands on these excellent products and save money.
Sonnox, leading designer of innovative, high-quality, award-winning audio processing plugins for professional audio engineers, is offering up 0to 75% discount this Black Friday. This makes for some seriously affordable software compared to their list price.
Among others, you can get the classic Oxford series of mixing and mastering plugins for between £35 and £59 each, Claro EQ for just £30 and ListenHub referencing tools plugin for only £18. It’s a rare chance to beef up your sonic arsenal at a significant discount while the deals last.
Soundtoys’ plugins are beloved by countless artists we’ve interviewed over the years, from the coveted Little AlterBoy pitch processor to the crunchy Decapitator distortion and new SpaceBlender reverb. This Black Friday, you can get up to 75% off the whole plugin catalogue, including a $350 discount on the complete Soundtoys 5.5 Collection.
Universal Audio’s UAD plugins are some of the best emulations of hardware on the market. The Black Friday 12 Days of UAD sale brings the price of these plugins down by up to a whopping 85%. That means you can save hundreds of dollars on UAD bundles like UAD Ultimate 14, the Build Your Own Bundle Mixtape, and the UAD Analog Classics Pro Bundle. You can even save 35% off Universal Audio’s DAW, Luna Pro 2.
Many of the brand’s most beloved plugins no longer require UA hardware, but we suggest checking out the full list of natively available UAD plugins before you make a purchase.
FabFilter’s Pro-Q4 EQ is simply an essential plugin for all producers. We said it’s “almost the only EQ you’ll ever need” in our review, offering a gold-standard slew of workflow improvements. Now you can add it to your tool belt for just £112, with a whole bunch of other FabFilter plugins on sale at Plugin Boutique, too.
One of the most revered DAWs on the market, FL Studio has a unique pricing model with free lifetime updates for the version you buy. If you’re looking to go all in on Image-Line’s full stable of varied instruments and effects, you can get the All Plugins edition for $314 for a limited time. That’s hundreds of sounds, plugins, synths, libraries and more – everything you need to create, mix and master your music. Historically only on Windows, the DAW has been native to the Mac platform for some years now so everyone can get on board…
Synths
This special Thomann Edition of Arturia’s compact Microfreak syntheiszer has 8% off in the pre-Black Friday sale, making it an even more attractive proposition for sound designers and producers. Its 25-key touch keyboard is velocity-sensitive with polyphonic aftertouch and its powerful synth engine includes a digital oscillator with synthesis methods such as Karplus Strong, Harmonic OSC, Superwave and Texturer, analogue state variable filter and LFO with six waveforms.
Advanced features include an arpeggiator, paraphonic mode for more creative performance and a wealth of modular connectivity like Mono line output: 6.3 mm jack (balanced), CV/Gate/Pressure outputs: 3.5 mm jack, Clock In/Out: 3.5 mm jack
MIDI In/Out and a USB Port.
Another Arturia goodie with a unique makeover is this noir edition MINIBRUTE2. This semi-modular 25-key analogue synth features Brute oscillators, an acidic Steiner-Parker filter, and the signature “mayhem-inducing” Brute Factor knob loved by fans. With 10 percent off, it’s down to $296.10.
How often do you get to save over $1,000 on a workstation like the Korg Nautilus?
This keyboard packs in over nine sound engines, over $1,000 in bonus EXS sound libraries, fully featured onboard sampling and HD audio recording, plus a touchscreen interface and up to 14 simultaneous effects to process your sound. This B-stock model also comes with a full manufacturer’s warranty.
“If we made this 30 years ago, we’d have ruled the world,” Tom Oberheim told us when we spoke with him about the TEO-5. Down to $1,549 in the sale, Oberheim’s latest analogue synth captures the secrets of the OB-X, Four Voice, and TVS, the company’s legendary spirit distilled into a compact, affordable dream machine.
The old-school-styled Arturia DrumBrute Impact 1984 is a lot more powerful than it looks — and you can now save 20% on it.
With 10 voices, this analogue drum machine packs powerful, characterful sounds through its built-in distortion circuit and 64-step polyrhythmic sequncer. You can punch in drums in real-time using the eight velocity-sensitive pads, or hook it up via MIDI to trigger it alongside your other hardware.
Behringer’s JT Mini was already pretty affordable at £93, but who’s gonna say no to a 17% discount? This tiny analogue polyphonic synthesizer is an emulation of the Roland Jupiter-8, with three VCOs, a multimode filter, ADSR envelope and LFO, plus a 16-step sequencer.
Pro audio gear
Steinberg’s compact-but-powerful UR24C audio interface has an impressive 33% off, making it a very reasonable £199 for a limited time. For that you get 32-bit, 192kHz recording, 2 Class-A D-PRE microphone preamplifiers with +48 V phantom power, Channel Strip and Guitar Amp Classics (also included as VST 3, AAX and AU plug-ins) and a copy of Cubase AI for desktop and Cubasis LE for iPad. With two combo mic/line inputs and four outs, it also features MIDI I/O, power over USB and a robust metal housing making it perfect for producing on the move. Between the hardware and software this is an excellent deal for a wide range of producers.
Universal Audio’s Apollo interfaces are the top pick by most artists on our My Forever Studio podcast — and for good reason. This Black Friday, the Apollo Twin X Duo is down to $999, saving you a sweet $200. You get 10×6 I/O, two Unison mic preamps and DSP processing that powers real-time tracking through emulations of high-end vintage outboard. This also unlocks the UAD library of over 200 DSP and Native plugins.
In our review of the Sony C-100, we said that “the C-100 is flavoured in such a way that for the right voice, nothing else will come close.” Luckily, it’s dropping significantly in price this Black Friday at Sweetwater, from $1,500 down to $999. If you’re looking to build up the mic cabinet in your studio, this one is a worthy inclusion — especially at this price.
Every producer needs a good monitoring system, and ADAM Audio’s D3V monitors certainly fit the bill… 14% off and now priced at £222, you’ll experience crystal clear sound thanks to four separate amplifiers, double-sided passive radiators to amplify the lower frequencies and increase the sound pressure level, an integrated A/D converter at up to 48kHz and a frequency response that stretches from 45Hz to 22.3kHz. Additionally there’s USB-C connectivity for hooking directly to your computer, DSP-based room adjustment and a stereo headphone mini jack for private monitoring. Truly, excellent all-rounders for any production setup.
Samplers, keyboards and drum machines
This compact drum machine from Swissonic is discounted by a cool 28% ahead of Black Friday. It’s a portable USB-compatible powerhouse with 40 onboard drum kits and a total of 185 sounds, 50 songs and 26 styles. Best of all, it even has built-in speakers and a battery power option so you can make beats wherever you are. Of course, there’s also a line out for recording and a headphone jack for zoning in…
Second-hand but in certified mint condition, this M8x is one of three MONTAGE-M models, and exclusively offers a GEX action keyboard with Polyphonic Aftertouch. It has three engines for vintage analogue, FM, and realistic instrument sounds, plus a Motion Control engine. It also boasts 400-note polyphony, 10GB of ROM preset memory, 88 keys and polyphonic aftertouch. Save over $600, as this one is now priced at $3,824.99.
This future-ready stage keyboard has an 88-key hammer-action keybed, over 1600 stage-ready presets, and offers deep integration with Arturia’s ecosystem. Users can integrate a vast range of custom sounds through its Analog Lab plugin, V Collection suite, and Pigments soft synth. It’s also built using aluminium and bakelite to ensure solid sturdiness and portability. In this deal, you can save $120, as it’s now reduced to $2,279.99. No laptop is required.
“Should you find yourself in front of an Akai MPC Key 61, you won’t fail to be inspired by what’s on board,” we said in our review of this expressive workstation. Fans of the coveted MPC family will want to check out this deal at Zzounds this Black Friday, which slashes $200 off the price of Akai’s first keyboard-focused iteration of the sampler series. With native onboard recording of audio, MPC Key 61 is the world’s first production synthesizer incorporating vocal effects plugins, which can also be used for creative sound design.
The sounds of the TR-808, TR-606, TR-909, TR-707, and TR-727 can be yours this autumn in the Roland TR-8S, which is now $200 more affordable. For $699 at Zzounds, you can get the best of the Roland’s legendary classic models with all manner of modern conveniences
Headphones
“Sonically, these are gorgeous headphones. For the price, you will be serious about your audio and want the unusual offering of three different connection methods. They’re a taste of the higher end of the hi-fi world without the full cost of admission, and with enough tech to satisfy today’s listeners.” That’s what we said in our review of the Focal Bathys headphones. At $150 off, these just became an even better deal.
Beyerdynamic’s DT-1770 Pro MK2 headphones are trusted studio workhorses. They’re closed-back headphones with a 5Hz-40kHz response for hearing extra detail in your mixes, whether you’re tracking, mixing or editing your music. If you’re in need of a new pair of headphones, these are worth considering, with a discounted price now on at Thomann.
