The free plugins thread is great, but I think we should have one dedicated to cheap plugins for those of us producing on a budget (but still willing to pay) or trying to find some bang for your buck plugins.
$26.25
http://sound-guru.com/software/mangle/
Iāll add some more as I find em. Kinda realizing I didnāt have as many cheap ones as I thought lolā¦
I mean, everything at Valhalla DSP is worth way more than the $50USD he asks per plug in. Valhalla Vintage Verb is the only reverb Iāll ever need.
1 Like
Iāve heard good things about Valhalla, definitely will check it out!
Make a pluginboutique account. Keep an eye on their sales, get the free thing they give away every month with a paid purchase, and youāll have a baller collection in no time. I got into it about 6 months ago, got Izotope Iris 2 and Mastering the Mix Expose free since then. Both are great plugins that I now use all the time.
Oh, and also, you get reward points you can use towards cash off future purchases, coupons on specific VSTs, or free sample packs. Itās actually a really generous system. Just maintain self-control and make sure you only buy what you need.
4 Likes
I do not quite agree with you. I saw it at that price.
Iāve bought some cool M4L devices for under $5, but this isnāt that thread. Iāve also seen some groovy kontakt libraries that go on sale for practically nothing.
Some of the best free plugins have a ācheapā tier which unlocks better functionality than their free counterparts, such as:
- TDRās āgentlemanās editionā tier for each VST (more bands and features? of course!)
- MTPDK, the best free drum kit in the world, gets rid of its awful nag screen when you donate
With that said, Iāve spent like $20 on VSTs like The Mangle and Carbon Electra and regretted my decision almost immediately. Somehow there are even free plugins that work better than these glitchy piles of shit, however itās worth it to consider that these guys probably have no incentive to actually release stable updates at $20 a pop. I wouldnāt do it, either.
In conclusion, Iād rather go with the free stuff that works than the $15 underdeveloped pieces of trash that crash your DAW every 10 seconds, but then again Iām also the type to manually cut the white noise blasts out of my trialware that desparately wants my credit card. Donāt judge me.
1 Like
Fair enough. I havenāt had any problems with The Mangle since buying the full version, for some reason my computer didnāt like the demo though, itād crash Ableton a lot. Strange.
Edit: Iāve also upgraded processors within that time though so that may have made a difference.
SHADOWHILLS-4999
Drop that code into the voucher spot today and tomorrow only at plugin alliance and you get the Shadow Hills compressor for 50 bones. Iām gonna give it a shot at that price, probably wonāt even have time to install it before the deal ends, so no review by then.
If you want to buy PA stuff, consider bying a voucher code from someone who doesnāt need it. I got a 250$ voucher code for cheap a few days ago - used it to get Knifonium (yeah, I listened to some demos again and got weak for all those tubes 
), SPL Iron, DearVR Pro and I updated DSM-V2 to V3. And it even reduced the VAT to zero. I thought I had everything from PA that I needed but that was a pretty nice deal 
1 Like
Hey guys, check this Humble Bundle out. I can wholeheartedly recommend the AAS plugins. Even the āpreset playerā is really nice, and the Objeq Delay is really cool.
https://www.humblebundle.com/software/music-producer-2-software?hmb_source=navbar&hmb_medium=product_tile&hmb_campaign=tile_index_1
1 Like
Nice! Didnāt realize Humble Bundle sold anything other than games
They have so much stuff. I have spent a shameful amount of money on that site since it was created. All for a good cause, of course.
I bought at least 6 bundles over the last 1 or 2 years - 2 related to graphic design stuff (Corel and EscapeMotions bundles), 1 was about video stuff (including Hitfilm, the bundle with everything in it was much cheaper than updating Hitfilm from the previous versionā¦), 1 with books and 2 with Game development stuff - did I need all that stuff? Probably not, considering for instance that Iām mainly on Unreal Engine and all the game development stuff was for Unity and has to be converted at least, which I of course did not do so farā¦ but as Creepr said, itās all for a good cause. And cheap
I just bought a comic bundle and some frontend developer booksā¦once you start you cannot stop.
this thread is due for a resurrection:
Super good price(10 clams) on TDR Limiter 6 over at AudioDeluxe:
https://www.audiodeluxe.com/products/audio-plugins/tokyo-dawn-labs-tdr-limiter-6-ge
Appears to end on the 30th/1st.
2 Likes
Itās technically not a plugin in itself, but modules for environments like VCV and Voltage can be as low as $1, and some really decent ones are under $5 on a good day. Iām only mentioning this here because most people donāt even know they exist, or that you can just use them as FX instances. Both environments have a āfreeā tier, too.
3 Likes
Iām āthis closeā to getting VCV rack2. Having it in perfect sync w my DAW and also the ability to talk to my physical eurorack system is pretty huge.
Donāt forget about Cardinal 
. Thereās also a potentially cheaper way to sync it to hardware yep, itās on sale for $50 right now
1 Like
Cardinal is really cool, itās more limited but there are so many modules included, itās more than enough for me to play around with when I want to use a modular in my DAW.