Best Cheap Plugins For 2021
Who wants to spend a ton of money on plugins?
Even if you’re one of the lucky few who’s got the dough to spare, expensive plugins can feel like a guilty investment – especially in bulk. No matter who you are, it’s worthwhile to know about some of the affordable (sometimes insanely affordable) options that exist. Every year, the list gets longer and the quality goes up overall.
Here’s our 10 best cheap plugins for 2021.
These have been around for several years now, but they are still some of the most practical plugins you’ll ever find. Not only do you get as intuitive a user experience as you could possibly imagine (literally one k nob), you also get a relatively super low price.
Waves makes a total of 8 different One Knob plugins, ranging from dynamics processing to EQ to reverb. Individual plugs cost $23.99 each, or if you want to bundle all 8 (a no brainer) then you can buy the whole collection for $68.99.
IK Multimedia Mesa Boogie Suite
If you’re going to pick one guitar amp plugin to cover your needs as a player, this would be one of the better choices you could possibly make. Even at its normal price of $149.99, it’s a steal for the value you get; but this month, Sweetwater will give it to you for just $39.99.
One thing that is important to remember about this plugin is that it’s a whole suite. You’re not just getting a Triple Rectifier; you’re getting 5 different emulations of 5 different real-life Mesa Boogie Amplifiers. In physical form, this collection would be comprehensive for a world-class commercial studio and cost you upwards of $10,000 to buy new. Thanks to IK, you can get the officially-licensed emulations for just a miniscule fraction of that. Plus, it fits in your bedroom!
If you know the name Joey Sturgis, then you probably think “metal.” There are good reasons for that. The man is definitely a producer with a defined niche.
However, especially when it comes to tasks like transient processing, genre becomes less important than proficiency. The simple fact is that metal music requires a mastery of transient processing. If one of the world’s leading metal producers makes his own dynamic EQ, you should probably pick it up. Especially if it’s $39.
Reverb is one of those tools that can have almost too much p otential. Sometimes, you’re going for a specific sound – not 10,000.
Valhalla’s VintageVerb is an excellent solution for this. Instead of every possible reverb sound under the sun, the plugin is focused on effectively tackling a particular brand of post-retro verb inspired by the 70’s and 80’s. You’ll recognize it immediately.
Not only is this one of the best and easiest to use solutions for post-retro reverb on the market, it is also one of the most affordable. Perhaps the price is adjusted for deflation back to 1977. At just $50, Valhalla VintageVerb will save you a lot of trouble, a lot of time, and best of all, a bucket of cash. Definitely one of the best cheap plugins for 2021.
Something you probably don’t expect to see on a list of affordable plugins is a virtual string instrument that actually sounds good. Yet, not only does Image Line’s Sakura sound impressively realistic for it’s low price, it’s also extremely powerful and versatile.
Intense attention was paid to the construction of this remarkable plugin. As the user, you get incredible control over every detail you could imagine; the string tension, the play style, the dynamics – you name it. And it’s not just “string” strings – you can work with pretty much any kind of stringed instrument here. You can also quite easily manipulate the settings to create your own unique instrument/sound.
For $65, Sakura is a slam dunk cheap plugin.
If 70’s and 80’s retro reverb doesn’t like your thing, don’t worry – there are other killer reverb plugins that will show similar mercy to your wallet. As strong an option as any is Softube’s TSAR-1R, which is somehow only $39.
The reverb you get with this plugin is arguably as good as any digital plugin you’ll find – just with less features. Some could easily argue this is actually an added benefit. It’s incredibly easy to use and understand. Whereas you might otherwise spend an hour tweaking, with TSAR-1R, you can dial in a great sound right away and move forward.
Auto-Tune is one of those plugins that can really cause pain for producers on a budget. It’s absolutely essential if you want to produce in, you know, this century; but it’s also cripplingly expensive.
If that’s you, then good news: Antares has recently updated their AutoTune collection to include more affordable versions that run on the same industry-standard technology. AutoTune Access is just $99 – just a quarter of the Pro version.
It’s also worth mentioning that Antares also just launched a subscription model. If you’d rather pay $25 a month instead of hundreds all at once, you can have the full collection of Antares AutoTune plugins by subscribing to Auto-Tune Unlimited.
How about a comprehensive tool for compressing drums that is stupid easy to use and costs $39? Problem solved.
Drumforge is another brainchild of Joey Sturgis, and another example of proficiency being paramount. If you can compress drums to sound good in a metal mix, you can compress drums to sound good in any mix. And now you yourself can too, for the price of a few months of Netflix and with less knobs than you have fingers.
If “value versus price” is the key equation, this one blows the rest out of the water.
Infinit Vibes is a complete virtual instrument and mixing suite. Reverbs. Delays. Hi and Lo pass filters.EQ.Compression.DynamicEQwithunlimitedbands. CountlessmodulationFX.Andon top of all that, 150 virtual instrument presets to choose from.
Just listen to the bell-chime sample in the demo beat and pretend like you’re not excited by it.
Believe it or not, this whole thing costs just $15; and for $15, you better clear some space on your hard drive, because you’re getting over 20 GB worth of quality tools.
To go right along with your $15 suite, here’s a virtual bass instrument that will satisfy pretty much any tone you could want for only $5 more.
At $20, 808 Machine comes with 10 bass instrument presets, 30 808 sample presets, and 50 MIDI loops. The plugin was crafted by Studio Trap in collaboration with Pyrit and together they bring you this ultra-cheap plugin royalty free. You can create openly and limitlessly, and you can pay the light bill at the end of the month. Dreams do come true!
Conclusion:
We hope you find this list to be a helpful guide for producing on a budget in 2021. Of course, these are some of the year’s highlights, but they are far from being all that is out there. We encourage you to explore and find your own hidden gems in addition to the ones we’ve uncovered here for you. As always, keep creating!
