HONEST Black Friday Guide: Composer & Producer VST Libraries, PLugins, and More
My MINIMAL Black Friday Picks for 2024
VST Libraries and Plugins Worth Your Money This Black Friday: A Straight Shooting Composer Guide With No Sponsored Sparkle
Vaughan Williams is giving you the thousand yard stare for putting too much Black Friday bait & switch in your shopping cart
What’s The #1 Black Friday Purchase You Should Make First?
Get yourself a website…Like Yesterday.
Every year around Black Friday, my inbox turns into a wall of “What plugins should I get?” And I get it. The marketing pressure is real, the discounts are loud, and the hype can make even seasoned composers feel like they are missing something essential.
Here is the truth. The most important rule of Black Friday is simple: do not buy more versions of things you already have. Master what you own. Depth always wins over hoarding. If you buy anything at all, focus on filling the gaps in your toolbox instead of stacking duplicates.
Below is a curated list of libraries and plugins I truly love. These are the ones that have real staying power in my work and can bring something meaningful to your sound.
Before you buy any plugins, invest in a professional website. This is the most overlooked and most impactful upgrade any composer, producer, or audio professional can make. Link trees give away your traffic and weaken your brand presence. A proper website strengthens your portfolio, improves your SEO, and makes you look like someone who takes their career seriously.
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Stop Sending Your Hard Earned Traffic to LinkTree Style Sites
If you work in music for games, film, or records, your website is not just a digital business card. It is your control center. It is the place where studios first decide if you look like someone they can trust with their world. It is where potential collaborators figure out if you have a voice, a brand, and enough personality to make them remember you after they close the tab.
This is why sending your audience to LinkTree (or any other link site service like it) is basically throwing free traffic in the trash. You work too hard to get eyes on your work. Every post, every trailer, every piece of music you share has value. When you hand that traffic to LinkTree or similar services, you lose the chance to showcase your identity, your work, your vibe, and your professionalism. You are giving your hard earned visibility to someone else instead of letting it live inside your own ecosystem.
Squarespace gives you the exact opposite experience. You get full control. You get clean design, fast loading, easy hosting, built in SEO, and an entire suite of tools that make you look like you take your career seriously. The platform is simple enough to update in five minutes and robust enough to present your work in a way that actually reflects who you are as a composer or producer.
Most importantly, you get to build your own link hub right on your website. One page, fully branded, featuring your work, your social links, your trailers, your soundtrack pages, your contact info, your studio photos, your reels, and anything else that sells the full picture of you. Instead of a generic list of buttons on someone else's platform, visitors land on a page that immediately shows your personality. And personality is what sells. Game studios, audio directors, supervisors, agencies, and publishers care about who you are as much as what you write. A strong identity converts. A generic link page does not.
So if you want to actually own your presence, keep your traffic, and show clients what makes you unique, build your home base on Squarespace and never send people to a beige third party link farm again.
Orchestral Tools Metropolis Ark 1
Link: https://www.orchestraltools.com/store/collections/metropolis-ark
A powerful all in one orchestral library built for massive scoring, bold hybrid writing, and modern cinematic energy.
This is probably my favorite all in one orchestral library. It is punchy, huge, and inspiring right out of the box. If you want instant scale, this is the tool.
Orchestral Tools Phoenix Orchestra
Link: https://www.orchestraltools.com/store/collections/phoenix-orchestra
A unique and colorful sample library inspired by global orchestral traditions with detailed articulations and expressive soloists.
This library brings something truly different. If you want textures that break out of the typical Hollywood mold, this is a gem.
Kilohearts Plugin Suite
Link: https://kilohearts.com/products/kilohearts_toolbox
A modular plugin ecosystem offering creative effects, sound shaping tools, and workflow focused utility plugins.
The comb filter, cutoff filter, and ring mod alone are worth it. These tools push sound design into wild territories.
Kilohearts Phase Plant
Link: https://kilohearts.com/products/phase_plant
An award winning hybrid synth designer with modular routing, deep modulation, and high end granular synthesis.
My favorite synth designer ever. The granular capabilities are absolutely next level.
Minimal Audio Current
Link: https://www.minimal.audio/products/current
A modern hybrid synth and sound design environment built for heavy, aggressive, and experimental electronic textures.
If you build drones, tearout basses, or intense hybrid layers, Current is an amazing tool to have.
Neural DSP Nameless X
Link: https://neuraldsp.com/plugins/nameless
A SUPER high gain amp sim that delivers blistering tone.
Still the GOAT for the sound I like. Tight, aggressive, and unbelievably responsive. I use it on Synths quite often too.
GGD One Kit Wonder Architects
Link: https://www.getgooddrums.com/collections/one-kit-wonder/products/one-kit-wonder-architects
A streamlined drum library featuring the signature Architects sound with mix ready tones and powerful punch.
This is still my go to drum kit. Bussing options give you great character and flexibility.
Devious Machines Infiltrator 2
Link: https://deviousmachines.com/infiltrator
A multi effect monster with 80 possible effect modules and deep sequencing for extreme sound transformation.
Total chaos in a plugin. In the best possible way.
SubMission Audio ShinzBass
Link: https://www.submissionaudio.com/products/shinzbass
A detailed virtual bass instrument based on a Warwick Dolphin with powerful growl and mix ready definition. Think Mudvayne LD50 meets today’s flexibility standards.
My favorite bass library. The tone is ridiculous and sits perfectly in a mix.
Plus, Nick is a handsome homie, so it feels good promoting something he gave me that I actually love and use in almost every production that needs it.
Final Thoughts
Black Friday is exciting, but stay intentional. Let your purchases elevate your craft, not distract from it. Mastery will always outperform an overflowing plugin folder.
If there’s one thing I wish every composer, producer, or bedroom-studio warlord would take away from this, it’s this: you don’t need to keep up with the Joneses of VST Library & Plugin Land.
Ninety percent of the time, the issue isn’t the quality of your tools, it’s learning how to squeeze everything out of what you already own.
Some of the best sounds you’ll ever craft are sitting quietly inside your DAW right now, waiting for you to stop impulse-buying shiny interfaces and actually get to know them.
A pretty UI can inspire creativity, sure, but functionally it’s often not that different from the stock stuff you’ve ignored for years.
And look, if you’re learning from someone who uses a specific tool and you want to follow along, great, grab that one.
But don’t treat Black Friday like some annual ritual where you sacrifice your bank account for the privilege of hoarding more plugins you’ll never master.
Use what works, get dangerous with it, and upgrade only when you genuinely outgrow your current arsenal.
Stay creative and have fun, be YOU.