Yes, we all love pouring money into guitars, pedals, and amps, but recording and listening back to your playing is one of the most powerful ways to genuinely improve your playing. If you want to get into recording guitar, or just want to add something to an already existing setup, you should head over to Sweetwater, where you can bag some awesome savings on gear in their Studio & Recording sale
Top-tier brands like Universal Audio, PreSonus, TC Electronic, Warm Audio, Rupert Neve Designs, Shure, and plenty more have got discounts, with hundreds off in some instances. The selection admittedly isn’t massive for guitar players, but there are some nice studio monitors, audio interfaces, microphones, and a boatload of software with significant discounts.
I’ve had a look through the sale and picked out some of my favorite gear for you, to give you a head start rather than scrolling through page after page of gear. My top deal of the sale is a nice $100 discount on the Universal Audio UAD Guitar Amp Plugin Bundle. It’s got four classic amp tones with Marshall, Vox, and two Fender amp simulations.
I’ve been hands-on with all of these amp sims, and they really are fantastic quality. Plugged into an audio interface, you can get tube-like tones without spending loads, and there are a lot of powerful presets to get you started if you don’t have much experience dialing them in. For me, I love the UA stuff because it’s super simple to use and gets you a great sound quickly.
If you’re recording at home, you’re going to need an audio interface, and the PreSonus Quantum HD 2 is a great option for guitar players. In our PreSonus Quantum HD 2 review, my colleague Pete said, “It’s quite squarely aimed at us guitarists by virtue of its feature set and how the associated blurb reiterates PreSonus’ collaboration with parent company Fender. My approach was to consider this as a guitarist first, and within this context, it impresses.”
I don’t think I can put it better than that! It’s currently got a massive $175 price reduction in the Sweetwater sale, making it even better value for money than it already was.
Finally, I had to pick out a pair of studio monitors. There are some cheap, smaller PreSonus ones on sale, but if you want to blast your guitar at home, a bigger monitor is always better. The KRK Classic 8 is a beast of a monitor with its 8-inch speaker, and will deliver your guitar tones with plenty of punch.
They’re $199 each in the sale with a $50 reduction, so they will cost you less than $400 for a pair, which, if you ask any studio engineer, is really good value. They’ve got 1/4-inch and TRS inputs, so you can connect directly from your multi-effects or amp modeler, and there are controls on the back to adjust the sound if placed close to a wall.
