Guitar World deals of the week: get $300 off a signature Gretsch hollowbody, save big on a Digitech Whammy, plus all the best back-to-school sales
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Welcome back to Deals of the Week, your one-stop shop for all the best guitar gear deals available on the ‘net. This week, we’re firmly into back-to-school territory, and before you groan, just remember you don’t actually have to be going back to school to take advantage of some great deals on gear.
Nearly every major retailer has a sale on at the moment, which is great news for guitarists, but the best sale outright for me is the Musician’s Friend Summer Sale, with some nice discounts of up to 40% off on over 8,000 items.
The next best offering for me is over at Positive Grid, where you can get some decent discounts on their full range of smart amps. My personal favorite, the Spark Mini, has got a nice discount, as have Spark 2, Spark Go, and Spark Live, so there’s something for every kind of guitar player here.
Over at Fender, I spotted some nice deals on a selection of Paramount acoustics, including a resonator and a mandolin, if you fancy diving into some folk instruments. There are also still deals on the Ultra Luxe guitars, and some cool reductions on official Fender parts if you fancy upgrading your guitar.
The Sweetwater Back to School sale features savings of up to 35% off, but unfortunately, it’s pretty slim pickings for guitar players. I spotted a couple of NUX tuners, a Boss metronome, and a Black Lion audio interface, but that’s your lot. Still, if you’re in the market for some orchestral gear, there’s some really good savings available.
It’s a similar story with the Guitar Center Back To School sale, where the vast majority of the discounts are on pro audio, drums, and accessories. It’s slightly better pickings than the Sweetwater sale, though. I spotted some deals on Positive Grid smart amps, Beyerdynamic headphones, Xvive wireless kits, some Electro-Harmonix pedals, and a small selection of acoustic guitars.
That’s your lot for this week. Below, you’ll find my handpicked selection of deals from all the sales this week. I’m expecting back-to-school sales to continue til mid to late August, so the search for guitar gear might be a little more difficult than usual. Rest assured, I’ll be searching out the best gear from all over the web regardless, and putting the biggest savings right here for you.
Editor’s picksGuitar sales to shopAmazon: Save big on accessoriesFender store: Money off acousticsGuitar Center: Big back-to-school saleGuitar Tricks: 1 month for $1IK Multimedia: Save on softwareMusician’s Friend: Up to 40% off summer salePlugin Boutique: Huge plugin discountsReverb: B-stock bargainsSweetwater: Save on back-to-schoolThomann: The hottest dealsTrueFire: Save 60% on all-accessWaves: Buy two plugins, get one freeHow we choose our deals of the weekHere at Guitar World, we are experts in our field, with many years of playing and product testing between us. We live and breathe everything guitar related, and we draw on this knowledge and experience of using products in live, recording and rehearsal scenarios when selecting the products we recommend.
First and foremost, we are guitarists, and we want to match other players with the right products for them, at the best prices.
For us to recommend a deal it has to be a product we rate thatās a genuinely great price or part of a truly fantastic bundle. Itās also important that we only recommend retailers where you will have a positive shopping experience.
Why you can trust our choicesWe spend a lot of our time scouring guitar retailers for fantastic deals on our favorite gear. Not only is it our job to research and recommend the best gear in our buyerās guides, but weāre also dedicated to helping players get the best deals for the gear they need, too. After all, the only thing better than new gear day is a hearty discount.
We cover a lot of the big sales events throughout the year, including Memorial Day, Black Friday, 4th of July sales and Amazon Prime Day, and we have a good view on which products are likely to receive the biggest discounts and when, the prices theyāve been in the past and which deals are genuinely worth a look.
Where are the best places to shop?Online shopping is definitely a lot easier and more secure than it used to be, and we like to recommend a small handful of online retailers who have a sterling reputation and offer fantastic benefits like fuss-free returns, great customer service and, in some cases, full checks and setup of guitars before they are dispatched. So, all the deals weāll recommend on this page are from retailers that tick these boxes.
What sort of deals should I look for?Great deals come in all shapes and sizes. There are a few key types to look out for:
Single item – A single product with a great discountSite-wide discounts – A single discount percentage on a large range of products across a siteDiscount codes – Load your basket to a certain value and redeem a discount code for money off your basket contentsAdded value deals – These include multi-buy discounts, or additional products or software for free when you buy certain items
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Matt is a Junior Deals Writer here at Guitar World. He regularly tests and reviews music gear with a focus on guitars, amps, pedals, modelers, and pretty much anything else guitar-related. Matt worked in music retail for 5 years at Dawsons Music and Northwest Guitars and has written for various music sites including MusicRadar, Guitar Player, Guitar.com, Ultimate Guitar, and Thomannās t.blog. A regularly gigging guitarist with over 20 years of experience playing live and writing and recording in bands, he’s performed everything from jazz to djent, gigging all over the country in more dingy venues than you can shake a drop-tuned guitar at.
