Guitar World deals of the week: save $1,240 on a Gretsch hollow body, get a Player II Strat for its lowest price ever, plus the lowdown on all the best Black Friday guitar deals
Your weekly digest of the best Black Friday gear deals from all corners of the web, hand-picked by Guitar World's experts
- Sweetwater
Huge up to 80% off - Guitar Center:
Thousands of discounts - Musician's Friend:
Save up to 50% - Fender:
Lowest prices ever - Reverb:
Up to 80% off new & used
It's the last weekend before the Black Friday guitar deals officially arrive, so if you want to get ahead of the game, now's the time. With nearly every major retailer launching its full sale this week, there's an incredible amount of deals out there right now, so I'll make this quick.
New for this week, you can grab up to 30% off guitars, accessories, and merch at the Fender Black Friday sale. The real headline of the sale is the lowest price I've ever seen on a Player II guitar, perfect for gigging and recording duties at well below the $600 mark.
Reverb also launched its full sale this week, with a colossal up to 80% off gear. It matches the offer at the Sweetwater sale, and I've spotted some great deals from brands like Gretsch, EHX, Squier, MXR, and plenty more.
With staggering discounts of up to 80% off, the Sweetwater Black Friday sale is still going strong a well worth a browse. You can also bag some awesome savings at Guitar Center, with reductions on guitar gear of up to 40% in their "biggest sale of the year".
Below you'll find a selection of handpicked deals from myself and the Guitar World team, and further down the page there are even more sales for you to look at. I'm also sending all the very best deals straight to your inbox too, so if you want in on the action then go sign up for The Pick: Deals.
My top deals
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Why I ❤️ this deal: It's the lowest price I've ever seen on a Player II guitar.
<p>With a gigantic $252 reduction taking the price down to well below the $600 mark, this Limited Edition Player II <a href="https://www.guitarworld.com/features/best-stratocasters-top-fender-stratocasters-for-every-budget"><u>Stratocaster is an absolutely stonking deal. It’s the lowest price I’ve seen a Player II guitar going for, so if you’re after a super playable and versatile instrument that punches above its weight then this is a great deal to go for. In my Player II Stratocaster review I gave it four and a half stars out of five, praising the vintage tone of the Alnico pickups, the return of rosewood fingerboards, and the effortlessly playable modern ‘C’ profile neck.<p><strong>Read more: <a href="https://www.guitarworld.com/reviews/fender-player-ii-stratocaster-and-telecaster-review"><u><strong>Fender Player II Stratocaster reviewRead moreRead less▼
The Line 6 DL4 MkII is the second iteration of a hugely popular digital modelling delay and looper workstation, and better than the first in practically every way. There’s an XLR-in for vocals, MIDI in, out and thru for digital control, a micro-SD slot for extended memory, USB-C connectivity, new delay models and even a secret reverb mode. This is the 25th Anniversary edition, which trades mint green for a sterling silver colorway (and comes with some limited-edition merch to boot). It’s usually $300, but Reverb’s Black Friday deals continue to confound; you can get it with a huge $120 off. Read our 5-star review.
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Right now you can score the best-value offer of the year on our number one online lessons platform for guitarists. For only $99, you'll get a full access subscription, plus a fantastic beginner bundle, including a custom lesson plan, a beginner bootcamp, the 100 Essential Licks series, a guitar setup guide and loads more. For the full package you'd usually pay $899, but all this works out at just $8.25 per month. Can you put a price on quality education? Actually, you can when it's this cheap.
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This deal was hidden right at the bottom of the page on the Fender website, but precious little gets past me. Packing an SH pickup configuration and a Bigsby B50, this is an absolutely amazing deal with a hefty $157.50 taking the price down to just $367.49. It’s got some really nice retro touches too, with a vintage-tinted gloss neck, double-bound body, and a vintage-inspired headstock design.
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Boss’ Katana 50 is the new benchmark for modern practice amplifiers. It’s got more juice than a Sicilian lemon, more tone than 80s Schwarzenegger, and more versatility than Matthew McConaughey – thanks to its unbelievably-good digital modeling technology, including a Tube Logic modeling system that adds realistic valve-y feel to your chosen tone. Throw in some serious connectivity and you’ve got a beginner-friendly workhorse that’ll see you right through to thousand-cap venues. Read our 4.5-star review.
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For me, this is exactly what we think of when you think of Martin. Its Sitka spruce top paired with sapele back and sides delivers that famous, well-balanced, resonant sound Martin is known for, just at a more wallet-friendly price. Save $150 in the Guitar Center Black Friday sale.
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This used Gretsch Nashville Hollow Body has got a frankly ridiculous $1,240.99 discount in the Reverb Black Friday sales event. From the 12-inch fretboard with rounded edges to the dual PRO-FT Filter'Tron pickups, and of course, that string-thru Bigsby B6GP vibrato, this is a premium instrument through and through.
Guitar sales to shop
Each week I search all the major retailers and manufacturers for the very best sales for guitar players. Here's a list of what's available and where this week.
- Amazon: Black Friday instrument deals
- B&H Photo: Early Bird Holiday deals
- Fender store: Player II Strat lowest price ever
- Gear4Music: Early Black Friday deals are live
- Guitar Center: Up to 40% Black Friday sale
- Guitar Tricks:
$899$99 annual sub - IK Multimedia: Up to $300 off Tonex hardware
- Musician's Friend: Early Black Friday 50% sale
- Native Instruments: Over 50% off UA bundle
- Plugin Boutique: 100s of software savings
- Positive Grid: Up to $50 Spark savings
- Reverb: Black Friday early access
- Sweetwater: Up to 80% off Black Friday sale
- Thomann: Huge Cyber Week savings
- Universal Audio: 12 Days of UAD software sale
- Waves: Huge plugin bundle deals up to 95% off
Upcoming sales
If you're not ready to shop just yet but are looking to save some cash for an upcoming sale, I've got the insider knowledge on which sales are coming up soon. Here's what you should be saving your money for:
- Black Friday guitar deals 2025 - The biggest sale of the year will be here soon, falling on the last weekend of November. This year, the timing means that lots of people will be getting paid on Black Friday itself, which could make it the biggest one yet. It also means that there won't be many days between Black Friday and Christmas as there has been previously, making it essential to get your orders in early!
Top products
Part of my job is looking after all the buying guides here at Guitar World, which gives me a unique oversight as to which products are hot right now. Every week I look at what's getting the most clicks from our buying guides and list the top five products for you here.
Our clever widget sorts them by price and automatically picks up if there's a discount at a particular retailer, doing a lot of the hard work for me! If you're looking to see what other guitarists are interested in and get the cheapest possible price, then this is the place to start your search.
Why trust me?
You may be wondering, why should I trust what this random dude on the internet says? Well, allow me to introduce myself. I'm Matt McCracken and I've been playing guitar for well over twenty years. In that time I've gigged all over the UK, recorded in professional studios, bought and sold countless guitars, amps, and pedals, spent 5 years working in music retail for Dawsons Music and Northwest Guitars, and now I handle all things gear for Guitar World.
I am a guitar player first and foremost, and the reason I do this job is that I genuinely love all things gear. When I'm not working my day job, you'll find me in the rehearsal room with my band, helming the desk at my local studio working with other musicians, or writing new songs and testing gear in my home studio.
The main focus of my job is to test and research gear for our buying guides and reviews here, whether it's demoing the latest pedal release with my band, diving into the technical side of audio interfaces, or putting guitar cables head-to-head in group tests to determine which is the best. It gives me a great overview on what gear is out there right now, and unlike a lot of content you find online, I've actually had my hands on the gear I write about.
I'm also responsible for finding the best possible deals on gear for our readers, covering all the major sales events of the year like Memorial Day, Prime Day, Labor Day, and of course, the Black Friday guitar deals. I track prices of all the most popular gear throughout the year, so I know straight away whether or not a saving is the real deal or a dishonest retailer trying to pull the wool over your eyes.
How I choose deals
To determine whether or not a deal is worthy of inclusion in deals of the week it has to pass a few different hurdles. I'll ask myself the following questions about any deal before I decide whether or not to include it:
- Is the product genuinely good value for money?
- Is the discount amount real or has the RRP been inflated?
- Would guitarists benefit from having this particular piece of gear in their rig?
- If I've not had hands on experience with the gear, do I have a recommendation from a fellow staff member or musician?
I have various tools I can use to check prices if I've not been tracking it, like camelcamelcamel which can track the price of a product on Amazon. Generally because I'm looking at this stuff every week, I already have a good overview of what the product should cost.
Shopping tips
1. Consider your music goals - What do you want to achieve with your music over the next 12 months or so? Do you want to gig more? Learn a new instrument? Or finally, record your songs? Now could be the time to invest in gear that helps you fulfil your musical aspirations.
2. Create a wishlist early - The most sensible way to take advantage of any gear deals is to know in advance what you’re looking for. This will make searching much easier, rather than having to trawl through loads of deals you don’t want to find the ones you do, or pondering things you don't need. To help you create your dream shopping list, take the time to explore our expert and up-to-date buying guides and reviews.
3. Work out what you actually need - Check out your favourite brands, see what you need and will genuinely use - don’t waste your cash and fill your basket with stuff that will never truly see any action.
4. Streamline your current gear - Something else you should consider ahead of time is whether you have enough space in your collection for new gear. Could you offload some gear you don't use to make room and generate funds for some new gear?
5. Sign up to mailing lists - In addition to bookmarking this page, we'd recommend signing up to mailing lists of your favourite retailers now to get the jump on the best deals when they do come around.
Over to you
Spotted a deal that I missed? Drop me a line in the comments below and if it's still live I'll drop the best ones deal into next week's Deals of the Week.
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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 Thomann’s 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.
- Chris Barnes
- Daryl RobertsonSenior Deals Writer
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