d16 PunchBox 2: What's New and Is It Worth It?
d16 PunchBox 2 adds a wavetable engine, four sound generators, and over 1,100 presets to the kick-design plugin. Here's what's new and the price today.
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d16 Group released PunchBox 2, a major update to its dedicated kick-drum design plugin. The headline change is a new wavetable engine that sits alongside the original synthesis and sampling layers.
What's new in d16 PunchBox 2?
PunchBox has always been a kick-focused instrument rather than a general synth, and version 2 deepens that focus. The engine now runs four independent sound generators: three sample layers plus a main kick generator. The new wavetable mode expands the tonal palette well beyond the classic emulation-and-sample approach of version 1.
Routing is handled by a flexible patchbay with ten unique configurations, so you can re-order how the generators and effects feed each other. The FX chain holds four re-orderable effects plus a Mono Bass stage and a Master Limiter, which matters for keeping low end tight and mono-compatible. A multi-stage envelope system drives parameter modulation, and a creative randomizer generates new kicks fast.
The factory content is large: 1,119 master presets, 1,505 factory samples, 241 kick presets, 66 wavetables, and dedicated bitcrusher and distortion preset banks. Presets come from sound designers Sounds of Revolution and CFA-Sound. Drag-and-drop export sends a finished kick straight into your DAW.
Is d16 PunchBox 2 worth it?
The case for PunchBox 2 is speed. Building a layered kick by hand — a sub, a click, a body, plus saturation and a limiter — takes time and a tidy routing setup. PunchBox 2 packages that workflow, and the wavetable engine adds tones a sample-and-synth kick can't reach on its own.
If you only need an occasional kick, a free drum synth will do. PunchBox 2 makes sense for producers in kick-driven genres — techno, hardstyle, trap, house — who design low end constantly and want a clean Mono Bass stage and limiter built in. The deep preset library also makes it a fast starting point rather than a blank canvas.
How much does d16 PunchBox 2 cost?
PunchBox 2 launched at a promotional price of €79, down from a regular €99. It runs as VST2, VST3, AU, and AAX (64-bit). macOS support spans OS X 10.13 through macOS 26 on Intel and Apple Silicon; Windows 7 or later is supported on x86 hosts.
You can check current pricing at Plugin Boutique.
