Spitfire Audio BBC Radiophonic Workshop
Sound Design Virtual Instrument
Electronic Music History, Reimagined
For 40 years, the BBC Radiophonic Workshop was the place to go for the sound of the impossible - the unruly engine behind the music and effects of Doctor Who, the Goon Show, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, and countless other BBC productions.
It was a place of other worlds, and of other sounds.
Reanimating this abundant legacy, the essence of the BBC Radiophonic Workshop is now available for the first time - with unprecedented access to its home: London's Maida Vale studios.
Dive into an immaculately sampled collection of vintage synthesisers, tape loops, iconic archives and brand new performances from Workshop members.
Revitalized with Spitfire's Solar engine, this library passes the torch from the most forward-thinking minds of early electronic music on to the next generation of producers.
While there are instruments in this library that are created from sampling the archival tapes of the Workshop, the human connection has been maintained.
The found sounds and early synths that were deployed by the Workshop are realised here with new performances and patches from remaining members of the Workshop including Peter Howell, Paddy Kingsland, Roger Limb, Glynis Jones and Dick Mills with Mark Ayres and new collaborators including Kieron Pepper (once live drummer for The Prodigy) and Bob Earland.
Preserving a unique period in the history of British electronic music (1958-1968), but offering an instrument for the future, BBC Radiophonic Workshop takes the early form of sampling pioneered by composers such as Delia Derbyshire, Desmond Briscoe, John Baker and Daphne Oram and brings it up to date with the cutting edge techniques of library creation Spitfire Audio is known for.
Vintage synthesizers, treasure-trove tape archives, found objects and performances from Workshop members are now available under the hood of Spitfire Audio’s state-of-the-art Solar engine.
The Workshop was a place where tape loops ran around the block and solos were played on lampshades; a laboratory with a forest of wires, tape machines, and unique inspirations.
Producers came for the sounds of "A halo of bees", "An unbearable alien shriek", "A machine singing to itself" or "The voice of a living planet" and left with some of the most original electronic sounds of the era.
The Workshop gave Doctor Who's TARDIS its engine, and terrified a gleeful generation of children who would hide behind the sofa while the voices of Daleks filled their living rooms.
"In another 20, 50 years, music that people have made with this collection might itself become a new onward tool," says Mark.
Spitfire were guided through the labyrinthine archives of the BBC Radiophonic Workshop by composer, sound designer and Workshop archivist Mark Ayres - who has worked on Doctor Who and many other productions.
Along with other members of the Workshop who are alive today and still gigging under the Workshop's name, Mark has overseen a deeply sampled exploration of this other-worldy collection.
New patches and performances on precious EMS VCS 3 synths, choirs of the lampshades Delia Derbyshire famously sampled and composed with, Skeleton Guitars, tape loops... and more.
System Requirements
- MacOS 11 Big Sur and above
- Officially supported up to MacOS 15 Sequoia
- Windows 10 and above (64-bit only)
- Intel, AMD, or Apple Silicon CPU
- 8GB RAM or more (16GB or more recommended)
- 28GB free storage space
- Includes 2 activations per license
Plugin Formats
AAX Native, AU, VST2, and VST3
User Manual
