BBC Radiophonic Workshop

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. Revitalised 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 synthesisers, 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.