Spitfire Audio BBC Radiophonic Workshop is a new, inspiring virtual instrument that allows you to explore electronic music history.

The beginnings of electronic music date back to the 1950s and 1960s. A central place in the history of today’s electronic music is the BBC Radiophonic Workshop, where many pioneers, such as Daphne Oram, Delia Derbyshire, and others, worked.

The BBC has opened the sacred treasure, the archive 58 years after it was founded by Daphne Oram. Spitfire Audio has teamed up with the BBC to create an extensive virtual instrument that gives musicians the sounds from the BBC Radiophonic Workshop for the DAW.

BBC Radiophonic Workshop is a new virtual instrument that runs in the Solar plugin for macOS and Windows. Spitfire Audio has captured the archive and made it available to musicians in a long-standing, close collaboration between the BBC and the Radiophonic team.

It allows musicians to enter this world and explore the iconic sounds without being in the historic premises. The new instrument features an immaculately sampled collection of vintage synthesizers, tape loops, junk percussion, found sounds, iconic archives, and brand-new performances from the members.
On the synth side, you can find sounds from the legendary EMS VCS3, Roland System 100 modular synth, Roland Vocoder SVC-350, EMS Vocoder, or the ARP Odyssey.

Instrument patches have been created from the massive catalog of sounds you can play chromatically in your DAW. Each Solar engine-powered patch offers two layers (A+B) with dedicated per-layer controls, including volume, pitch, filter, ADSR envelope and more. There is also a gate sequencer, effects, and more. Selecting a source per layer allows you easily to create custom patches with new combinations.

The Spitfire Audio BBC Radiophonic Workshop library/plugin covers various sounds, from bass drones and percussive loops to avant-garde special effects. Of course, sounds from Doctor Who cannot be missed.

First Impression

Thumbs up for doing this work with the BBC. It’s another quality Spitfire audio instrument. Anyone strongly associated with these historical sounds or looking for them for their production could get a lovely treasure trove of unique sounds here.

Spitfire Audio BBC Radiophonic Workshop is available now for an introductory price of 143€ instead of 179€ until March 17, 2025. It runs as a library in the Spitfire Solar plugin.

More information here: www.spitfireaudio.com/bbc-radiophonic-workshop