The BBC’s iconic Radiophonic Workshop, which created the music and effects for TV series such as Doctor Who, The Goon Show, Blake’s 7, and The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, has been resurrected.
In its heyday, the Workshop created both the TARDIS’s iconic “vworp-vworp” engine, and the Daleks’ voice.
BBC Studios and Spitfire Audio have joined forces to make the archive available for use by content creators.
Spitfire Audio worked with Radiophonic Workshop archivist Mark Ayers to create a library of sounds from the original tapes, as well as new recordings and experiments by Workshop members and associates.
“I’m the youngest member of the core Radiophonic Workshop – and I’m 64! We’re not going to be around forever,” said Ayers. “It was really important to leave a creative tool, inspired by our work, for other people to use going forward. I hope we’ve made an instrument that will inspire future generations.
“This instrument is all formed from the work, processes and equipment that the Workshop created and used. You know, sampling now really looks like sampling then, but with a few more twiddles. I’ve been saying for years that Workshop composers such as Delia Derbyshire and John Baker were really samplists.”
Key features that have been made available include:
- Authentic sounds from the BBC Radiophonic Workshop archives
- Deeply sampled one-shots, loops, and multi-samples
- New recordings and experiments by Workshop members and associates
- Spitfire Audio’s SOLAR engine with gate sequencer and vast effects suite
- Wide range of sounds, including archival content, found sounds, junk percussion, tape loops, and vintage synthesisers
- 13 different signal chains used for sound capture
The archive is available in Spitfire Audio’’s Solar engine with creatives given access to a variety of microphones, the EMT turntable and Rogers loudspeakers made especially for the BBC, including the Maida Vale plate and spring reverbs, modular synthesizers, tape machines, EMS Vocoder, Echo chamber, Roland Vocoder SVC-350 and Eventide H-3000.
Dominic Walker, global business director for BBC Studios said: “We are thrilled to be collaborating once again with Spitfire Audio in bringing the legendary sounds of the BBC Radiophonic Workshop to a new generation…with this valuable online library”.
