So this is exciting. A vst for many of the neat devices at the museum.
7 Likes
A while back I suggested to Sam on Patreon that getting Spitfire in would be a great way of creating a sound pack of the organ - I’m not saying that I caused this collaboration to happen but I’m always happy to take credit for cool things 
3 Likes
I see this as problematic. Spitfire co-founder Christian Henson has gone out of his way to publicly support transphobes J.K. Rowling, Graham Linehan, and Jordan Peterson. Henson has since left Spitfire,* but apparently has never repudiated these people’s transphobia nor apologized for supporting them, and Spitfire has done nothing but deny there’s a problem. I would not support such a company and I am troubled that @lookmumnocomputer evidently does.
* Added: He no longer works for Spitfire, but is still listed as an owner of between 25% and 50% of shares and voting rights SPITFIRE AUDIO HOLDINGS LIMITED persons with significant control - Find and update company information - GOV.UK
5 Likes
yeah thats kinda crappy did not know this . just picked up Sam’s and some other free stuff .
3 Likes
I wasn’t aware of this, thanks for highlighting it. Such a shame, I rather liked Spitfire’s software but this is not on.
4 Likes
It’s indeed unfortunate.
Let’s remember that either way, this sample pack is one of the monthly free drops that Spitfire does for promo: Sam should already have been paid, we’re not taking any revenue away by discussing this openly.
A few months ago I was mentioning how the incident went down on my personal blog (the site is a bit like tumblr, the thread is a back and forth conversation, so I’m linking you to the last reply in the thread that’s on her page):
(I don’t think I ever mentioned I’m trans here, since it was never relevant, but it takes no genius to figure out what’s up)
3 Likes
Also i’d like to clarify what i meant by “it’s unfortunate”: unless you really go digging, this story probably won’t come up. It was heavily astroturfed to make it sound like it was some kinda “Cancel Culture non-issue” (see the link i posted for details). I’d really like to assume good faith & not being aware of this incident being a very big pain point in the tiny trans music producer world.
It’d really hurt getting this invested in the kosmo format so much if that collab happened while fully aware of this story (i have over 15 builds in the format + a pair of pcb releases in the works)
4 Likes
I thought you did early on but anyway… yeah, at least two fairly prominent posters here are trans. And as some smart guy said elsewhere, good luck erasing trans women from the history of synthesis.
8 Likes
i’d prove you wrong on this but yall been saying the word “transistor” so often it entirely poisons the search results to make them entirely unusable for this query
4 Likes
One of my favourite artists is dropping all the spitfire samples in his library and I really respect that. I can’t in good faith use anything they put out now and I’m glad to see other people feel the same. Any small act of ally ship is important right now I think
3 Likes
I barely know these people but they did recently have a joint promotion with the BBC, giving free access to a rather bare-bones set of instrument samples from the BBC Symphony Orchestra.
I heard the labs people from Scotland (i know one) went down quite a while ago for the day to do this. i think they do the free plugins, rest of spitfire is in London. it might had even been last year they said they went. has anyone asked sam? might not be as clear cut.
2 Likes
There’s been some discussion of LMNC and Spitfire on the Fedi (which has somewhat spilled back to here):
2 Likes
Hey up everyone. I can imagine this has annoyed a few folk. It definitely was not my intention. id been speaking to the labs people who are a small office in Scotland who do the free labs instruments, ive chatted with them for over a year about the idea now. They hired the museum for 2 days at the start of the year and came down from Scotland and recorded it all, really nice people 5 of them in total, they were my age and younger. From where I was sat at that time, I was of the opinion christian stepped back and such due to the idiotic actions of what he tweeted, and I was pretty horrified and annoyed by all of that stuff Understandably. The way I see it is its a free instrument just sample it and uninstall it if you want, I don’t get anything out of it more than what they paid to rent out the museum for a couple of days, I just thought it was a cool idea. From my side it had absolutely nothing to do with the situation around christian. Take from this what you will. But if I knew what I know now when talking to them a year ago I would have not done it.
8 Likes
Sam, you have a good record afaik for trans issues and I don’t really think anyone here thinks this was done knowingly. Hell this is the first I knew if it, my wife is trans I am nonbinary, and half on my friends are.
I bring this part up mainly because, no one in my circle knew about this either, but we also don’t travel in synth circles on social media if we go on social media at all. A lot of the trans issues we see are much more serious and direct. That said, I understand ppls worries with how the public responded with the wizard game. It’s my opinion that you, like me, had no idea what some promenant guy at spitfire said or did on social media. Hell I don’t see much chatter on it here or in the discord, and to be honest both have a nonzero and open trans presence (esp the discord).
It would be very hard for me to believe that this was done knowingly, given all of this.
I’ve used spitfires products, I linked this thread. It’s really cruddy this happened overall.
It really is hard to imagine how, with whatsy the history is like, that you’d still encounter folks like that in the industry. It’s wild!
3 Likes
Its interesting how news moves around in circles! Caustic thanks.
Turning it around quickly. to what i’ve seen of the obsolete machines instruments they put together from the sounds they recorded on those days, im surprised that the gameboy megamachine one actually sounds like the gameboys, tbh I didnt know how it was going to sound, also I think the broken sound instruments I think, (I might be wrong) but they were the Jennings univox and I think it stopped working halfway through, it was a while ago I canny remember.
Anyway, I don’t know how it all works but my understanding is its free. if I was you id use it for what its worth, it was not made with any transphobic intentions at all, certainly not from me and i’m confident not from the people who came and recorded it. Take from that what you will.
5 Likes
I’m glad you replied and engaged with the question directly. It’s a bad time for trans rights, where a lot of influential people like Henson use their money or influence to fight our very existence. It leaves a lot of people hurt (it might not be visible, as much of it happens in private channels, like Discord or DMs), and forces others to pick a side, distance themselves from that money or influence, with the risk of attracting a lot of hate no matter what they say.
People are on edge and quick to interpret gestures that might not seem meaningful as indifference or hostility.
7 Likes
I’ve been following this from the sidelines from the outset. I’ve been using Labs from the very beginning - they launched it at the very same time as I started getting interested in music production and here they are, making commercial quality audio available to numpties like me. I’d become aware of Henson on YouTube and found some of his videos really interesting.
Then he spoiled it all. When he “took a step back” I’d hoped he’d do the sort of thing I’d do - examine what it was he’d done to cause the backlash, try to understand the backlash, go out and learn why, re-evaluate. Instead he stewed over it, doubled-down, found answers to the wrong questions.
Over on Red Means Recording, Jeremy did a fantastic job drawing attention to things when he returned, and I’m pretty sure that his video was what made Henson resign as a director. (Because he’d doubled-down, he wasn’t going to apologise in any way. Easier to walk out.) If you’ve not seen the video, please search for it (I’m using my phone so can’t link easily right now); my only complaint is the mispronunciation of Linehan (autism does that).
So the situation Spitfire has found itself in is incredibly awkward. The director who caused problems for them has left, but he still owns half the company. Just as you don’t choose your parents, a company as an entity can’t choose its founders. It would be impossible for staff there to publicly criticise Henson and not expect retribution in some way. I don’t envy them at all, I found myself in a similar situation in 2011 and had to issue a public apology to a director of my employers following legal threats from him… On the upside he got jailed for fraud a few years later for the activities that I’d very loudly hinted at earlier. Karma 
I’m aware I’m rambling, but I think what I’m getting to is Spitfire as an entity is in a hard place. Talented employees are getting burnt but the firestarter has flounced off, and they can’t make much fuss and expect to retain a job.
Now, I’d like to have a brilliant paragraph here about freaks and weirdos sticking together but I can’t get the tone right. Imagine a brilliant paragraph though. I love being a freak and/or weirdo.
In summary, I suggest people use the Spitfire instruments they have to create tracks celebrating trans/non-binary life, because that would annoy Henson. I’d like to make one that sounds like Dot Allison’s Strung Out, because it’s a wonderful synth-driven pop song (and she’s his wife).
7 Likes
Man this community is awesome.
11 Likes