Spitfire business things

[Mike Greene]

This is a tough topic to discuss fully if we have to ignore the elephant in the room ("the tweet"), which obviously impacts Spitfire's current situation. (For those unfamiliar with the backstory, this thread explains Christian's tweet and what led to his departure at Spitfire, and this thread is a more updated discussion.) Debate on the tweet and its aftermath is obviously pure trouble for a forum, so I haven't been allowing it, other than some very controlled discussion in the above two threads.

I can understand people being upset that I don't allow debate on Christian's tweet here, though, since it's clearly such an important element to the current Spitfire business situation. So for this thread, I'll allow everyone one post about the tweet/drama aspects of this. If you already posted in this thread about it, then that counts as your one post.

Posts about Spitfire and their business plans are still okay, of course.

 

[Guy Rowland]

I think that Spitfire has perhaps suffered more than many from the boom then bust of demand relating to Covid and economic malaise, together with Brexit.

It sorta boggles my mind that Spitfire can sustain 40 employees. Being cheeky, doubly so given their poor QC - though perhaps the exceptional marketing explains a lot of things.

The AR series sounds perfectly nice and I like some of the programming choices, but with the best will in the world it's very hard to not say "here we go again".

Following a tip-off from Jay, I spent a little more time with my under-used HOOPUS recently, and discovered how fabulous the Sordino mode is. Spent a few hours to get their weird patch configuration working for me and then locked into the template, and it's like having a brand new - and extremely good - library.

Spitfire's catch-phrase has been "freshen your pallete" for years. It's a pretty luxurious idea in a time of economic hardship, isn't it? How many of us need the entire orchestra yet again, with some terrific plusses and a fair few minuses? Multiply the cost of the AR violins by all the other instruments in the orchestra, and you get to a pretty staggerng sum. With value offerings like Musio in the marketplace, along with the much-discussed loss of one of the two creative forces, I can't help thinking tough times are ahead for Spitfire.

Or maybe they're massively smarter than me with that shit-hot marketing team.

 

[Evans]

This is my one post about the tweet.

 

[JohnG]

I love the Spitfire libraries I bought, almost without exception. The one blooper -- they even wrote and warned me -- is the LABS Crumhorn, since discontinued, for which I think you got free for making a charitable donation of £5 or something.

The Whitacre Choir, orchestras, the niche libraries -- I use them all the time (along with products from just about everybody else).

I am baffled by the insinuations and almost conspiratorial gossip, particularly when it emanates from competitors or those with other affiliations. It seems unkind and mostly uninformed. Spitfire make great stuff and I hope they will carry on. Businesses go through things, so do people. I wish them all well.

[note: I have received free products from Spitfire]

 

[Thundercat]

Anybody who knows cannot tell about it so this is gonna be a thread full of guesses.

What decent thread isn’t?

If a thread isn’t chock full of misinformation, speculation, lies, the occasional food fight and mysterious deleted posts, tantrums, arguments of every kind, and very occasionally, news of a sale, then it doesn’t live up to the usual standards around here that we are so we’ll known for.

Poor Mike G

 

[ALittleNightMusic]

It sorta boggles my mind that Spitfire can sustain 40 employees. Being cheeky, doubly so given their poor QC - though perhaps the exceptional marketing explains a lot of things.

The AR series sounds perfectly nice and I like some of the programming choices, but with the best will in the world it's very hard to not say "here we go again".

Following a tip-off from Jay, I spent a little more time with my under-used HOOPUS recently, and discovered how fabulous the Sordino mode is. Spent a few hours to get their weird patch configuration working for me and then locked into the template, and it's like having a brand new - and extremely good - library.

Spitfire's catch-phrase has been "freshen your pallete" for years. It's a pretty luxurious idea in a time of economic hardship, isn't it? How many of us need the entire orchestra yet again, with some terrific plusses and a fair few minuses? Multiply the cost of the AR violins by all the other instruments in the orchestra, and you get to a pretty staggerng sum. With value offerings like Musio in the marketplace, along with the much-discussed loss of one of the two creative forces, I can't help thinking tough times are ahead for Spitfire.

Or maybe they're massively smarter than me with that shit-hot marketing team.

I think you’re missing the forest for the trees. Spitfire’s customer base goes FAR beyond people that “need a full orchestra again”. Hell, they’re integrated into Ableton and LUNA. And producers in many other genres are always looking for new sounds for their palettes.

 

[Guy Rowland]

I think you’re missing the forest for the trees. Spitfire’s customer base goes FAR beyond people that “need a full orchestra again”. Hell, they’re integrated into Ableton and LUNA. And producers in many other genres are always looking for new sounds for their palettes.

Fair point, not everyone is in the market for their prestige ranges. But genre-wise, cinematic is very much Spitfire's thing, right? Not many guitars, basses, drums, beats and soft synths. Which leaves sound design and orchestral, both of which is very well covered. Not quite sure that more-of-the-same is going to sustain that boom we've all seen.

 

[Trash Panda]

I believe @Mike Greene when he said the below.

First, I know Christian, and to suggest he is transphobic is ridiculous. Absolutely ridiculous. Nothing he wrote (or ever wrote) denied transgender validity, rights, or challenges. He merely expressed an opinion that many left leaning people, many of whom are trans themselves, have agreed with. (As a leftie myself, with a studio next to the LGBT Center, I've heard these discussions.)

That being said, Christian handled things in a manner that can only be described as pure buffoonery.

The smart move would have been to either on his own, or with consulting with a PR firm, to get the right messaging out there to clear up that he is indeed not transphobic, nor subscribes to every belief of the human catastrophes that are JK Rowling and Graham Linehan espouse.

Why he chose the path of allowing the publicly held belief to fester that he is transphobic and believes that autistic people aren't capable of their own autonomy is known only to him. But it was a dumbass move that impacted not only for himself, but his company, coworkers, friends and family members who had to deal with the fallout.

I'll leave it with the above and previous stance:

Moral of the story: Be careful what you put out into the world. More importantly, be careful how you handle the response to it.

Thousands of people every day lose their livelihoods over stupid shit they say or share on the internet. Whether it's posting on Facebook/Twitter/Instagram about doing drugs, underaged drinking, other misdemeanors/felonies, or amplifying messages that are/can be interpreted as hate speech.

It's there forever in some form or fashion and one day it might fall into the hands of someone who makes decisions that can have a very real impact on your life. It might be your HR department. It might be an activist group or influencer. It might be a media mogul, their financiers, their mouthpieces, a politician or some combination of these.

It does not matter if you are some random person, a celebrity or the face of a brand. Unless you're a billionaire with enough liquidity to live off your bank account(s) while filing SLAPPs to your heart's content, you are equally accountable as anyone else.

Cancel culture isn't real. Consequences for your words and actions are.

Play stupid games, win stupid prizes.

 

[Henrik B. Jensen]

I know @Spitfire Team are busy with Abbey Road Modular, but it beats me why they haven’t recorded and released Appassionata Strings Pro with short articulations & so on to make it a full standalone string library.

My impression upon launch was that pretty much everybody loved Appassionata Strings so making an expansion would seem like a complete no-brainer.

Maybe the new CEO will make it happen, who knows!

 

[Aitcpiano]

Fair point, not everyone is in the market for their prestige ranges. But genre-wise, cinematic is very much Spitfire's thing, right? Not many guitars, basses, drums, beats and soft synths. Which leaves sound design and orchestral, both of which is very well covered. Not quite sure that more-of-the-same is going to sustain that boom we've all seen.

I agree with this. It kinda feels like more of the same to me as well and I've lost complete interest in the ARO.

 

[The Gost]

A falling tree makes more noise than a growing forest.

 

[MaxOctane]

It sorta boggles my mind that Spitfire can sustain 40 employees. Being cheeky, doubly so given their poor QC - though perhaps the exceptional marketing explains a lot of things.

The AR series sounds perfectly nice and I like some of the programming choices, but with the best will in the world it's very hard to not say "here we go again".

Spitfire's catch-phrase has been "freshen your pallete" for years. It's a pretty luxurious idea in a time of economic hardship, isn't it? How many of us need the entire orchestra yet again, with some terrific plusses and a fair few minuses?

I've always felt there's a fundamental misunderstanding on VI-C on what the Spitfire model is.

I don't think they really expect people to own SCS, SSO, AROOF, BH, HZS, ARO, all the Albions, etc. Spitfire will keep pumping out libraries to keep the lineup fresh and relevant. Look how dated the early walkthrough videos from 2016-2018 look compared to today's -- ancient!

And working composers think that the tools are for them. Well, they are, sure... but even that is part of the dream that Spitfire is selling to the masses. To the casual buyers (and there are a lot of Macbook owners out there) who must be driving Spitfire's revenue, it's not "here we go again" because they're just buying whatever is on front page.

 

[thereus]

When CH left, undoubtedly Spitfire lost a lot of their mojo. He knew how to connect with the community, had a passionate way about him that got others excited, and understood that giving musicians tools for free would help turn them into longtime customers and supporters - even outside of the usual orchestral / media composing cohort. I think all three of these elements have taken a big hit since his departure.

But on the other hand, Spitfire still is the best positioned sample company to continue to lead the market - in these areas and in products (and thereby, revenue). Their catalog is extensive, they are reaching lots of different types of musicians, they “own” Abbey Road and AIR for the foreseeable future (from a sampling standpoint), Paul is still there to help drive a vision, etc. Nobody else is really close - not OT, not VSL, not NI, not EW. It’s Spitfire’s game to lose…

Not to discuss The Event itself, but I expect that it had a negligible effect on sales. We're in a tiny group of people who know and care who the founders are for these products, and pay attention to what's happening behind the scenes. But Spitfire didn't grow to 40+ employees from sales to VI-C users and people who live in this sample culture. It's the tens of thousands of random people messing around on their laptops who drop a couple hundred bucks once or twice a year to try being a composer.

This is a tough topic to discuss fully if we have to ignore the elephant in the room ("the tweet"), which obviously impacts Spitfire's current situation. (For those unfamiliar with the backstory, this thread explains Christian's tweet and what led to his departure at Spitfire, and this thread is a more updated discussion.) Debate on the tweet and its aftermath is obviously pure trouble for a forum, so I haven't been allowing it, other than some very controlled discussion in the above two threads.

I can understand people being upset that I don't allow debate on Christian's tweet here, though, since it's clearly such an important element to the current Spitfire business situation. So for this thread, I'll allow everyone one post about the tweet/drama aspects of this. If you already posted in this thread about it, then that counts as your one post.

Posts about Spitfire and their business plans are still okay, of course.

As the OP, I can't think of anything more disrupting to what I wanted us to get at than more talk of the tweet or of its moral implications, so I strongly agree with Mike Green and would like this to be a thread about SA's business and how apparent or possie changes in focus might alter the trajectory of the tools they make available and that we use. There's Reddit for the other stuff. Christian Henson will do his thing elsewhere and that can be discussed in other threads - sometimes frontmen go solo. I want us instead to think about the money spent on SA tools and where those tools might go given where they are as a company.

 

[Bee_Abney]

I've always felt there's a fundamental misunderstanding on VI-C on what the Spitfire model is.

I don't think they really expect people to own SCS, SSO, AROOF, BH, HZS, ARO, all the Albions, etc. Spitfire will keep pumping out libraries to keep the lineup fresh and relevant. Look how dated the early walkthrough videos from 2016-2018 look compared to today's -- ancient!

And working composers think that the tools are for them. Well, they are, sure... but even that is part of the dream that Spitfire is selling to the masses. To the casual buyer (and there are a lot of Macbook owners out there) that must be driving Spitfire's revenue, it's not "here we go again" because they're just buying whatever is on front page.

I do agree up to a point. They are also targeting people who buy lots of libraries, especially with different libraries for different use cases. But some of Christian's videos were very clear about, for example, Core may be all you need and which Albion to get (as in, not all of them).

The 'dream... selling' part is a part of their business model that is least attractive yet most effective. When my mental illness is bad I can easily be talked into buying things I don't have a use for. And so I have a lot of Spitfire libraries that are wrong for me! Not that my illness is their fault, of course.

If they weren't a commercial business (albeit one with some ethical policies regarding the musicians), then they might do better to spend more time on correcting problems or updating the programming of older libraries. ProjectSAM and EastWest have different business models, and they have both spent considerable resources upgrading libraries that had the potential to be greatly improved.

Spitfire have very much been chasing the amateur and aspirant market. And the mixture of free libraries, cheap libraries (that conspicuously lack legato...) and tutorial videos play to that market. It does something nice and good; but which is also great marketing. And new releases rather than improved old ones are probably better placed to reach this audience.

Part of their business model has been short term customers. If you sell to beginners, you have to keep new libraries coming to make each generation feel the full excitement of something new. And, if you sell to beginners, many won't last long before moving on to do other things. So, why fix things on old products?

So, I guess, I'm broadly agreeing but with a bit more annoyance than you!

 

[Nico5]

… the dream that Spitfire is selling to the masses

The 'dream... selling' part is a part of their business model that is least attractive yet most effective.

I don’t think the music technology business would exist in its current size without selling to the dreamers.

That being said, while I dreamt of public stardom in my teenage years, this got replaced by the pure joy of learning and discovery around the music making process.

 

[Henrik B. Jensen]

Off the top of my head I can remember big, free updates for BBCSO and HZS.

SSS got several updates as well (bug fixes etc.)

I’m sure if I’d been paying more attention to it, I could list more libraries that have gotten updates throughout the years.

 

[Bee_Abney]

Off the top of my head I can remember big, free updates for BBCSO and HZS.

SSS got several updates as well (bug fixes etc.)

I’m sure if I’d been paying more attention to it, I could list more libraries that have gotten updates throughout the years.

It may be better than rumours suggest. I haven't had such benefits with any of my libraries, even though some of them would benefit from it considerably. I also suspect that what ProjectSAM and EastWest have done is more extensive. But that may be a bit apples and oranges.

 

[thereus]

One thing they do seem to have been very good at doing to date is understanding their customers and the likely journeys through the product catalogue that those customers might take and how to help them keep taking the next step. It's a well oiled machine that is pretty unique. There are a lot of changes about: economic, technological, market maturity, competitive, buyouts and VC investments, etc. I wonder how those things effects the model.

 

[Aitcpiano]

If they weren't a commercial business (albeit one with some ethical policies regarding the musicians), then they might do better to spend more time on correcting problems or updating the programming of older libraries. ProjectSAM and EastWest have different business models, and they have both spent considerable resources upgrading libraries that had the potential to be greatly improved.

OT have also been spending much more time improving/porting over their main libraries while still releasing further ranges but not going on to half abandoning there main orchestra range (berlin series) Also VSL are not releasing multiple orchestras but instead releasing one full on orchestral range (synchron) and improving upon that. Spitfire now have SSO, SStO and then BBCSO Pro and have now moved straight on to another full modular orchestra. I would have been much more engaged with spitfire and optimistic if they had decided to spend a little more time and resources on instead updating there other main orchestral lines (SSO, SStO + BBCSO Pro) than releasing yet another one.

 

[Aitcpiano]

Off the top of my head I can remember big, free updates for BBCSO and HZS.

SSS got several updates as well (bug fixes etc.)

I’m sure if I’d been paying more attention to it, I could list more libraries that have gotten updates throughout the years.

True, however, BBCSO was terrible on release! Legatos were crap and I had some serious issues such as audio blasts of sound. The legato update and updates over that first year were essentially things that needed updating. The legato update was welcoming and did significantly improve the library.