Alright…let’s talk about Spitfire.
By now I’m sure you’ve seen the news from the past week or so.
Spitfire Audio has been bought by Splice.
After an initial round of rumors leading up to the announcement, it was officially confirmed on April 28th. And I’ve been seeing a HUGE amount of negative backlash online.
I didn’t know much about Splice before the sale other than name recognition and that they focus more on music production.
I’ve been a Spitfire user for years and have SO many of their libraries. So this news is definitely still a huge shock for me.
There’s this cognitive dissonance because I just wouldn’t have made the connection between Splice and Spitfire.
I’ve seen a ton of people comment on the news and it’s pretty wild.
Practically speaking, it’s hard to jump to any immediate conclusions…because they really haven’t told us much about the acquisition.
They’ve released an article with some FAQs and a conversation between Splice’s CEO Kakul Srivastava and Spitfire’s co-founder Paul Thompson.
But I’m still not really sure what this means for new and existing customers. The announcement left a lot more questions than answers.
On a surface level, nothing really changes yet.
From what I can tell from their FAQ page and comments in general, they want to try and keep their existing user base through this transition period.
So our perpetual libraries should still work fine!
But if their pricing model changes in the future, I’m curious how much they’ll be pushing existing users to adopt a subscription model.
From what I saw, Splice has a credit based subscription system.
So instead of paying for the full catalog, you pay for credits that you can apply to certain sample downloads.
I see it kind as the arcade model…
Pay for tokens.
Play X number of games at different values.
Now, I’m by no means saying this is the plan for Spitfire or if they plan on moving to a subscription based model yet.
But we’ve already seen Spitfire turn free Labs into a paid Labs+ subscription.
So I can’t help but wonder if that’s the direction they want to go.
This is also one of the questions and answers from their website:
What about pricing, will anything change?
"No immediate changes are planned. Both companies will continue to develop new products and pricing models, and we’ll always communicate any updates in advance."
"No immediate changes are planned"... which is great (for a transition period.)
I’m sure neither company wants to rock the boat even further after this news.
But Splice is a massive, for-profit company with accountability to its shareholders.
Spitfire might have some creative leeway but ultimately, Splice will do what it needs to in order to make sure the Spitfire purchase is profitable...
That includes possibly incorporating "ethical AI" into Spitfire libraries or even the standalone plugin.
Now I don't want to fall into the AI rabbit hole but I personally don't see a place for it in my libraries. And I don't think by just adding the word "ethical" before AI actually makes it ethical.
So we'll have to see what ethical AI means for Spitfire products.
After sitting with the news for the past week, this entire move still just feels off.
I’ve felt for a while that Spitfire has been struggling with its identity. It used to be clear who they were making products for.
But it’s gotten harder to define over time.
Their product line has grown more and more complex over the past few years and this buyout by a large company like Splice doesn't exactly feel like they’re connecting with their core audience.
The thing is, I still do really enjoy using their libraries that I own.
But for now, as we wait and see what this acquisition actually looks like, I think it’s a good idea to take stock of what you currently own and genuinely need.
Before jumping on their new releases or a potential subscription, really evaluate if it serves your current workflow and creative goals.
It might be a good time to master the tools you already have instead of immediately investing in a future that still feels very much up in the air!
And that’s exactly the kind of thing I talk about in this video below!
I’m excited to know your thoughts on this whole situation!
