early in the piece for Bottega and this helped us see how our sample creation impacted the rest of the music and more importantly how it could compliment and strengthen everything around it . Grant and I have always had a huge respect for Tenni ’ s ear and his producing capacity and being such good friends , it was a no-brainer for Tenni ’ s contribution to result in him becoming the third member of Bottega .
So , while we would consider Bottega ’ s drum sample packs all being sounds that show awareness of their sonic surroundings , we have delved into the distinctly tonal world with our newest sample pack , “ Asterial ”, which is Tenni ’ s brainchild . “ Asterial ” is an incredibly rich and interesting ambience and textures pack split into five broader timbres . We feel this is a pack that ’ s as important as it is helpful knowing it will drastically improve the quality of ambience for users just as it speeds up their workflow .
[ WM ] How would you use “ Asterial ” alongside your keys rig in a live worship setting ?
[ Benjamin ] We would have our playback operator fire it from our tracks rig , but when we don ’ t use a playback operator I allocate it to a fader on my MIDI fighter and fade it in / out when appropriate . Quite often in the past I ’ ve created ambience myself which means I ’ m focused on that . For example , if I ’ m starting a song , I might wash out a sound on the Prophet which means I ’ m occupied with that ambience layer and can ’ t do anything else . Now with “ Asterial ”, I can fade this rich ambience in and am then free to play other parts .
[ WM ] What ’ s the best music gear purchase under $ 100.00 ?
[ Benjamin ] A ticket to a concert .
[ Grant ] This is a really tough one because I have expensive taste . Ha ! I ’ m literally looking around my room for something related to work under $ 100.00 apart from cables and I ’ m drawing a blank . So , let ’ s go to drums . The best investment I made under $ 100.00 would be these : A Ludwig Acrolite I got on eBay for $ 40.00 and the equipment cases I have from Basal . I use those cases for all my studio equipment and my portable rig . They ’ re a massive lifesaver when you spend so much money on equipment that you really love and couldn ’ t stand to see damaged .
[ WM ] Recently , you made an announcement about a partnership with MultiTracks . com ? Can you tell us about that ?
[ Simon ] We only recently partnered with
MultiTracks and are really happy to be working with them for a bunch of reasons , but one of the most important is because they ' ve offered us a way to double down on the creativity that drew us into this space in the first place . The reason Bottega exists is because we thoroughly enjoy making music and sound design became a huge part of that for us . Bringing Bottega into the MultiTracks ecosystem means the three of us can spend more time working on sounds and on making music , and don ' t need to spend so much time fussing about with the backend mechanics of running the company . We love the team that MultiTracks has placed around us , we are on board with their mission to resource people and we ' re excited to be a part of that , offering more and more highquality samples through their platform .
[ WM ] Our thanks go to all three of you for your contributions to the modern worship music movement !