Interview:

Antoine Martin and Benjamin Remize, developers of Asteroid.

Beat / What inspired you to develop Asteroid? UVI / We started working on Asteroid in 2020 with the desire to develop a very powerful and creative instrument focused on big acoustic percussion and designed hits inspired by epic movie soundtracks. Asteroid sits between our Meteor and Drum Designer instruments. We wanted to take the concept of Meteor a step further by keeping ideas like an intuitive 7-track mixer as the core of the engine and having a super powerful built-in sequencer like in Drum Designer. You have seven percussion instruments, each of which can be played with a key on the MIDI keyboard (from C1 to B1); and by pressing C3, you can start a sequence that is automatically synced to the tempo of your DAW. The user has over 1,000 percussion sounds to choose from and over 300 sequences to choose from. A good way to explore Asteroid is to load a kit preset and then try out different sequences.

Beat / What sound sources did you use for the sounds of Asteroid?

UVI / We collaborated with two foley artists who produced a lot of material that you can find in the „Asteroid Elements“category. We sampled a lot of percussion instruments like toms, bass drums, and big garbage cans that they beat on with chains, logs, and many other things. We brought in drummers to record more conventional drum and orchestral sets. And finally, we got our hands dirty on outdoor recordings, which included hurting an old car (laughs).

Beat / What are the most exciting features of this instrument for you?

UVI / The ability to adjust the velocity curve with the modulation wheel is a simple but satisfying feature. If you play a sequence, you can use it to change the dynamics in real time, and the result immediately becomes much more expressive and interesting. We also like „Thrust“very much. Under the hood, a multiband compressor and saturation work on the master bus. Turn the knob up a bit and the sound becomes hyper-aggressive.

Beat / Can you tell us more about Asteroid‘s flexible step sequencer?

UVI / It is inspired by the sequencer from Drum Designer. The length of a sequence is eight bars, spread over four pages. We‘ve added the ability to automate reverb and delay sends per track, as well as including dozens of new sequence presets. There are also many options per track: you can halve or double the speed, move the sequence left or right, or normalize the velocity. All this makes it a very powerful sequencer.

Beat / How can the user shape and process Asteroid‘s sounds?

UVI / Each of the seven instruments has a variety of parameters accessible from the Edit page. There are the typical pitch, volume, equalizer, reverb and delay sends, but, of course, things get more interesting: So there‘s a stereo effect, a transient shaper, sub and air bands, a reverse mode, a beat repeat effect and even a multi-FX unit per track with drive, bitcrusher, frequency shifter, phaser and flanger.

Beat / Do you have any tips on how to get the most out of the instrument?

UVI / The randomize button on the main page lets you load seven instruments at random, preserving their settings and the current sequence. This is a great way to quickly get inspired and find new sound ideas. On the edit page, you can then randomize each of the track configurations individually. We particularly like the XY pads on the edit page, which allow you to not only place the sound in the stereo panorama, but also position it further back or forward. This sounds great, as we‘re actually mixing between the near and far mics, so the effect is very natural.