Steinberger VSTi GrooveAgent 2 User's Manual
The information in this document is subject to change without notice and does not represent a commitment on the part of Steinberg Media Te c hnologies GmbH. The software
described by this document is subject to a License Agreement and may not be copied
to other media. No part of this publication may be copied, reproduced or otherwise
transmitted or recorded, for any purpose, without prior written permission by Steinberg
Media Technologies GmbH.
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© Steinberg Media Technologies GmbH, 2005.
All rights reserved.
Groove Agent
2 English
Table of Contents
4Welcome!
6 How do I use Groove Agent?
7What is Groove Agent?
7 Register Groove Agent!
8 The Steinberg Key
10 System requirements (PC version)
10 Installing Groove Agent (PC version)
11 System requirements (Mac version)
11 Installing Groove Agent (Mac version)
12 Activating the Steinberg Key
13 Setting up Groove Agent as a VST instrument in your host application
14 Setting up Groove Agent as a DXi2 instrument
15 Using Groove Agent in an AU compatible application
16 Groove Agent stand-alone and ReWire
17 First test
18 Groove Agent terminology
20 About the sounds in this VST instrument
27 Using Groove Agent
28 The LCD window
29 Range
29 The right-click menu
30 Sliders and buttons
39 Mute, grouping and instrument selection
40 Stop/Run
41 Under the hood
44 The setup lid
48 Creating a drum track in Groove Agent
50 Using Groove Agent’s MIDI output in Cubase SX
51 Using the automation in Cubase SX
52 Composing with Groove Agent’s Memory slots in Cubase SX
53 About the styles
71 Tempo Guide
73 80 or 160 BPM, what’s the correct tempo?
73 Finding a suitable style for your song
73 Jamming with Groove Agent
74 Smooth handling
74 Controlling Groove Agent from a MIDI keyboard
76 Contact, Internet
76 Credits
77 Last but not least…
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Groove Agent
Welcome!
In early 2002, a member of our Swedish VST forum suggested that
someone should create a modern-day drum machine VST instrument.
Just like in the old days, when drum machines offered exotic musical
styles like Rumba and Cha-Cha, this baby would be able to play a huge
number of styles. And with today’s 24 bit audio technology, velocity
layers, real ambience recordings and an easy to use control panel,
what could go wrong?
A year later it was time for Groove Agent, a modern day drum machine.
Now it’s early 2005 and we’re presenting Groove Agent 2 – the next
logical step. We’ve added content in the form of acoustic and electronic drum kits plus 27 new styles and some improved functionality.
But the basic behavior of our drum machine is still the same, so for anyone saying:
- “I can’t program drums”,
- “I don’t have the time to program drums”,
- “Inspire me!”,
Groove Agent 2 offers instant assistance and inspiration for producing
songs, jingles, film scores or any other genre that requires versatility
and speed. We also know that some Groove Agent customers prefer
using our drum machine as a rhythmic source to feed external sound
modules, or to use the built-in sounds for their own drumming. Or any
combination thereof.
I firmly believe that the slogan we used two years ago still holds true
for this updated version of Groove Agent: “Create a professional
drum track in the same 3 minutes it takes to play your song!”.
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So why not skip the boring parts of life and concentrate on the interesting bits! I personally consider song-writing to be the finest craft of
all, and Groove Agent 2 is designed to help anyone who needs drums
in their music; instant drums to keep the creative flow.
Computer tools can’t replace real humans, no more in music programs
than in other software. We’ve done our best in maintaining the human
touch in Groove Agent 2 by asking real musicians to contribute with
their very best grooves. And when they thought the job was done, then
came the hard bits; adding half tempo feel and sidestick versions of all
25 levels of complexity for each style! The results often surprised the
musicians too, and the collected effort of all that musical activity resides somewhere there in those thousands of bars of drumming.
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Please use Groove Agent 2 to create sweet music! Music is good for
your soul, and hopefully this musical tool will assist and inspire you to
reach higher levels.
Sven Bornemark
/Producer
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How do I use Groove Agent?
You can use Groove Agent as stand-alone application or together with
a host application, a sequencer program. If your sequencer supports
VST instruments, then you can use Groove Agent. Here’s how to get
started:
1.
Prepare a track and load Groove Agent.
2.
Select a style or a sub-style using the top slider in Groove Agent (see
page 30). Wait while it loads its sound data.
3.
Click the Run button and Groove Agent starts playing. Move the Complexity slider to hear variations in the style.
4.
Choose another style and hear what it sounds like when you change
the individual drum sounds, click the fill button, mute or un-mute the
percussion instruments, try the half tempo feel or add a syncope (accent). Have you found the ambience knob yet?
Now it’s time to let Groove Agent act as a real drummer in your music!
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What is Groove Agent?
Technically speaking, Groove Agent uses thousands of custom designed MIDI patterns created by Swedish top musicians. These patterns trigger samples especially recorded for this instrument. That’s
basically it!
The Timeline slider allows you to choose a musical style or sub-style
and its associated drum kit. Some of the kits are acoustic, others are
electronic. The Complexity slider provides you with increasing degrees
of advanced play. For each level there’s an associated fill, half tempo
feel pattern and sidestick version. On top of that, there’s an Edit section
where you can tweak the sounds and even change your instruments.
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We’re especially proud of the fine musicianship behind every single
level of the styles available. This piece of software was produced by
musicians for musicians!
Register Groove Agent!
Before getting carried away with Groove Agent, which we’re sure you
will be, please take a moment to complete and return the enclosed
registration card. This will entitle you to technical support, and we’ll
also keep you up to date with the latest news and updates.
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Groove Agent
The Steinberg Key
❐
Please read the following section before installing the Groove Agent
software.
Included with the Groove Agent package, you will find an activation
code (not to be confused with the serial number) for the Steinberg
Key (sometimes referred to as a “dongle”), a hardware copy protection device that is part of the Groove Agent copy protection scheme.
Groove Agent will not run if there is no Steinberg Key and if this key
hasn’t been properly activated. You can either separately purchase a
new Steinberg Key for use with Groove Agent, or use a key previously
bought for use with a different Steinberg application.
•
If you have a Windows PC and have never used a dongle on your
computer before, the installation routine may initiate a restart of Windows after installation of the key drivers. After the restart, the key must
be plugged into the USB port for the installation routine to continue.
•
If you already own software that requires a Steinberg Key, it should be
plugged into the computer’s USB port after installing Groove Agent
and restarting the computer!
When the key is plugged into the USB port, Windows will automatically
register it as a new hardware device and will attempt to find drivers for it
– these necessary drivers won’t be present until Groove Agent has
been installed and the computer restarted.
The Steinberg Key
Groove Agent
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The Steinberg Key is, in fact, a little computer on which your Steinberg software licenses are stored. All hardware-protected Steinberg
products use the same type of key, and you can store more than one
license on one key. Also, licenses can (within certain limits) be transferred between keys – which is helpful, e.g. if you want to sell a piece
of software.
❐
If you already own a Steinberg Key (e.g. for Cubase or Nuendo), you can
load your Groove Agent license onto that one, using the activation code
supplied with Groove Agent. This way you need only one USB key for
both your host and Groove Agent (see below).
❐
The Steinberg Key must not be plugged in before or during the installation of Groove Agent if this is the first time you use such a key. Otherwise Windows will register it as new USB hardware and try to find drivers
that won’t be present before Groove Agent installation.
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Groove Agent
System requirements (PC version)
To run Groove Agent you’ll need:
•A PC with a 800 MHz Pentium or Athlon processor (1.4 GHz or faster recommended).
• 384 MB of RAM (512 MB recommended).
• 450 MB of hard disk space.
• Windows® XP Home or Professional.
• Windows MME compatible audio hardware (an ASIO compatible audio card
is recommended).
• If you want to use Groove Agent as a plug-in, you’ll need Cubase or Nuendo
(version 1.5 or higher) or another VST 2.0 or DXi 2 compatible host application.
Please note that some features may not be supported in other host applications.
•A Steinberg Key and a free USB port.
• Monitor and graphics card supporting 1024 x 768 resolution (a dual monitor
setup and a display resolution of 1152 x 864 are recommended).
❐
Please also observe the system requirements of your host application.
Installing Groove Agent (PC version)
To install Groove Agent on your PC:
1.
Switch on your computer and wait for Windows to load.
2.
Insert the Groove Agent CD ROM into your CD ROM drive.
3.
Open the Windows Explorer, or the “My Computer” window, and double-click on the CD ROM drive icon.
4.
Double-click on the Groove Agent Installer icon to run the installation
program, and follow the on-screen instructions.
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System requirements (Mac version)
To run Groove Agent you’ll need:
•A Power Mac G4 867 MHz computer (Power Mac G4 Dual and 1.25 GHz or
faster recommended).
• 384 MB of RAM (512 MB recommended).
• 450 MB of hard disk space.
• Mac OS X version 10.3 or higher.
• CoreAudio compatible audio hardware.
• If you want to use Groove Agent as a plug-in, you’ll need Cubase or Nuendo
(version 1.5 or higher) or another VST 2.0 or AU compatible host application.
Please note that some features may not be supported in other host applications.
•A Steinberg Key and a free USB port.
• Monitor and graphics card supporting 1024 x 768 resolution (a dual monitor
setup and a display resolution of 1152 x 864 are recommended).
❐
Please also observe the system requirements of your host application.
Installing Groove Agent (Mac version)
ENGLISH
To install Groove Agent on your Mac:
1.
Switch on your computer and insert the Groove Agent CD ROM.
2.
If the CD window doesn’t open automatically, double-click on the
Groove Agent icon.
3.
Double-click on the Groove Agent Installer icon to run the installation
program, and follow the on-screen instructions.
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Activating the Steinberg Key
❐
Whether you bought a new key when you bought Groove Agent, or if you
want to use one you previously bought with a different Steinberg product:
your Steinberg Key does not yet contain a valid license for Groove Agent.
You must download a license to it before you can launch Groove Agent!
Use the activation code supplied with the program in order to download a valid Groove Agent license to your Steinberg Key. This process
is the same both for existing and new keys. Proceed as follows:
1.
After installation and restarting the computer, plug the Steinberg Key
into the USB port.
If you are unsure of which port this is, consult the computer’s documentation.
2.
If this is the first time a copy protection device is plugged in, it will be
registered as a new hardware device, and a dialog will appear asking
you whether you would like to find drivers for the device manually or
automatically.
Choose to find drivers automatically. The dialog closes, and you may have to reboot
your computer.
3.
Make sure that your computer has a working internet connection.
License download is made “online”. If your Groove Agent computer isn’t connected to
the internet, it’s possible to use another computer for the online connection – proceed
with the steps below and see the help for the License Control Center application.
4.
Launch the “License Control Center” application (found in the Windows Start menu under “Syncrosoft” or in the Macintosh Applications
folder).
This application allows you to view your Steinberg Keys and load or transfer licenses.
5.
Use the License Control Center “Wizard” function and the activation
code supplied with Groove Agent to download the license to your
Key. Simply follow the on-screen instructions.
If you are uncertain about how to proceed, consult the help for LCC.
When the activation process has completed, you are ready to launch
Groove Agent!
Groove Agent
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Setting up Groove Agent as a VST instrument in your host application
This section describes how to set up Groove Agent with Cubase SX
as your host application. However, the same procedure applies to
most host applications, and you should consult your host’s documentation if you need further help.
Make sure the host program has been correctly installed and set up to
work with your MIDI and audio hardware (e.g. MIDI keyboard and an
audio card).
To set up Groove Agent:
1.
Open the VST Instruments window.
2.
Click the “No Instruments” label and select Groove Agent from the
pop-up menu.
3.
Wait for a few seconds while Groove Agent loads its default style
samples. The Groove Agent window opens automatically.
4.
In the VST host application, select Groove Agent as the output for a
MIDI track.
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Groove Agent
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Setting up Groove Agent as a DXi2 instrument
❐
The information in this section refers to using Groove Agent within Cakewalk SONAR. We assume that you have correctly set up both SONAR
and your available MIDI and audio hardware. Should you wish to use
Groove Agent within another DXi2 compatible host application, please
refer to its documentation.
Proceed as follows to activate Groove Agent:
1.
Make sure that SONAR receives MIDI data that you generate with
your external MIDI master keyboard. You can check this visually with
the “MIDI In/Out Activity” tray icon.
2.
In SONAR, open the “Synth Rack” window from the View menu.
3.
Click the Insert button (or select the Insert option on the main menu).
4.
Open the DXi Synth submenu and select “Groove Agent” from the
pop-up menu.
5.
By default the “Insert DXi Options” dialog appears. To create one MIDI
track and connect an audio track to Groove Agent’s 1+2 outputs, activate the options “Midi Source Track” and “First Synth Output”. To
create all available Groove Agent outputs activate “All Synth Outputs”.
Refer to your host application’s documentation for further details.
6.
Clicking the “Connection State” button in the Synth Rack will activate/deactivate Groove Agent. By default this is automatically activated when DXi SoftSynths are loaded.
7. Double-click on the “Groove Agent” entry or click the “Synth Properties” button in the tool bar of the Synth Rack to open the Groove Agent
window.
8.
In SONAR, select the previously created MIDI track “Groove Agent”.
Groove Agent will now receive MIDI data from the selected track.
Groove Agent receives MIDI data in 16 channel multi-mode. It is therefore not necessary to assign a specific MIDI receive channel in Groove Agent. However, you should
make sure that the MIDI channel of the currently selected SONAR track is set to the
channel on which Groove Agent is to receive MIDI data.
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Using Groove Agent in an AU compatible application
You can use Groove Agent in an AU host application (e.g. Logic).
The Groove Agent AU version is installed in the folder “Library/Audio/
Plug-ins/Components” and lets Groove Agent work in an AU environment – without any performance loss or incompatibilities.
For Logic Pro 7 proceed as follows:
1.
Open the Track Mixer and choose the desired Instrument channel.
2.
[Command]-click the I/O field and, in the pop-up menu that appears,
choose either Multi-Channel or Stereo.
3.
In the sub-menu that appears, select All Instruments and then Groove
Agent.
Groove Agent is now loaded as an AU instrument.
When set, you are ready to load some samples and start using
Groove Agent!
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Groove Agent
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Groove Agent stand-alone and ReWire
Groove Agent can be used as a stand-alone application, independently of any host application. This makes it possible to use Groove
Agent in sequencer applications that do not support one of the provided plug-in formats of Groove Agent (i.e. VST, DXi, AU), but allow
for data exchange using ReWire.
ReWire2 is a special protocol for streaming audio and MIDI data between two computer applications. When using ReWire, the order in
which you launch and quit the two programs is very important, as the
first audio application launched will capture the sound card resources.
Proceed as follows:
1.
First, launch the sequencer application you wish to use (e.g. Ableton
Live, ProTools).
If your sequencer supports ReWire, it will provide a way to assign audio and MIDI
channels for the exchange of data. See the documentation of your sequencer application for details.
2.
Now, launch Groove Agent as a stand-alone application.
If you chose to create desktop and Start menu items during installation of Groove
Agent, you can launch the program just like any other application on your computer.
You can also double-click the Groove Agent program file in the installation folder.
When you now play a style with Groove Agent, the sound is streamed
via ReWire to the assigned mixer channels in your host. You can route
the separate instrument outputs to individual mixer channels (up to 8).
Note that you are now running two completely separate applications.
When you save your sequencer project, this will include the overall
channel and bus configuration, but none of the settings in Groove
Agent! To retain your Groove Agent settings, choose the Save Bank
command from the Groove Agent File menu. You may want to choose
a file name that indicates that the file contains settings created for a
particular sequencer project.
Similarly, when you re-open a project in your sequencer application
and have launched Groove Agent, use the Load Bank command in
Groove Agent to reload the Groove Agent settings pertaining to this
particular project.
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First test
Let’s make sure Groove Agent is properly set up and ready to play:
1.
If you load Groove Agent as a VST instrument, make sure Groove
Agent is selected as the output for a MIDI track and that the MIDI
channel chosen is any other than channel 10. If required, make sure
your MIDI controller is routed to this track.
2.
Open the Groove Agent panel. Move the Style slider to a style of your
choice. Be prepared to wait for a second or two while Groove Agent
loads its samples for this style. The green LCD window is helpful here
with its Loading and Ready messages.
3.
Adjust the tempo of your host application to suit each style’s favorite
tempo range as displayed in the “range” field in the green LCD window.
4.
Click Run in the Groove Agent window. Now you should see the red
LCD meters on the Groove Agent interface flash and the beat light indicate 1-2-3-4. You should also hear cool rhythms streaming from
your speakers!
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Groove Agent
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Groove Agent terminology
LCD window
going on inside Groove Agent. This is your main source for information.
LCD meters
when Groove Agent is playing. They indicate that sound is being output from Groove Agent, but for more detailed control you should use
the level meters in your host sequencer.
Style
– A certain musical style, normally linked to a unique drum and
percussion kit.
Kit
– A special set of drums and percussion associated with each
style. Style and kit can be chosen separately.
Complexity
the complexity levels go from left (simple) to right (advanced). Music
in general benefits from variations in a song, and in Groove Agent
they’re easy to reach.
Fill – A live drummer usually plays a fill every eight bars or so, emphasizing the song’s structure and movement. A fill may be regarded as
“an improvised exclamation mark”. Going from the verse into the chorus? Time for a fill!
Half tempo feel – Typically, slowing down the kick and snare pattern
to half speed, while keeping the rest of the pattern going in the other
instruments, creates a dramatic effect. This is very typical live drummer
behavior! Real drummers do this all the time, if you don’t stop them.
– The big, green window tells you, at all times, what’s
– These are the cool, red level meters that start flashing
– The level of advancement in a style. In Groove Agent
Accent – Before drum machines became popular, an accent was a
marked hit, typically played on the crash cymbal and kick drum. When
played off beat, like e.g. on the 8th note preceding a bar line, it becomes a syncope.
Shuffle – Sometimes referred to as “swing factor”. These terms indicate the relationship between the 8th notes (sometimes 16th notes),
as these can either be perfect 8ths (“straight 8ths”) or swung (“triplet
8ths”).
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Limiter – This is probably the first device a recording engineer reaches
out for when recording drums. Limiting (or compression, the difference
is not always easily defined) controls the overall output level and can
also be used as an effect.
Ambience – Groove Agent comes with a complete set of ambience
recordings for all drums and percussion instruments. The acoustic
sounds have been recorded with distant microphones and the electronic sounds have been processed through various reverb and effects
units.
Dry/Wet – These are terms that describe the two extremes of a sound.
Either it’s recorded very closely in a damped environment – dry – or
we’re dealing with the sound recorded from a distance or bathed in
reverb – wet.
• New in Groove Agent 2 is the right-click menu. We’ve added some
new features that can be reached by pressing the right mouse button
or by left-clicking in the logo area.
Via this menu you can reach the About screen or go to the Groove Agent and Steinberg websites. You can also reach new functions like changing the number of mixer
outputs, edit MIDI output behavior, change the MIDI mute key mode or instruct Groove
Agent 2 what to do when the host stops.
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Groove Agent
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About the sounds in this VST instrument
Before we started producing the musical content for this instrument,
we scanned the market for existing drum libraries we could use. Using
ready made samples would save us oceans of time (Per “Worra” Larsson/SampleTekk is the first person to agree here), but unfortunately
we could not find anything suitable. Either those libraries were incomplete in terms of drum sounds (have you ever seen a sample archive
that includes “hihat gliss” or “spoons”?) or inconsistent in the way
they were recorded.
We wanted (1) a complete selection of kits and sounds and (2) ambient recordings of everything. So we started recording…
The wonderful Studio Kuling in Örebro, Sweden, has the most dramatic
recording room we’ve ever seen! The room itself is large and mostly
covered with wood panels, and engineer Jens Bogren certainly knows
his way around the equipment. With Mats-Erik Björklund playing all instruments, sound designers Per “Worra” Larsson/SampleTekk and
Sven Bornemark started recording multiple velocity levels of each
sound.
There was an initial agreement that this archive should cover most
grounds – as many musical landscapes as possible. Therefore we
decided upon recording all these instruments:
A 50s jazz kit. Not very
damped, sounds a bit
loose, sloppy.
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A 60s pop kit. Very
damped drums from
the era when they put
towels on the toms!
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A 70s rock kit. Loud,
deep and ringing.
This kit is big!
An 80s studio kit. Fresh
and modern, like on
most of today’s CDs.
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On top of that, we added stuff that adds color and realism to the different eras and attitudes we wanted to cover. 50s drums played with
brushes and mallets, 80s kit with rods and additional snares like piccolo and deep models.
To make the archive complete, we had a long session with only percussion instruments, both those included in the GM protocol plus an
array of other, interesting sounds: African fur drum, rainstick, tambourine, cascabelles, mouthplopp etc.
Recording bongos…
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…congas…
…and timbales
Jens Bogren came up with the suggestion that we’d run everything
through an analogue 24 track tape recorder for “that warm sound”.
Great idea! Coupled with our original intention to produce a very complete archive, this is what we actually recorded:
• Tracks 1-2: closely miked drum.
• Tracks 3-4: overhead microphones.
• Tracks 5-6: ambient mics 2 meters away.
• Tracks 7-8: distant mics 7 meters away.
After the recording sessions, Per Larsson spent several months editing the sounds. Editing in a multitrack environment like this is a task
very different from working with only stereo samples. We carefully
chose the takes that would go together best and went for a mixed
setup, where the 50s and 70s kits use the dry and distant sounds and
the remaining instruments use the dry and ambient recordings.
Mats-Erik Björklund was also the person responsible for bringing all
the carefully chosen instruments to the studio. So even if the 70s hihat
recordings went astray and we totally forgot to record the sound of a
whistle, his help has been invaluable!
So much for acoustic timbres. For the more modern and experimental
electronic sounds we turned to the sample library of Primesounds,
Stockholm. There was the multitude of sounds we needed. On top of
that, many of our musicians spent time on building their own unique
sounds from the ground up.
ENGLISH
❐
Sounds marked with a B, M or R were recorded with Brushes, Mallets
and Rods respectively.
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The new sounds for Groove Agent 2
The Groove Agent 2 sessions sported Mats-Erik behind the drums
and as the main sound designer. Engineer for this second round was
Rickard Bengtsson. Mats-Erik took the opportunity to record some
useful kits to make the sonic palette even more complete:
The Studio kit – A top of the
line set with some of the best
drums and cymbals around.
We wanted to achieve a
sound that would fit in a lot of
styles that demand a good,
clean and modern sound. The
three snares are high quality
snares with different depth
and materials and carefully
tuned to bring out the true
characteristic of the instru-
ments
.
The Heavy kit – This drum-set
is intended to fit in many of today’s Metal styles, where busy
bass drumming is a vital ingredient. The dry character of the
ride-cymbal and the great
sound from the crashes will
cut through any wall of guitars.
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The Noisy kit – We wanted to create a modern drum sound using traditional drums. These instruments
are very small but along with the
boom-box effect they sound much
bigger than they really are. We experimented a lot with different digital effects and came up with a
sound that we think will last. The
snares are a thin, high pitched piccolo and a small 10" mini-snare.
Some of the cymbals are rare vintage instruments that are almost
impossible to find anywhere today,
while others are modern, noisy
sounding instruments that have
seen better days...
A red Slingerland “Radio
King” (the world’s most recorded snare drum), a black
handmade snare drum from
Hanus & Hert in Prague and a
Slingerland copper snare
.
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In order to achieve our sonic goals, it was decided that we would not
add acoustic ambience this time. Rickard had just purchased an Eventide Harmonizer “Orville” unit and spent considerable time creating
some very significant environments for the drum sounds. The resulting
sounds are very rich and colorful.
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In addition to the three acoustic kits,
a handful of vintage drum machines
from Sven Bornemark’s private collection were added. Some of these
beauties are over thirty years old, so
sampling them was not without
complications. Old analogue gear
has a tendency to sound a bit different from day to day, and even from
beat to beat, so when comparing
the original, built in rhythms with our
MIDI renditions, there are some differences. However, we think we’ve
managed to capture and re-package the better part of the magic of
these drum machines of yesteryear.
The vintage drum machines got their ambience from a vintage EMT
plate reverb unit located in Malmö’s most well known recording studio,
Tambourine Studios.
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Using Groove Agent
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Here’s the extremely compact version for the impatient amongst you:
Choose what style you want to use with the upper slider. Make sure
the lower slider is somewhere in the middle third of its total range and
that the tempo is inside the tempo range of the chosen style. Start your
sequencer, and when you want the drums to start playing, hit Run in
Groove Agent.
For really easy living, activate Auto Fill. Move the Complexity slider to
the left for easier/gentler playing and to the right for a more advanced/
noisy/wild drummer. Stop Groove Agent with its own Stop button or by
stopping your sequencer. To record the output of Groove Agent as a
MIDI part, click Edit, open the Setup section and put the MIDI Output
switch to the ON position (this only works in Cubase and Nuendo).
Groove Agent
English 27
The LCD window
The information given in this window
is mostly self explanatory, but let us
give you the most useful tip of all:
When navigating the Style and Complexity sliders, the big LCD window
always tells you where the sliders are.
We’ve crammed 54 styles into the
top slider, and some users may find
the style names difficult to read. Please, have a look in the LCD window. It makes it much easier for you to place the sliders exactly where
you want them.
You have probably noticed that some of the style names above the top
slider are colored differently. That’s because they house sub-styles,
the new additional 27 styles that have been added in Groove Agent 2.
Here’s the trick:
1. Select a differently colored style with the slider as usual.
2. Right click with your mouse button and select any of the new styles
listed in the pull-down menu.
• As you might have expected, it’s still possible to combine the music of
one style with the drum kit from another style. Just de-activate the Link
button and use separate positions (and sub-menus) for the two halves
of the style selector.
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Range
Each style has its own favorite tempo range. If you play a hectic House
style at 40 BPM, it probably won’t sound very impressive. We won’t try
to stop you from trying any style in any tempo, but we remind you of
each style’s home BPM range in the LCD window.
The recommended tempo range should be regarded as a helpful hint
if realism is what you’re after. If not, break this rule!
❐
For a tempo map overview, see page 71.
The right-click menu
Several new features can be reached by right-clicking in an unused
area of the main interface of by clicking in the logo area:
• About Groove Agent 2 – This page lists the people involved and shows the
version number. You can exit the Credits page by clicking anywhere in it.
• Groove Agent website – Info, sound clips, FAQ and a friendly forum at this
dedicated website.
• Steinberg website – Here’s where you can learn more about other cool and
creative software.
• Audio Outputs – You can decide how many stereo outputs Groove Agent will
occupy in your host’s mixer. Please notice, that due to technical reasons, the
changes made here won’t be seen until Groove Agent has been re-started.
• MIDI Output – Groove Agent 2 can output its drumming to either a MIDI part
(as before) or to a MIDI file! That MIDI file can then be imported to your host
for further tweaking.
• MIDI Mute Key Mode – Remote control of Groove Agent 2 is now easier than
ever! Two new modes in this department. More info in the section “Controlling
Groove Agent from a MIDI keyboard” on page 74.
• When Host Stops – The Pause behavior has been changed in Groove Agent 2.
Please consult the section “Stop/Run” on page 40.
ENGLISH
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Sliders and buttons
The style slider/timeline
The top slider is perhaps the most important gadget in the entire instrument. It is a timeline with various musical styles written above it. When
dragging the slider along this timeline, you select what style to use.
Every style has its own carefully crafted drum kit assigned to it. Many of
the early styles sound a bit old by today’s standards – both musically
and soundwise – and that’s exactly the point!
When first selecting a style, the plug-in will take a few seconds to load
the samples. When you move to another style, there are a few seconds of loading time again. But if you go back to the first style again,
loading time will be much shorter, because the samples are still in your
computer’s cache. This is especially true for the Windows operating
systems. So, if you are brave enough to use several styles within one
song, you may encounter glitches at those style changes, but only the
first time.
Styles stored in memory locations stay loaded, so Groove Agent will
not glitch when switching between them.
The 27 new styles introduced in Groove Agent 2 can be reached by
moving the slider to a differently colored style name and right-clicking
on it. You can then make a selection from the pull down menu.
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