Steinberg Groove Agent 2 Operation Manual

Groove AgentEnglish 31
ENGLISH
The Style Link button
Choosing a style also selects a drum and percussion 
kit especially assigned to it. As long as the two halves 
of the slider are linked, that is. Clicking the Link button 
once un-links the two halves of the slider button, mak-
ing it possible for you to play the Bossa Nova style with a Techno 
drum kit! In this mode, the upper half selects the playing style and the 
lower half of the slider the kit.
Click the Link button again, if you want to...

Groove Agent 32 English
For convenience’s and predictability’s sake, level changes occur only 
at bar lines. This means that if you want to change from level 8 to 11 
and move the slider on the second beat of a bar, you’ll have to wait un-
til the next bar to hear the new level. This behavior gives you time to 
trigger fills (and click other buttons if you need to) a bit in advance.
If you really want to change levels instantly, you should get acquainted 
with the memory section. There you can jump...

Groove AgentEnglish 33
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While we’ve tried our very best to make the sidestick option sound as 
natural and musical as possible, there are instances where it felt really 
awkward to use the sidestick. Therefore, the sidestick option is avail-
able in most but not all the complexity levels in Groove Agent.
❐The sidestick playing technique generally sounds more natural at lower 
complexity levels.
Accent
This button triggers a kick + crash cymbal hit. You may 
use it as an accent in your song. When...

Groove Agent 34 English
There are 25 levels of complexity in each style. This also applies to 
fills; the lower numbered fills are generally less busy than the higher 
numbered ones.
❐Some musical styles have a definite 2 or 4-bar pattern feel to them. While 
an irregular (like 7 or 9) bar period in your music may cause such a pat-
tern to sound wrong (a bit like “one bar late”), it’s reassuring to know that 
after a fill the music always restarts at “bar 1 in such a pattern.
❐Fills can also be used for...

Groove AgentEnglish 35
ENGLISH
Random
If you want some automatic pattern variation, the Ran-
dom button is very handy. This function automatically 
changes patterns for you. The general idea is to make 
the drumming sound less rigid, less predictable. The 
LCD window shows you what level is currently playing.
The Random button only moves within a range of ±2 levels from the 
slider’s original position.
Auto Fill
Here’s a handy little button. It can automate the way fills are 
triggered. When you move...

Groove Agent 36 English
Musically, these two types are known as straight and swing based 
music. And to make matters more complicated, swung music can be 
based on either triplet 8ths (as in the song “New York, New York”) or 
triplet 16th notes (as in Stevie Wonder’s “Sir Duke”).
The Shuffle knob affects the sub-timing of the 8ths or 16ths and acts 
a bit differently than the other Groove Agent controls. If you play a 
straight style and turn the knob to the right (+), you’ll hear the music 
change into...

Groove AgentEnglish 37
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Limiter
The first thing any studio engineer reaches out for 
when recording drums is probably a dynamics pro-
cessor, like a compressor or a limiter. We’ve thrown 
in a simple limiting device in Groove Agent to put 
that dynamic control within easy reach for you.
If you feel that the drums don’t cut through your 
complete musical mix, then this Limiter may help 
you obtain a stronger and more consistent sound pressure level.
The knob you see actually controls four stereo...

Groove Agent 38 English
Now, while editing the sound archive for Groove Agent, we carefully 
chose the ambience recording that should go with every dry source. 
For the 50s kit, we used the close-up microphones for drums and hi-
hat and the overheads for the cymbals. We then added the distant re-
cordings for ambience. This gave us a chance to create old sounding, 
overly acoustic kits for that vintage sound.
For other kits we used different combinations, and for the modern, 
electronic sounds we added...

Groove AgentEnglish 39
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Mute, grouping and instrument selection
The sounds in Groove Agent are organized in 8 logical groups:
1. Kick (bass) drum
2. Snare drum
3. Toms or effects
4. Hihat
5. Ride and Chinese cymbals
6. Crash and splash cymbals
7. Percussion group 1 
(usually “high and quick” instruments)
8. Percussion group 2 
(usually “low and slow” instruments)
You can use the corresponding Mute button at any time to kill the 
sound output from any of these groups. Mute activated = no sound....

Groove Agent 40 English
Stop/Run
These buttons start and stop Groove Agent. While this instrument can 
be used with your host sequencer stopped, it always plays at the BPM 
rate (tempo) of your host program. When your sequencer is running, 
Groove Agent follows the tempo and synchronizes to the beat position 
of the host.
You can make Groove Agent start simultaneously with your sequencer 
by using this method:
1.Start your sequencer.
2.Start Groove Agent.
3.Click the sequencer stop button.
Now, the next...