Steinberg Groove Agent 3 Operation Manual

Groove Agent 3
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Shuffle
Some of the music in this world has a “straight” or 
“even” subdivision. Eights are even eights, so to speak. 
Other styles use some form of triplets, giving the rhythm 
a certain “swing”, a smoother, rolling character.
Musically, these two types are known as straight and swing based 
music. And to make matters more complicated, music with a swing 
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...

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Humanise
Even though the musical tracks feeding Groove Agent 
have been created with great care, imagination and 
musicality, you may want to give your drumming a bit 
more natural variation. This knob gradually makes the 
instrument play more “inaccurately” in terms of timing 
and dynamics.
The normal position for this knob is to the far left.
Ambience
This knob is one of the highlights of Groove Agent! 
All the acoustic drums and percussion instruments 
were recorded...

Groove Agent 3
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For other kits we used different combinations, and for the analogue 
and digital sounds we added normal studio effects units like digital re-
verbs and delays. 
All in all, the very natural sounding ambience is there for you to use! 
We’ve preset a lot of different kits to go with the different musical 
styles, but if you want to change the overall ambience, use this dial to 
your heart’s content! 
The Ambience knob also acts as a master control for the 8 individual 
Ambience...

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Mute, Groups, Instrument Selection and Solo
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 
pitched and quick playing” instru-
ments) 
8.Percussion group 2 (usually “low 
pitched and slow playing” instru-
ments)
You can use the corresponding Mute button at any time to kill the 
sound output from any of...

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Stop/Run
These buttons start and stop the internal 
drum pattern engine. While Groove Agent 
can be used with your host sequencer 
stopped, it always plays at the BPM rate 
(tempo) and time signature of your host program. When your se-
quencer is running, Groove Agent follows the tempo and synchro-
nizes to the beat position of the host.
You can make Groove Agent start simultaneously with your se-
quencer by using this method: 
1.Start your sequencer. 
2.Start Groove Agent....

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The sound edit knobs
There are eight rows of controls in the 
area close to the middle of the screen. 
The functions for all the eight instru-
ment groups are identical, so we’re 
using the top row as an example. 
All knobs have their default position at 
12 o’clock.
Aud – This button lets you audition the sound chosen in the group 
window to the left. This function is handy when auditioning the sounds 
themselves and the edits you make to them.
Vel – The Velocity Offset...

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Dec – Altering the decay of an instrument can create interesting 
changes to the sound, especially if they’re recorded with ambience as 
our acoustic drum and percussion sounds. A normal snare can be 
turned into an extremely damped, snappy drum or to an almost gated 
reverb kind of noise.
Amb – Here you can fine tune the amount of ambience for each group 
from dry to wet. The main Ambience knob (in the bottom left corner of 
the window) always serves as a master control, so if...

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Each of the 10 memory slots can be regarded as a snapshot of all set-
tings in the entire module. After some tweaking, you may have found an 
overall setting that is absolutely right for, say, the verses of your song.
By clicking the Copy button and then memory slot number 2, all the 
current settings are stored in Memory 1 but also moved into the new 
memory slot. You are now free to go further and find the right sound 
for, say, the chorus. With slot 2 active, you may...

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Speed
Here’s another new gadget for you! The Speed control (not 
to be confused with Half Tempo Feel – they are in no way 
related) lets you quickly solve simple tempo mis-match 
problems. Here’s an example:
Let’s assume that you’ve started working on that slow power ballad 
with a 120 BPM setting in your host instead of 60 BPM. When editing 
a MIDI part, the note data might look a bit odd with quarter notes ap-
pearing as half notes – but it would work. In fact, there’d be no...

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Introducing Dual Mode
The biggest step forward in Groove Agent 3 is undoubtedly Dual 
Mode. We created this mode because we needed to introduce an 
elegant solution to working with two modules simultaneously. 
At first glance you’ll see a control strip in the middle of the screen. 
Here you’ll find some general controls like Speed, Stop, Run, Fill, Vol-
ume and Balance. With the blank panels in place, there’s not much 
you can achieve here. The fun begins when you press...