Steinberg Groove Agent 3 Operation Manual
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Groove Agent 3 90 English Arena During the glory days of the 80s, the hardrock guys wore tight pants, sprayed their long hair and stole make-up from their girlfriends. There is no doubt that they really could play drums though – hard and dis- tinctive. Since the music should be hard and loud, the dynamic has pretty much just one level – louder! The fills are very typical for those drummers, intense, distinctive and almost composed sometimes. PS * Indie Punk A classic drum figure for a Punk song should be powerful and fast. But a drum figure for a Modern Punk song must be powerful, fast, in- dividual and creative in order to stress the structure of the song. These characteristics are implemented in this style. Enjoy and keep on rocking! MS * Unplugged Music Television made it popular. A big rock song must also be played in a smooth ambience so the audience can easily listen to the voice of the singer. This style is full of soft played beats/fills and uses the popular and lovely rods. MS * Ballad It’s early in the morning, your coffee is still hot and your latest ballad needs some steady and powerful drums. Try this one! The tambourine can add extra sparkle to the chorus and maybe straighten out the overall drum sound as well. (And psst, here’s something I just discov- ered: try this one at 120 BPM! Pretty energetic, eh?) MS ** Wattsup Sometimes drum machines tend to sound way too stiff and play too much in time. And no matter how you try to kick things up, the ma- chine never lets loose. Here’s a style representing a loose and sway- ing rock'n'roll attitude. The drumming here is a bit behind, a bit before and never really right on the beat. For an even more human feel, try to vary the tempo slightly throughout your song. Maybe push the tempo up in the choruses while taking it back down during verses. Wattsup rolls up and down and is stony and uneven. It may sound as bad pro- gramming to some, to me it's only rock’n’roll. And I like it! MMB
Groove Agent 3 English 91 ENGLISH ** 5/4 Rock This is a rather basic rock pattern, with one significant difference: the odd meter that adds a fifth beat to the bar. You might think it's like driving a car with five wheels instead of four, but really – this style can add new dimensions to any rock production. The percussionists get busy keeping a steady groove as the drummer hits the low tom or snare on all those “extra” beats. Gimme five… NE ** Irish Rock “Slowly evolving, one little step at the time, but rock steady and with- out hesitation towards perfection.” That could be a description of the Irish nation. But it's this very style, inspired by the beats of the amazing Mr Larry Mullen Jr of U2. Half Tempo provides just that and a straighter timing usable for really slow songs. The differences be- tween patterns are deliberately kept small to make it easy to build a varied yet consistent song structure by combining levels closer or fur- ther apart. Make use of the Random function and by all means, don't miss the nice fills. See them as an expression of Irish spontaneity... NE World New Orleans Funk In the winter of 1968-69, great drummer Joseph “Zigaboo” Modeliste recorded the classic New Orleans R’n’B style tune “Cissy Strut” with funk pioneers The Meters. Zigaboo invented the characteristic funk groove often referred to as “the second line” style, very typical for The Meters’ groove. The Zigaboo grooves are (together with James Brown’s “Funky Drummer”) among the most sampled and recycled grooves in the history of modern Afro-American music. This exact groove is found at complexity level 8. Enjoy! MK Cajun (T) You no longer need to go “Deep down in Louisiana close to New Or- leans” to get that spicy cajun feeling. Just tune in to Groove Agent’s 1971 Cajun style, set your VSTi host to preferred 86 degrees, or… BPM, and get cooking! Add a pinch of accordion and a bouncing bass to the busy snare, and you’re off. Bon appetite! MK
Groove Agent 3 92 English Reggae (T) This is a triplet based version of reggae usually played with sidestick. The sound of the drums is very dry. When we recorded these drum samples for Groove Agent, sound engineer Jens Bogren turned around, looked at us and asked: “Do you really want it to sound like that?”. We nodded. MEB TexMex I once played a song to Sven with a strange, loose kind of drumming together with bass, piano and slide guitar. It sounded a bit like a not- so-very-well-rehearsed-gig in a small restaurant somewhere on the borderline between Texas and Mexico. “This is very weird and very cool”, Sven said. “We have to include this in Groove Agent“. “OK!”. JS World Ethno Take one big, wide pad, one fretless bass and one electric guitar play- ing 8ths through a delay unit, and you’ll find yourself in a “world/ ethno” kind of ambience that’ll make you say “Manu”?!? JS * Roots Roots, rock, reggae. The percussionist – playing big bottles and a vi- bra-slap – is free-wheeling through the different complexity levels, whereas the drummer goes from simple to busy. He’s using rim-shot already on some mid levels, so selecting the “Sidestick” function will make him play a deep fur-drum accordingly. Enough of tech-talk, it’s time to quote the old rasta in Trench-town who once said: “It’s like football. It’s there. It’s in your knees…”. NE ** 3/4 Nordic Woods (T) Influenced by the woods up in the north and mixed with some heavy folklore grooves, the “3/4 Nordic Woods” started to take shape on my computer. The style starts with some simple beats that take you out alone in the dark woods, where you hear some drumbeats coming from far away. Then the style grows into some rather complex grooves at the end of the journey, all played in 3/4 time. MEB
Groove Agent 3 English 93 ENGLISH ** Mandela Picture yourself below the equator, in the good hands of a crowd longing for freedom and democracy. The heavy beat from the bass drum has become unstoppable. Eager hands play skin drums and tri- angles, and in all of this, there's also the programmed grooves of mod- ern electronica. They all start off whispering but soon enough a roar will reach the oppressors. You can blow out a candle, but you can't blow out a fire… NE ** Senegal (T) Somewhere deep in Africa, before the people were influenced by western culture: Was life better then? Maybe. But either way, this style brings you one of the most common rhythm patterns in traditional Sub-Sahara. The agogobell has it. It's in 12/8 but programmed here to fit a 4/4 metric. The timing is already fairly “native” but can be even more loose using the Humaniser. In half tempo feel mode, the agogo and shaker keep up the basic beat while the rest of the instruments cool down. Picture yourself with your tribe under the stars… NE Music Academy Funk This is funk drumming inspired by funk guru George Duke (Party Down) at one end to the unexpected Frank Zappa (I Don’t wanna Get Drafted) at the other… As a matter of fact, they did some great music together, too! Of course, many are the innovators of funk. Earth Wind & Fire’s Fred White really did some seriously simple but stunningly groovy stuff. In the 1970’s, funk music was often played quite straight except for the drums that added a little more swing to it. Add the Slick Triangle and the Wood Block at any time. Style programmed in 126 BPM. dB
Groove Agent 3 94 English Slick This style is a 16th note based beat, inspired by the sessions re- corded in L.A. around 1980, with master drummers like Jeff Porcaro and John Robinson. Actually, the beat itself isn’t very innovative, but it’s too representative for this great genre to leave it out. A slow tempo is a must for this style. Favorite tempo range is 73-88 bpm. FvW Breakbeat Wirebird shouted “HEEEELP” from deep down in “the Pixelmine”, when he created that fabulous front panel. I said “With what?”. “With breakbeats!”, he shouted from below. “You mean dirty, groovy, kind of playing-too-much à la Chemical Brothers?”. “Yep!”. “Yo, I’ll do it!!”, I replied. And while you’re at it, dear user, why don’t you run the whole thing through some nice distortion. JS LA Shuffle (T) Somewhere around complexity level 15 you will find a sibling to a girl called Rosanna. All over these grooves you will hear a whole bunch of her relatives from earlier decades, also known as ghost notes. Tiny triplets in between, especially from the snare drum, that add a fine masked web to a sturdy, laidback foundation. A slick style, yeah! Not to be used in a too high BPM environment! 78 is perfect! dB Westcoast This is the beat many drummers would play if you told them to just cruise at 98 Bpm. A straight “perfect-day-for-going-to-the-beach” groove with influences from modern gospel music and contemporary pop/rock beats. FvW Fusion The inspiration for this busy style comes from some of the fusion records of the early nineties. MEB
Groove Agent 3 English 95 ENGLISH Busy Beat A lot of 16th notes coming at you in this one, especially at the higher complexity levels. Busy Beat is a kind of modern funk style with plenty of ghost notes on the snare drum. I’ve been inspired by the groove from the Spin Doctors’ hit “Two Princes” as well as Candy Dulfer’s song “Funkyness”. If you listen carefully, the sources of inspiration should be obvious. Programming was made at 104 Bpm. FvW ** Ambitious Here's the typical 16th note based groove you always hear when drummers are asked to “Play something!” at soundchecks. There is a lot of funky, backward playing here with a lot of show off. In the higher complexity levels our ambitious drummer takes off in a latin direction. FvW ** 5/4 Fusion (T) This 5/4 style is a fusion of jazz, rock and Latin and gets rather com- plex at higher levels. It starts off with subtle percussion and adds hi- hat, snares and ride along the way. The 3+2 feel goes up to level 17, where it turns into the more unusual 2+3 structure. Level 20 is a bit special with its “floating” and irregular meter. It can actually be used as a sort of random fusion swing in any metric form, thereby meander- ing the pattern. It tricky, it cool… NE ** 7/8 Funk (T) “Seven of eight” – sounds like a cyborg space woman… Well, it is odd, but not that odd. Playing a 7/8 pattern takes some exercising and this agent sure made her homework, with some good help from her percussionist friends. From level A to 12 they're elaborating on basically the same idea, and in 13–16 it gets more altered. In the last four levels we get a more aggressive rock pattern. So watch out: The odd can bite! NE ** Paradiddle Triplet (T) These grooves are an extension of the HM Paradiddle style. It's basi- cally the pattern I used on the song “Virtual Future” on the Beware The Heavens album by Synergy. Maybe you can hear influences from Mikkey Dee during his King Diamond days here. RM
Groove Agent 3 96 English Heavy Hard Rock I grew up listening to The Beatles in the early seventies. After that I was a young soul without a home, listening to whatever was on the ra- dio, but I never found “my thing”. Then, when I was sixteen, someone gave me a black album from a band I’d never heard of, and I was just blown away by the intro of “Hells bells” starting up their album “Back in black”. Yep, I became a hardrocker!! So here you have some steady and heavy drums for anyone with Angus-ambitions!! JS * Grunge Nirvana, Mudhoney, Melvins… I think this list wouldn’t get an end. The Music Industry calls them Grunge. So, preheat your amp, strap your guitar, aim at the F# power-chord and press the “Run”-button for this style. MS * HM Straight HM Straight and HM Triplets are based on the European style of Heavy Metal with a lot of double bass pedal work as well as some of my own chops from the albums/bands I played in, such as the albums “Beware the heavens” by Sinergy and “Sign Of truth” and “Anima Mundi” by Dionysus. The triplet rolls were inspired by the one and only Scott Travis, especially from the time before Judas Priest when he played with Paul Gilbert in Razor X. The Razor X song “Scarified” is a milestone in metal with its magnificent drum intro groove and I made a lot of variations of grooves of this type. The more straight and powerful grooves were made in the style of Jörg Michael, one of today’s most hired and respected German drummers. RM * HM Triplets (T) A triplet based groove with a lot of 3-stroke rolls in the bass drums. The rolls in particular were inspired by my friend and Brazilian metal band Angras drummer Aquiles Priester, who developed it to a new level in modern metal drumming. While touring with Saxon I got the chance to pick up a drum fill or two which I throw in here and there. It’s from another great drummer and friend, the legendary Fritz Ran- dow, one of the most technical drummers in European metal. RM
Groove Agent 3 English 97 ENGLISH * Grind These grooves are kinda busy and made for higher tempos. Notice how the bass drum uses 8th notes, 8th note triplets and then 16ths in various modern approaches. These grooves were influenced and played in the style of The Haunted, Krisiun and Hate Eternal. If you’re a huge fan of brushes, these grooves are not for you! ;-) RM * Progressive Here’s a rather technical style with a lot of busy fills. “Progressive” is a mixture of the sound of new progressive styles and some old progres- sive bands back in the 80s. Certain levels were recorded in various odd meters and played over a loop of four bars. Don’t get lost! MEB ** Three Beat Let's jog back to the 80's rock arena when both you and your music were supposed to be muscular yet clean. This beat has a fat kick on all four beats in the bar but instead of the usual backbeat on the 2&4 the fat snare is on 3, giving this style even more weight. The fat toms play an important role adding a clean groove. Get a workout. NE ** HM Paradiddle Joe Franco is the main inspiration behind this style. He was the first guy to produce instruction books and videos for double bass drum playing. You can also hear some influence from Tommy Aldridge and Virgil Donati. In fact, some of the stuff here was actually played by Mr. Donati himself on a clinic in Sweden. RM HipHop Basic Hip-Hop This style was inspired by early Hip-Hop and the way it sounded in the early digital drum machine era. LW
Groove Agent 3 98 English Hip-Hop Groovy, fat and heavy Hip-Hop with a modern sound in contrast to the Basic Hip-Hop style. It’s been programmed to sound a little “off” in the beat with a nice swing to it. Closely related to Modern R’n’B. New, fresh kick, snare and effects noises were designed especially for this style. LW Nu RnB An effective groove with poly-rhythmic fills for that special feeling. Modern RnB/Hiphop style with a compressed sound, if you like. Kick and snare were designed especially for this style. LW * Live Hip-Hop In a big discussion about Hip-Hop, a friend told me that a real drum- mer in a Hip-Hop band only needs a bass drum, a snare, a hihat, a crash and no toms. He was right. This style will provide you with a full palette for your live song. Don’t forget to use the percussion in the chorus! MS * Sloppy Hip-Hop The “Sloppy Hip Hop” style is inspired by the works of Beastie Boys and others, giving you a sense of floating time, where quantizing is banned… The basic character of the groove is slightly altered from level 14 and up. Warning: Changing the loose handclap to a more distinct sound may produce some really weird timing effects, as will excessive use of the Humanise function. Select this style when you’re in the mood for drifting away, avoiding all the boundaries of a regu- lated beat. NE * Kelly This is a cool, yet energetic modern R&B-style. The basic beat is slow and heavy while the hihats and other small sounds play in double tempo, creating a dynamic contrast. Try using a lot of different fills to vary the formula. No feelings were hurt during the making of this style. NE
Groove Agent 3 English 99 ENGLISH Electronica Elektro My intention here was to create a style that sounds like an analog drum machine programmed for early synth-pop tunes. It’s not an 808 or a 909 but a totally new “box” with retro and electronic sounds. LW Mini Works All the sounds in this style come from the legendary Mini, built by a very clever guy called Moog. Every sound is note-off dependent. This means that the important note-off events become independent of the tempo. Mini Works is built up around this rule, which turns the note- offs into important rhythmical components as well as all the cool little note-ons! There are 5 different grooves with 5 complexity levels each. Like five time zones in a synth clock. Every sound has its own effect in ambience mode which makes the note-off function even more ex- treme. Fave tempo: 95 BPM. Fave ambience: none! dB Ambient Time to chill with some ambient grooves and spacious rhythms. It’s 5 am at the club and the previously crowded dance floor is visited only by a couple of slow dancers, chillin’ to the beat as the faint early morn- ing light passes through the drapes. My favorite tempo for this style is somewhere around 90 BPM. Try experimenting with different combi- nations of dry and wet sounds and alternative pitches. The long reverb tail on some of the low pitched drums can create a really nice rhythmic tension to dry high pitched cymbals or percussion sounds. W Mini Club Again, a Moog-only built up sound bank. And again 5 different grooves with 5 complexity levels each. This style will hopefully find its way to the floor of the future dance club. Try the note-off dependent sounds, too! Every sound slot has to be active to make these rhythms complete. There are no special percussion add-ons in this one. Origi- nal groove was made in 120 BPM with absolutely no ambience, but personally I like the full ambience version just as much, especially since every sound has its own special FX treatment! dB