Steinberg Groove Agent 3 Operation Manual
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Groove Agent 3 30 English When recording a typical Special Agent style, Rasmus proceeded as follows. Of all those 25 levels in a style (A-B-C-D-E-1-2-3-…-20) he usually started at complexity level 8. He worked his way up to the rather extravagant level 20 and then started from level A. At the end of the session he would reach level 7, the one next to level 8 where he started 20 minutes ago. Now, levels 7 and 8 are supposed to contain the same logical progression as between all other consecutive levels, and I remember being amazed that they always did. This is true musicianship! Mr Kihlberg has no troubles writing and reading music, and you would assume that he’d prepared his work by writing down arrangements for every styles prior to the sessions. But no, it was all composed and re- corded right before our very ears there in the studio. There are few people on this planet who have heard Special Agent styles being created and recorded, but those of us who did are ex- tremely happy to have shared that magic experience! After recording, all those hours of drum kit and percussion grooves went to Uffe Börjesson for mastering. After that, editor Lars Westin patiently cut these grooves into slices, one slice per beat, so that you can use Rasmus’ drumming in a tempo that suits your song. Both Uffe and Lars have been on board since we did Virtual Guitarist in 2002. Reliable chaps, indeed! When Rasmus finds the time between tours and studio sessions, he offers his services via his own website at www.livedrumsonweb.com.
Groove Agent 3 English 31 ENGLISH Using Groove Agent in Classic Mode Here’s an extremely compact version for the impatient amongst you: With Groove Agent in Classic Mode, choose a musical genre by dragging the upper slider and select a style from the pull-down menu. Make sure the lower slider is somewhere in the middle third of its total travel 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. For a more detailed description, read on!
Groove Agent 3 32 English 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 Com- plexity sliders, the big LCD window always tells you the current status of your selections. We’ve crammed a total of 108 styles under the 15 genres selectable from the top slider. If you think it’s difficult to find the style you’re after, the LCD window also offers an alternative method of making selections. Just click on the names shown in the window and choose the style and kit from the list that appears. You may also find the LCD window useful when making fine detail ed- iting to various parameters, since the exact value is shown in the cen- tral part of the window. 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. 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 recom- mended 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 108.
Groove Agent 3 English 33 ENGLISH Dual Mode button This button takes you to the brand new Dual Mode, where many exciting new features await you. Click- ing on “To Classic” takes you back to the “old style” Groove Agent Classic Mode. The Style slider The top slider is probably the most important gadget in the entire in- strument. Those of you old enough to remember earlier versions of Groove Agent will notice an immediate change here. We’ve changed the way styles are handled, because their total number has increased to 108. The 15 genre names are a starting point to select a style. You use this slider to select a style. Start by looking under an appro- priate genre name, then select a style from the pull-down menu that appears. The letter T after a style name indicates that this style is triplet based. Important! If a style has a time signature other than 4/4, it is ESSENTIAL that you set the time signature of your host to the same value! This is true for all odd signature styles except for the 12/8 style, which sounds fine when you use it with 4/4. There’s a complete listing of all styles with descriptions written by the composers starting on page page 81.
Groove Agent 3 34 English Every style has its own carefully crafted drum kit assigned to it. Many of the early styles sound vintage by today’s standards – both musi- cally 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 op- erating 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 during a session. Styles stored in Memory locations stay loaded, so Groove Agent will not glitch when switching between them. As described elsewhere, you can also choose the style and/or kit by clicking in the LCD window. 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, making 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 selects the kit. Click the Link button again, if you want to re-establish the Link be- tween the style and the corresponding kit. Please note that selecting a new kit usually calls for new samples to be loaded. This may take a few seconds.
Groove Agent 3 English 35 ENGLISH The Complexity slider This tool is also very important, since it makes the drumming built into Groove Agent come alive. Getting acquainted with this slider shouldn’t be too problematic, since its behavior is very predictable. If you move this slider to the left, you’ll reach the simpler levels of com- plexity. As a matter of fact, the first levels – named A, B, C, D, and E – are usually not even complete patterns. Something is missing here, be it a kick drum or a few beats. The reason we gave you these levels is because we think you might find them suitable for song intros or when producing very sparse music. Maybe only the first verse of your song needs this gentle touch? By moving the slider to the right, you move into the more active terri- tory. Here you’ll find variations 1-20 of the chosen style and the fur- ther you move to the right, the busier it gets. Some may even regard the rightmost levels to be totally unlistenable, but that’s intentional. This drummer gets a bit wild sometimes! For convenience and predictability, 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 until the next bar to hear the new level. This behavior gives you time to trig- ger 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 between ANY combina- tions of panel settings in a split second. Complexity levels 1-15 are generally regarded as normal or most useful.
Groove Agent 3 36 English The Complexity Link button The 25 levels of complexity each have their own unique fill. By moving the slider to a certain level and then hit- ting the Fill button, you’ll hear that level’s fill. You can also separate the two halves of the slider. When you click the Link button, the two halves can be dragged individually. In this mode, it’s perfectly possible to use a very simple rhythm and activate a rather complex fill. Or vice versa. You may also find the Link button useful if you’ve decided that fill num- ber 13 (or whatever) is the only one you want to use at a particular po- sition in your song. Or throughout the song, for that matter. Clicking the Link button again re-establishes the link between com- plexity and fill. Snare/Sidestick One common practice in traditional drumming is to make the sound “lighter” by playing with the stick lying down on the snare drum, hitting the metal rim. This is called sidestick and here’s the button for it. You may switch between regular snare and sidestick at any level of complexity. 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.
Groove Agent 3 English 37 ENGLISH Accent This button triggers a kick + crash cymbal hit. You may use it as an accent in your song. When hit at an offbeat, the accent hit becomes a syncope. The cur- rent drum pattern stops for as long as you keep the button pressed. Holding down the Accent button for approximately one quarter note after you hit it on an off-beat creates a very realistic syncope. Fill This is one of the most rewarding buttons of Groove Agent! A drum machine that plays its patterns very regu- larly and automatically triggers a fill every 8th bar will sound right most of the time but certainly not always. In Groove Agent YOU are the band leader, the conductor! Hit the but- ton when you feel it’s time for a fill, and Groove Agent will obey. If you hit the button early in a bar, you’ll hear more of the fill bar than if you hit the button late in a bar. Armed with this knowledge, you can turn even the wilder fills into more discrete (short) ones. Please note that in most styles the fills end with a crash cymbal on the downbeat of the next bar, just like a live drummer. You can turn this ef- fect off on the Setup page. Speaking of arming, you can actually start a pattern with a fill. When Groove Agent is stopped, hitting the fill button will arm it, so that click- ing the Run button makes Groove Agent start playing with a fill. Each style has 25 complexity levels. This also applies to fills; the lower numbered fills tend to be less busy than the ones with higher numbers. Some musical styles have a definite 2 or 4-bar pattern feel to them. While an irregular (e. g. 7 or 9) bar period in your music may cause such a pattern to sound wrong (“one bar late”), it’s reassuring to know that af- ter a fill the music always restarts at “bar 1” in such a pattern. Fills can also be used for endings. Hit the Fill button in the last bar of your song and then the Stop button on the last beat.
Groove Agent 3 38 English Half Tempo Feel One trick many live drummers use is to change their playing to “half tempo feel”. It usually involves slowing down the kick and snare pattern to half tempo while keeping the hihat/ride pattern going. Figge, one of the musicians involved in this project, suggested that we include this feature in Groove Agent. After some serious thought, we decided it would definitely be a big bonus; there aren’t too many drum machines out there with a “Half Tempo Feel” button. But all drummers do half tempo feel now and then! In Groove Agent, all the half tempo feel patterns have been especially programmed to imitate this trick. One very obvious example can be found in the Fox style. Play it at a moderately brisk tempo and then hit the Half Tempo Feel button. You will notice how the playing style turns into something very similar to funk. Or use a rock style with half tempo feel, and it’ll turn into a power ballad. In practice, the Half Tempo Feel function doubles the amount of avail- able styles! You can think of the half tempo feel as the basic rhythm of your song. And then, near the end, perhaps disengage the button for an uptempo, gospel style ending! Try activating the Half Tempo Feel button at the bridge section of a song and then go back to normal play for the end choruses. Or at any other part where you feel the urge to increase the excitement or coolness with this function. Random If you want some automatic pattern variation, the Random button is very handy. This function automatically changes patterns for you. The general idea is to make the drum- ming sound less rigid, less predictable. The LCD window shows you what level is currently playing. The Random button only plays levels within a range of ±2 levels from the slider’s original position.
Groove Agent 3 English 39 ENGLISH Auto Fill Here’s a handy little knob. It can automate the way fills are triggered: •On – When you move from one complexity level to another with Auto Fill activated, Groove Agent automatically plays a fill before the next level. •2, 4, 8, 12 or 16 – A fill is triggered automatically every second, fourth, 8th, 12th or 16th bar, but NOT when you change complexity level. This is perfect for those moments when you’re jamming along with Groove Agent and your hands are busy. This function is new in Groove Agent 3. Random Fill This is another little tool to make life easier. If you stay within one complexity level and trigger a fill every now and then, this button will make sure that every time there’s a fill, it’ll be a different one. As with the Random button, the randomly chosen fill always lies within ±2 steps from the slider’s current location. Tip: Using Auto Fill in position 2–16 with Random Fill activated will in- crease variation; every time a fill is triggered, it will be a different one. Import & FX Here’s a new feature! Earlier versions used to have a Limiter accessible directly from this interface. In Groove Agent 3, the effects section has been seriously over- hauled, so we’ve created a special page for those set- tings. Press this button to go to the page for (sample) Import and Effects.