Steinberg Groove Agent 4 Manual

Beat Agent
Sound Editing91
NOTE
If you adjust the gain of the sample, the amplitude of the waveform in the  Sample 
editor changes. This might be confounded with an adjustment to the vertical zoom 
of the waveform. To get a better visual feedback, set the vertical zoom to the 
minimum before you adjust the gain.
To play back the sample at its original level, set the  Gain parameter to 0.0 dB.
Trimming Samples
In the  Sample  editor, you can trim samples to the start and end markers, or to the...

Beat Agent
Sound Editing92
Lock SlicesActivate this button to prevent slice ma rkers from being moved. Locked slices 
are
  shown with red markers.
Jump to Previous/Next Slice Click these buttons to jump to the next/previous slice.
BPM Displays the tempo of the loop, as read from the sample file or calculated from 
the sam
 ple length.
You can adjust this value manually.
Bars/Beats Shows the length of the sample found by the automatic tempo detection, in 
bar
s and beats. You can adjust this value...

Beat Agent
Sound Editing93
MIDI Export FieldYou can export the MIDI phrase by dra gging the MIDI 
 export field on a MIDI 
track in your host application.
Slicing a loop
PREREQUISITE 
To slice a loop, it is best to start with an empty kit.
NOTE
The maximum number of slices is 128. Therefore, it is recommended to start on a 
pad that is assigned to a lower note, so  that enough empty pads are available.
PROCEDURE
1. Drop the audio loop on the instrument pad that you want to start with.
2. Open the Slice...

Beat Agent
Sound Editing94
3. Optional: Adjust the Threshold and Min Length parameters.
4. Activate  Classify Slices .
RESULT 
The slices are analyzed and automatically assigned to one of the five classes. The 
color and the names of the instrument pads change accordingly.
NOTE
Very short slices cannot be recognized correctly and are not assigned to classes. 
In this case, the color and the name of the slices do not change. You can assign 
these slices manually to classes.
NOTE
Claps and sidestick are...

Beat Agent
Sound Editing95
Replacing Slices With Slices of the Same Drum Class
In the Pattern  editor, you can set all notes that be long to slices of the same drum 
class to a specific key out of that drum class. This way, all notes of a drum class play 
with the same slice. If some of the kick slices play in combination with a hihat and 
other kick slices play alone, you can set all notes of the kick class to a slice that plays 
alone. This allows for a more consistent sound.
PROCEDURE
1. Load a sliced...

Beat Agent
Pattern Editing96
Pattern Editing
On the Edit page for pattern pads, you can make settings for the MIDI patterns.
• To open the Edit  page, click 
 the Edit  button in the upper right section of the 
plug-in panel.
The  Edit 
page contains the  Agent, Overview , and Pattern tabs.
The pattern editing functions for the Beat Agent are all described in the chapter 
“Working with Pads”.
R
ELATED LINKS
Working With Pads on  page 35
Mixing
Each agent comes with a dedicated  Agent mixer that contains...

Beat Agent
Mixing97
Agent Mixer
The Beat Agent Agent Mixer offers 16 busses. You can assign the output of the 
individual samples to one of these busses. By default, the output of the Agent  mixer 
busses is routed to the  Kit mixer, but you can also assign the busses to one of the 
plug-in outputs and to the AUX FX 1 to 4.
In the top right corner of the  Agent 
 mixer, you can find the global Mute and Solo 
buttons.
•To reset all Mute  buttons 
 of the Agent mixer, click the global  Mute button.
•To...

Beat Agent
Importing and Exporting Files98
Insert Effect SlotsYou can use the 4 slots on the right of the channel strip to add insert effects 
to t
he bus.
Sends 1–4 Use these sliders to send the channe l 
 signal to the corresponding AUX 
busses.
Bus Name At the bottom of a channel strip,  the name of 
 the bus is displayed.
• To rename a bus, double-click its name and enter a new name.
Importing and Exporting Files
Importing MPC and GAK Files
You can import AKAI MPC 500 and MPC  1000 files and GAK...

Beat Agent
Importing and Exporting Files99
Pads that are part of the sliced loop display a loop icon. The pad that contains the 
first slice displays a larger loop icon.
NOTE
If the number of available pads is not hi gh enough to map all slices to pads, the 
slices that could not be added are shown in red on the slice edit page. You can 
move pads using drag and drop to free  the necessary pads. As soon as enough 
pads are available, the slices that could not be mapped are automatically added.
NOTE
If...

Beat Agent
Importing and Exporting Files100
NOTE
All subdirectories are searched before the results are displayed, therefore the 
search takes longer if you specify entire drives.
Starting the Search
Once you have specified the search path, click the Start Search button to start the 
search process.
If the search only finds a single result  for each missing sample, the sample path is 
automatically corrected in the progra m and the sample disappears from the 
Missing Files  list. If all samples are...