Steinberg Studio Case VST Instruments Operation Manual
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VST Instruments Groove Agent SE 4 – 71 ENGLISH The LCD window The information given in this window is mostly self explanatory, but let us give you a useful tip: When navigating the Style and Com- plexity sliders, the big LCD window al- ways tells you where the sliders are. There are 13 styles available for the top slider, and some users may find the style names difficult to read. Please, have a look in the LCD win- dow. It makes it much easier for you to place the sliders exactly where you want them. 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. Groove Agent SE won't stop you from trying any style in any tempo though – the Range is just a friendly recommendation.
VST Instruments 4 – 72 Groove Agent SE Sliders and buttons The style slider/timeline The top slider is perhaps the most important gadget in the entire instru- ment. It is a timeline with various musical styles written above it. When dragging the slider along this timeline, you select what style to use. Every style has its own typical drum kit assigned to it. When first selecting a style, the VSTi 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.
VST Instruments Groove Agent SE 4 – 73 ENGLISH Styles in Groove Agent SE Here's a short description of each style: 1952 Jazz Trio Brush Kit groove inspired by brush greats such as Buddy Rich, Louie Bellson, Jo Jones. 1956 Rumba Afro-Cuban version of the Rumba, not to be confused with the Rhumba (with an “h”) that can often be heard in older drum machines. 1966 Pop High energy pop drumming, fave tempo is 146 BPM. 1971 Cajun “Deep down in Louisiana close to New Orleans” kind of Cajun style. 1973 Dark Side Fair amount of inspiration from Pink Floyd's “Dark Side of the Moon”, well suited for slow songs. 1977 Hard Rock Steady and heavy drums for anyone with Angus-ambitions. 1983 Breakbeat Dirty, groovy, kind of playing-too-much à la Chemical Brothers. 1988 House A quite laidback electronic style that lives on its own groove. 1993 Modern Soul Straight and very well suited for slow pop and soul ballads. Modern Soul contains a hybrid of analog, processed sounds and electronic sounds.
VST Instruments 4 – 74 Groove Agent SE 1996 Drum’n’Bass Combination of high speed beats with a natural half tempo feel, result- ing in a playful rhythmic ballet. 2002 Nu RnB Modern RnB/Hiphop style with a compressed sound. The Complexity slider 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 are usually not even com- plete patterns. Something is missing here, be it a kick drum or a few beats. You might find these patterns 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 busy territory. Here you'll find variations of the chosen style and the further you move to the right, the busier it gets. 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. 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 time. The sidestick playing technique generally sounds more natural at lower complexity levels. It is not available in all variations.
VST Instruments Groove Agent SE 4 – 75 ENGLISH Accent This button triggers a kick + crash cymbal hit. You may use it as an accent in your song. When hit at an off-beat, 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 Hit the button when you feel it's time for a fill. 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 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 effect off by muting the Crash group. Speaking of arming, you can actually start a pattern with a fill. When Groove Agent SE is stopped, hitting the fill button will arm it, so that clicking the Run button makes Groove Agent SE start playing with a fill. 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 endings. Hit the Fill button in the last bar of your song and then the Stop button on the last beat.
VST Instruments 4 – 76 Groove Agent SE 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. In practice, the Half Tempo Feel function doubles the amount of available 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 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 from one complexity level to another with Auto Fill activated, Groove Agent SE au- tomatically plays a fill before the next level. If an auto save function is active in your sequencer, it may cause Groove Agent SE to trigger a fill. The medicine is to turn Auto Save off.
VST Instruments Groove Agent SE 4 – 77 ENGLISH 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 slightly different one. As with the Random button, the randomly chosen fill always lies within ±2 steps from the slider's current location. Ambience This knob is one of the highlights of Groove Agent SE! All the acoustic drums and percussion instru- ments were recorded using a mix of four techniques: •Every instrument close miked, giving a very dry sound. •Every instrument recorded through the overhead microphones, giving a rather dry sound but with a sweet stereo image. •Every instrument recorded through the ambience microphones, positioned approximately 2 meters from the source. This gave us a warm, roomy sound with a controlled amount of “air”. •Every instrument recorded through a pair of distant mikes, placed over 7 metres away. These recordings give a definite hall atmosphere. The type of ambience used for a specific style matches the way it was recorded in its original era. We've preset a lot of different kits to go with the different musical styles, but if you want to change the preset version, use this dial. The normal position for this knob is 12 o'clock. Turning it all the way to the left produces an all dry sound, while all the way to the right gives you the ambient (wet) sounds only.
VST Instruments 4 – 78 Groove Agent SE Mute, grouping and instrument selection The sounds in Groove Agent SE 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. Mute disabled (un-lit) = sound on. While listening to the preset styles and their related kits, you may want to experiment with exchanging individual instruments or instrument groups. Click the sound name field to open a pop-up menu from which you can choose a different instrument. Change that tight 80s studio kick to a dull 50s jazz kick in one easy go and hear the results instantly!
VST Instruments Groove Agent SE 4 – 79 ENGLISH Stop/Run These buttons start and stop Groove Agent SE. 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 SE follows the tempo and synchronizes to the beat position of the host. You can make Groove Agent SE start simultaneously with your sequencer by using this method: 1.Start Cubase SE. 2.Start Groove Agent SE. 3.Click the sequencer stop button. Now, the next time you start your sequencer, Groove Agent SE will start, too! The waiting status of the Run button is indicated by a green light. This is good for those situations where you want the drums to play from the very start of a song or a section.
VST Instruments 4 – 80 Groove Agent SE Groove Agent SE keyboard mapping Here’s an image that describes how the Groove Agent SE sounds are laid out on a MIDI keyboard.