When Groove Agent is running, four on-screen 'LEDs' show that the pattern is stepping through. When used with a sequencer, the Start button can be used to 'prime' Groove Agent so that it starts when the sequencer starts. The type of ambience added is optimised for each kit.Įight drum kit groups are also furnished, along with mute buttons, and of course there are Start and Stop buttons. Limiter works like a normal studio limiter to squash peaks and increase the overall level, while Ambience brings in the distant room mics for a big, live room sound. Each drumming style features 25 related patterns of various complexity, which may be selected on the fly using a couple of octaves of notes on a MIDI keyboard.īelow the Styles and Complexity sliders are four knobs to control Shuffle percentage, Humanization (a kind of virtual lager knob, though to be accurate, there should be a sampled sound of a drummer falling off his stool when you get up to 11!), Limiter and Ambience. Closer inspection reveals that each slider has two handles that are normally linked, but they can be unlinked, the upper one allowing drum patterns to be played using kits other than those for which they are designed, while unlinking the lower handle on the lower slider allows different fill to be used than the ones that normally go with the selected pattern. This has a Styles slider at the top and a Complexity slider below it. In Logic, Groove Agent is inserted in an Instrument track in the normal way and comes up with a main window that looks like a retro drum machine. It is easy to use and sounds much more convincing than a typical drum machine.
#HOW TO USE GROOVE AGENT 4 SOFTWARE#
#HOW TO USE GROOVE AGENT 4 PC#
Groove Agent runs on any recent Mac (OS 9 to 10.2) or PC there's no Audio Units version, so Logic OS X users will either have to wait or try a VST-to-AU wrapper. This is important, as Groove Agent includes a variable ambience control that uses this information to move from a dry drum sound to a very live room without using synthetic reverb. In order to provide plenty of sonic flexibility, the drums were recorded simultaneously with close mics, overheads, distant mics at 2 metres and distant mics at 7 metres. Unlike a drum machine, Groove Agent can be played interactively, with a MIDI keyboard used to switch between related drum patterns of differing complexity, or to initiate fills and so on. In some respects, Groove Agent is like a software drum machine, but rather than using REX file samples like Virtual Guitarist, it uses separate drum samples arranged into patterns by 13 different musicians specialising in different musical styles. All the acoustic drum sounds were recorded in Sweden by top drummer Mats-Erik Bjorklund, whereas electronic sounds came from Primesounds in Stockholm.
Groove Agent is a VST Instrument designed to do for drums what Virtual Guitarist did for guitar parts and like Virtual Guitarist, it was produced by Sven Bornemark in collaboration with some great musicians and rather clever programmers.
If you don't fancy programming drums from scratch, but you find pre-recorded drum loops too inflexible, perhaps what you need is Steinberg's virtual drummer.
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