#Groove agent 4 vs groove agent se 4 full version#

You should notice a little вЂclockвЂ™ and beat numbers displayed in the pad, which enable you to see quite easily how long/short the pattern is and when it will loop back to the beginning. When you hit play (space bar) in Cubase, the currently selected pattern (highlighted by a yellow/orange line around the pad) will start playing. Groove Agent SE4 has its own transport but can also be set to start and stop in sync with Cubase, which is the way I prefer to work: click on the words вЂFollow TransportвЂ™ above Groove AgentвЂ™s stop and play buttons - they should turn yellow/orange. ItвЂ™s helpful to drag the Library column over to the left, so you can easily find all the kits that work with Acoustic Agent, which is the newest and most sophisticated Agent in Groove Agent SE4. Click any pad or use a MIDI device to trigger the sounds.

Use the Pattern and Instrument buttons (top right of the left-hand pane) to view the Instrument (kit piece) or Rhythm pads. Whichever you choose youвЂ™ll be able to customise it, but if in doubt try the вЂForget The PastвЂ™ kit: it sounds decent and the rhythms are simple enough for learning the ropes. Click on one: the kit and its patterns will load, and the Beat Agent icon will be replaced by an Acoustic Agent one.

#Groove agent 4 vs groove agent se 4 full version#

As there are some kits without a dedicated Agent, the column will be empty at the top (in A-Z), but if you scroll down youвЂ™ll soon find all your Acoustic Agent SE kits (the full version of Groove Agent gives you more options). Click on the column header and the results will be ordered alphabetically (A-Z) by Agent type, click again and you reverse the order (Z-A). Scroll across until you see the Library Name column - itвЂ™s a good idea to drag this column over to the left if you wish to be able to select kits by Agent easily in the future. A kit browser window will appear which, alas, is fixed to a narrower width than is helpful. Right-click on the Beat Agent box at the top centre, and select вЂLoad kit with patterns.вЂ™. Groove Agent SE4 defaults to a blank preset (no kit, no patterns), but the вЂBeat AgentвЂ™ is activated. Finding a suitable kit isnвЂ™t straightforward, as the browse-by-Agent page of Groove Agent 4 is missing in SE4, but hereвЂ™s a quick way to find a kit thatвЂ™s compatible with the Acoustic Agent. As I said, weвЂ™ll be examining the Acoustic Agent, which is all about tweaking the virtual performance. The different Agents can be thought of as engines for customising the patterns or samples (depending which Agent youвЂ™re using). Over on the right, itвЂ™s a little more complex: thereвЂ™s an Edit page for the вЂAgentвЂ™ associated with the kit (more on that later), a Mixer for balancing and processing the various kit pieces, and an Options page, which weвЂ™ll explore later. ThereвЂ™s another bank (there are eight banks in the full version of Groove Agent) of 16 pads for MIDI loops, which вЂplayвЂ™ the kit pieces, and again these are assigned a MIDI Note. The basics are easy to understand: on the left are eight banks of 16 pads (128 pads in total, each mapped to a different MIDI note), onto which layered kit-piece samples can be loaded, either individually or a whole kit at a time.

I canвЂ™t cover everything in two pages, so itвЂ™s a topic IвЂ™ll revisit in the future. So, hereвЂ™s a quick guide to creating a natural-sounding acoustic drum part using SE4вЂ™s Acoustic Agent. Several SOS forumites, though, found it confusing enough that they asked for a step-by-step guide. In SE4, Steinberg added the вЂAcoustic AgentвЂ™, which enables you to vary and automate the virtual drummerвЂ™s performance with ease. ItвЂ™s a virtual drummer along the lines of BFD, EZ Drummer and so on, with loads of good-sounding kits, a great вЂRhythmвЂ™ library and lots of tweakability. To load a kit and set of rhythms, right-click on the Agent box, top middle, and select вЂLoad Kit With Patterns.вЂ™.Д¬ubaseвЂ™s Groove Agent SE4 isnвЂ™t the most intuitive drum machine, but itвЂ™s well worth getting to grips with.Д¬ubaseвЂ™s Groove Agent SE4, bundled with version 8.0 onwards, is something of a hidden gem.