This allows you to see how things are mapped to MIDI notes for the currently selected kit slot and can also be used to trigger both pads and patterns via the mouse if required. To the left of the kit slots you get access to the preset system for the currently selected kit slot and some settings - polyphony, MIDI channel, etc - that are specific to that kit slot.Īt the very base of the window you can toggle on/off the display of a virtual keyboard. The preset browser mimics the approach found in Cubase’s MediaBay, so there are lots of ways to refine your search and to categorise your content.
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Above them, and running the full length of the main window, is a control strip that includes access to the global-level preset system, CPU, disk and memory use indicators and various buttons to tweak global MIDI settings, bypass effects and (thankfully) undo/redo buttons. GA4 provides you with four independent ‘kit slots’ (located top-right) into which you can place instances of the three different Agents in any combination you prefer. While the integration with Cubase is obviously very tight, GA4 will work with any suitable VST or AU host. Amongst the samples are three sampled acoustic drum kits (Studio, Rock and Vintage and featuring quite detailed sampling), around 100 Beat Agent kits and over 20 percussion kits.
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Software front-end aside, the library includes over 22,000 samples and some 3800 MIDI grooves, the combination of which covers a huge range of musical styles.
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That’s quite a label, so does three into one go? Not So Secret Agentsįor the purposes of this review, I installed GA4 from a download (around 9GB - pour a drink and wait), although there is a boxed version available. Indeed, in Groove Agent 4, we get three different drum tools Acoustic Agent, Beat Agent and Percussion Agent, and Steinberg’s tag-line for GA4 is ‘ultimate drum studio’. However, with Groove Agent 4, Steinberg seem to be on a bit of a mission to bring these kinds of tools together. These categories are not, of course, mutually exclusive and, for example, with the right samples, something like EZDrummer can do urban just as easily as it can do rock.
It’s also perhaps not surprising that Steinberg felt this significant overhaul was required if Groove Agent was going to stay relevant given the abundance of excellent drum tools, whether virtual drummers or MPC-style drum machines, that are now available. It might not come as a surprise, therefore, that the long-awaited Groove Agent 4, while it may be the next number in the sequence, appears to be a very different beast. However, if you are familiar with Cubase 5 or later, you will have encountered Groove Agent ONE and perhaps Groove Agent SE4, both of which are more in the MPC-style drum-machine mould. It evolved through v.2 (2005) and v.3 (2008), both of which expanded upon what was essentially the same format. While Virtual Guitarist and Virtual Bassist no longer have a place in Steinberg’s product line, Groove Agent does. They were, in essence, computer-based musicians and, provided you were happy to work within the constraints of the supplied sounds/performances, capable of doing a decent turn if you needed quick results or didn’t have access to ‘real’ musicians to fill these roles on your projects.įor their time, these were novel and innovative products and Steinberg deserve a respectful nod for taking some of these initial steps along a road that other developers have now followed. It eventually sat alongside two other virtual instruments (Virtual Guitarist and Virtual Bassist), all of which shared a similar approach. Why take three virtual rhythm plug-ins into the studio when you can just take one? Steinberg’s Groove Agent 4 attempts to do it all.īack in the dim and distant past (well, 2003 to be precise), Steinberg released their first iteration of Groove Agent. Groove Agent 4 provides three different Agents and up to four different players at the same time.
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