And there's no MIDI output, although we understand that it's due to be added soon. Let's hope further content becomes available in future.Īlso, as much as we love the Acoustic Agent Kits, they offer less editing flexibility than you'll find in the best drum ROMplers. The MediaBay Browser is great, but certain genres are notable by their absence (no jazz kits, for example). Groove Agent 4 is a powerful drum sampler, virtual drum kit and percussion ROMpler with a huge library of patterns, capable real-time performance features, good onboard processing and a stylish, highly interactive interface, but there are a few issues that need to be raised. And finally, as the 128 Pattern Pads are shared across all four Kits, with, potentially, one Pattern from each Kit assigned to each Pad, there's a Pattern Overview screen to provide quick feedback on allocations. The bit depth can be set to 16- or 24-bit independently for each Kit, which is useful when conserving memory usage. Jam Mode lets you select Patterns sequentially in real time, setting them to follow certain behaviours, such as play Next, Stop at end and Return to previous.
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Beat Agent also imports REX files and slices loops in other formats, mapping them across multiple Pads.Īs we discovered through testing GA 4 in Logic and Live, this drag-and-drop functionality works in other DAWs, too - although getting MIDI into Groove Agent required us to create MIDI files and drag them from the DAW's browser or Windows Explorer/OS X Finder.īefore we wrap up, let's quickly run through the less-fundamental new additions. You can also drop samples into Beat Agent's Instrument Pads, and where you drop them within the Pad determines how they're handled: add (top), replace (middle) or map across multiple Pads (bottom). You can drag and drop MIDI Patterns to and from the DAW: dropping a single MIDI pattern onto a Pad replaces the incumbent one, while dropping multiple patterns arranges them across multiple Pads. Steinberg cites Cubase integration as one of Groove Agent 4's marquee features. However, these are precisely the areas in which Beat Agent excels, being essentially a conventional drum sampler hosting up to eight samples per pad, with adjustable velocity range and keyspan, three envelopes (pitch, filter and amplitude), real-time timestretch (AudioWarp), sample looping, sample slicing and MIDI effects (Rudiments and MIDI Delay).
All Kits get four Auxiliaries with four effects slots each, however, as well as their own output channels feeding the Master output fader.Įditing of Acoustic and Percussion Agent's underlying sounds is limited to amplitude envelopes, tuning and send levels to their respective room and/or overhead channels.
The Acoustic and Percussion Agents get a knob- laden Mixer with fixed insert effects (EQ, Compressor, Tape Saturation and Envelope Shaper), while Beat Agent's Mixer includes fully assignable effects for its four inserts (from a list of 29 processors). "Steinberg cites Cubase integration as one of Groove Agent 4's marquee features"Įach Agent offers its own feature set. Meanwhile, Percussion Agent patches range from typical Latin styles to dance, pop, funk and soul, and include a good selection of crisp instrumentation, including timbales, congas, triangles, shakers and more. There are also a few useful 'soundtrack-style' presets, but little in the way of more leftfield or unusual ethnic sounds. The Beat Agent kits lean towards urban and electronic styles, offering good starting palettes for tweaking and/or adding to. For its open sound, the Vintage kit is our favourite, but all three will have their uses, the other two being tight and controlled (Studio), and bright with a couple of bold, ringy snare drums (Rock). The acoustic kits offer a reasonable level of variety, with two snares and kicks each, plenty of velocity layers and round robin playback.
Each Kit has its own Pattern section, and for the Acoustic and Percussion Agents this also incorporates Styles, which are rather like the feature of the same name from Groove Agent 3 (see Pattern o'clock).
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