record midi steinberg groove agent 4 and ableton

#Record midi steinberg groove agent 4 and ableton plus

A set of rotary knobs down the left-hand side of the window lets you create a triplet shuffle feel, loosen the timing, add simple limiting, and control the Ambience balance by mixing together dry, two-metre, and seven-metre distant miked versions of the same sounds. Other refinements include the choice of snare or sidestick, buttons to trigger accents or fills on demand, a half-tempo feel, and a random option that plays slightly varying patterns. Furthermore, each style provides 25 complexity levels from laid-back to incredibly busy, chosen from the lower slider, each with its own unique 'fill', and once again you can link/unlink the fills from the complexity level. Each style has an associated drum/percussion setup, but you can unlink the lower part of the slider to marry any kit with any style. Groove Agent can play drums in a variety of styles, arranged chronologically across the upper curving timeline slider, starting in the 1950s with 'Swing' and moving through five decades to the 21st century and 'Mini Club'. We reviewed version 1 back in SOS July 2003, but here's a brief recap. What's more, you can now bypass the internal sample-playback engine and output MIDI data to trigger your own preferred drum sounds, and you can capture MIDI performances to a MIDI file independent of any host application.

#Record midi steinberg groove agent 4 and ableton plus

Version 2 offers many more rhythm style options (81 instead of version 1's 54) including grunge, punk, and trip-hop, plus nine new kits, and there are now up to eight stereo outputs available for more refined mixing options. The sounds are all high-quality 24-bit audio (mostly recorded onto analogue tape), and although you can use it as a simple drum machine, it actually provides far more creative possibilities.

Plenty of us fall into these categories, yet when I first saw version 1 displayed at the Frankfurt Musikmesse in 2003 I was tempted to dismiss it as a gimmick - that is, until I was given a proper demonstration of its capabilities.

We put it through a proper multi-platform test.įrom Bornemark, the same Swedish developers that gave us Virtual Guitarist and Broomstick Bass (reviewed elsewhere in this issue), Groove Agent is essentially an 'instant drummer' for those that either can't or don't have the time to program their own drum rhythms, or who want some rhythmic inspiration. From the same team that brought you Virtual Guitarist, Groove Agent has had an impressive upgrade, and is now claimed to work better under non-Steinberg hosts.