Groove Agent 4

Steinberg release Groove Agent 4




Steinberg Media Technologies has announced the release of Groove Agent 4, a major new version of the drum workstation that comprises different drum modules each specialized in certain acoustic and electronic drum styles.
Groove Agent 4 features three drum modules, also known as Agents, which trigger a wealth of grooves and samples. Each Agent offers a set of specialized tools essential to the style of drum production in demand, but Agents can also be combined, giving Groove Agent 4 its unique multi-Agent architecture.
The Acoustic Agent consists of three drum kits: Studio Kit, Rock Kit and Vintage Kit. Each kit includes dedicated controls that adjust the mix of room and overhead microphones, bleeding signals as well as further kit tuning. Armed with a dedicated channel strip sporting EQ, compressor, tape saturation and envelope shaper, the acoustic drum mixer comes with up to 20 microphone channels, six group channels and four aux buses. The Style Player provides over 50 contemporary styles to choose from. Once selected, Groove Agent 4 offers a groove with intros, fills and endings and up to 16 variations of the main part that can seamlessly be blended by complexity and intensity.
The Beat Agent gets down to intricate beat production, boasting over 100 kits quickly accessible via the MediaBay and the Sample Browser as well as a broad scope of editing capabilities available through the Sample Editor. The Drum Classifier detects the different kit components in a loop and allows users to extract, replace and rearrange them. The Vintage and Turntable modes add the sound perceived in early 12-bit drum machines.
The Percussion Agent includes percussion instruments the likes of bongos, shakers, tambourine and congas. Its Style Player combines up to 8 substyles and adjusts the complexity and intensity of each instrument. With more than 20 styles the Percussion Agents covers grooves ranging from disco, funk, pop and R&B to classic percussive standards, such as bolero and bossa nova.
The entire library encompasses over 22,000 samples and more than 3,800 grooves. All drum kits have been recorded in 24-bit resolution while the Acoustic and Percussion Agents also offer 16-bit versions on top.
Additional features highlighted in Groove Agent 4 are the Pattern Editor for easy editing of grooves and the Jam mode that creates backing tracks on the fly. The overall kit mixer provides 29 effects and 16 stereo outputs that can be fed directly to any host mixer. In conjunction with Cubase, Groove Agent 4 takes integration to a new level, allowing users to drag and drop samples and MIDI patterns from Cubase onto Groove Agent 4 or drag patterns from Groove Agent 4 back into Cubase. Drum maps from Groove Agent kits are automatically created and pad names are copied to Cubase.
"The fourth iteration of Groove Agent gives us reason to cheer: we've been working hard on delivering a multi-role virtual drummer that is matchless, " said Matthias Quellmann, product marketing manager at Steinberg. "We are confident that Groove Agent will equally become a rich source of inspiration and creativity for musicians all over the globe."
Features at a glance:

• Complete virtual drum workstation including three specialist Agents for drums, beats and percussion — combinable in four slots.
• Huge library including over 22,000 samples and more than 3,800 grooves and patterns for any contemporary music style.
• Acoustic Agent virtual drummer with detailed drum kits.
• Beat Agent drum sampler for electronic music production including advanced slice editing and automatic drum hit recognition.
• Percussion Agent with more than 20 instruments to complete your virtual rhythm section.
• Full pattern editor for groove editing on the fly.
• Style Player plays in the desired complexity and intensity, generates auto fills and much more.
• Jam mode creates immediate backing tracks, including intro, fills and ending.
• Integrated mixing board with high-end audio effects for flexible control over all aspects of your drum sound.
• Advanced Cubase integration with drag and drop, full automation and automatic drum map exchange.

Availability and pricing
The full retail version of Groove Agent 4 will be available from Steinberg resellers and through the Steinberg Online Shop from August 20. The suggested retail price is 179 €, including German VAT.
The Groove Agent 4 update from version 3 is now available as download through the Steinberg Online Shop for 99.99 €, including German VAT.
Groove Agent 4 is available for 32- and 64-bit Windows and Mac OS X in VST2, VST3 and AU instrument plug-in formats.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=b4MdmNfAWhs
 

I really enjoyed and got used to Groove Agent 2 with Sonar 5PE, so I am going to have to read the reviews and check into this. I have been watching EZ Drummer 2, here and giving it some time ...myself some time? to consider it.
 
Late summer implies I'd better buy my Epi Wildkat and "Gretsch" pickups for it, because I imagine lots of stuff is going up a version! Oh well, it's only money....
 
Michael

Michael
Did you actually ever get Version 2 to work properly; such as output of midi grooves was one thing that was impossible I remember and confirmed so by Stinkberg - there was a work round but cannot remember what that was.
In concept I loved it, that's why I kept upgrading, but implementation was so poor
Nigel
 

Yes, much as I remember it - various work arounds to cater for  blatantly poor implementation! But it was such a shame as in theory it was one of the best, certainly great to jam with etc and come up with unusual grooves etc- the reason was,  it was never a Stinkberg product  - it was produced by Wizoo - but something happened to Wizoo (Stinkberg purchased them perhaps?) then Stinkberg just dropped all the Wizoo products and stopped supporting them - I had about 3 or 4 which I had purchased directly from Stinkberg and all stopped working very shortly afterwards because of OS upgrades etc - and Stinkberg just didn't want to know!!
When i complained they very nicely just deleted my account!!!!!

I love the original Groove Agent concept and workflow.  It just made it easy to get started with ideas and being able to control complexity and fills on the fly was very nice.  The MIDI out function was also very useful, I had produced a couple of tutorials on how to get it to work but was invaluable for using your own drum sounds.
 
Groove Agent 4 looks as if you can drag and drop MIDI patterns to and from the project which will be interesting.  Also the new dynamics and complexity matrix looks a lot like Logic Pro's new Drummer.

Michael
i'm with you about wishing Groove Agent 4 could have been turned into the program it always had the potential to be - it was really a quite different concept in my opinion to most of the other drum packages that have come along since.
You know its been so long since I used it, I can hardly remember why I loved it so much and persevered with it so long in spite of Stinkberg and their crap ethics!!
However I have to say from the screen shot I have seen of Groove Agent 4, it seems Stinkberg may have moved away from the original concept into a more standard NI Battery type of drum rompler - shame but almost to expected as they could never seem to get it to work as it should.
Nigel 
 

Michael, always glad to help!
 
I think some of the heart is still there but buried in some of the new skin.  It looks like they have taken some of the Media Bay, HALion browser stuff. 
 
The thing I was glad they kept was the complexity control.  It also seems they added a dynamics control along with it in an X-Y pad type of control that can be modified in real time by the keyboard as with earlier Groove Agents.  The MIDI out functions are still a mystery but the video showing drag and drop MIDI patterns looks promising.  One thing about that was that not only could you drag out of Groove Agent 4 but also back into it from the MIDI track in the case you made an edit to the original pattern you started with.
 
I am hoping to get my hands on a copy soon and if so I will definitely report my findins!
All the best!
 

Bajan Blue
I wonder if this will also have bugs on release, that's a release after the 10 years in the making of course......

 
Not wishing to be contrary but I'll bet you can't name one piece of software of such complexity that has been bug free on release.
 
Just saying
 
Steve

Bajan Blue
Steve
I've had Mach 5 for some years now and I have never had any bugs in that - not sure if it ever did, but none while I've been using it and I got into it quite early I think.
I've been using Sound Forge for so long I can't remember exactly how long and have upgraded constantly - I really don't remember bugs in that either.
I've had Muse since it was launched and know I have the initial launch product - never had one issue with that and it still works fine albeit only in 32 bit as Gigasample went bust, so also its never had any updates or supports. That's a few off the top of my head.
My comment was a "jokey" comment, but I take it that you never had Groove Agent 1, or 2, or even 3.....if you had, I think you might have appreciated the joke better!
Nigel
 

 
 
Okay, I concede there maybe a few but I still think the majority of software has bugs no matter how minor.
It may well be the case that you weren't effected by them but there's sure to be some people who would have been.
 
As a beta tester I see lots of people, (both regular users and other beta testers) reporting bugs that I can't reproduce.
 
Of the software you've listed I only have soundforge and though I very rarely use it when I do it's just very basic stuff it has been pretty stable. Still can't get it to show up in sonars tools menu which could be a sonar thing or it could be a soundforge thing and if it's the latter does that make it a bug?
 
 
Steve

Hi Steve
I totally agree with you by the way that most software has bugs - perhaps I should expand on Groove Agent - on reflection the fact that it never worked properly might not be actual bugs as such but more poor design or poor implementation of basically a good design.
Groove Agent 1 never worked as described - nor did the next (paid) update and nor did the final (paid) upgrade, Groove Agent 3,  that I invested in - actually in Groove Agent 3 they introduced some new features that were great, but these also bought new problems.
As you will have read many people discovered work rounds etc which made the product more or less work as intended I think - I can't be sure on how much functionality they achieved through these workarounds, because after three attempts and three payments to Steinberg, I thought enough was enough and gave up.
I have to say the experience I had with Steinberg was dreadful - quick to take the money - then NO backup whatsoever in my case - in fact when I complained about Groove Agent and other products that I had only just purchased but which they basically dropped overnight, they just deleted my account!!
Nigel
 
 

I'll defer to Simeon as I haven't used it in a while and had issues with it then. Never had Sonar 7 either, I went from 5 to X after a long dark gap called Chapter 7.
 
Michael

I got a video link from Steinberg RE Groove Agent 4 the other day and that got me going on finding out more about it. I do wonder if anyone is using GA4 in SPLAT. Anyone????
 
Here is the SOS review
http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/jun15/articles/steinberg-groove-agent-4.htm
and here is (one of several) the Steinberg video tour of the acoustic kits.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1VaGdRrhX6o
 
There are other ones on the Percussion Agent and Beat Agent, etc
 
Anyway, the $99 upgrade from GA2 to 4 has got me wondering about using it in SPLAT.
Michael

Thank you, Simeon! That's the best news I've had all year. LOL I am very glad for that review/refresher tut and hope to try it out today.
Happy 2016, indeed!
Michael

Since I have my laptop out in my tracking room, can I just copy that GA2 folder and install it on that machine taking the dongle back and forth as I change rooms?
 
Michael