2 questions on GA4

Virtual instruments
#1

Question 1.

It seems like section 2 (The sections numbered 1 to 8) has an overlap between grooves and single hits. If “Pattern” button is active GA4 will show grooves and they can be played by clicking the Pad, hitting the keyboard in GA4 or by playing a MIDI keyboard. When the “Instrument” button is active, section 2 (yes the same section) will show single hits Pads available through clicking. However the groove will still play on GA4 keyboard and the MIDI keyboard. I also drew notes in the piano roll and for section 2 they only played grooves. What is the purpose of this overlap?

Question 2.

How do I load a drum set without any grooves? I can get to load a set with all Pads grey, however there will still be grooves when the MIDI keyboard is played or the keyboard in GA4. I am not able to load any set without clicking on a groove name, no matter from which menu, a groove list always emerges.

#2

Hi Rumdrum,

The overlap can be dissolved by using separate MIDI ports for the instruments and the patterns. Just go to the Pattern Pads and click on the small icon with the “B” in the bottom left corner to “Use MIDI Port B for Pattern Pads”.

There is a round icon in top right corner of the MediaBay “Load Kit with Pattern”. If you deactivate this option only the samples will load.

#3

Thank you for the answers. The first one about the groove pads on MIDI Channel B checks out but I am still having problems loading a Kit without the grooves. I have found the Icon that you mention but it does not seem to influence anything. A kit will not load unless i click on some groove name. (Nothing loads before a groove name is clicked), after which the grooves are playing when hitting either keyboard,no matter if the circle button is yellow or grey.

UPDATE: It seems like the only time you are able to load a kit without grooves on the Pads is if you do it immediately after loading GA4. If you first have loaded a kit with grooves it is impossible to load another kit without, unless you reload GA4. Should it be like that?

#4

If you have loaded the first Agent with patterns these patterns will still be active and played by this Agent when you load the second Agent without patterns. You can see on the pattern overview page which Agents are loaded with patterns and where the patterns are.

#5

That is what I said, but can’t understand why. I then have to load GA agin into Cubase to get a kit without grooves. Why then the button “Load without patterns/grooves”? Should not this work each time you load a kit? It also seems natural to get a kit to load by clicking on a kit and not a groove name when you want to load a kit without grooves. Hope this will change in an update.

#6

Could you please explain what you would like to do? I’m not sure if have really understood what you are trying to do when loading a kit without patterns. If you just want to use the sounds of the second Agent without the patterns you can just switch to MIDI channel 2 and play the sounds or program your own patterns.

There are INIT presets for the kits of the Acoustic and Percussion Agents. These kits have neutral mixer setting and no patterns. Just search for INIT in the Groove Agent 4 MediaBay.

#7

Maybe this confusion can be deepened or resolved with my (similar) difficulty. I have 3 kits loaded at the moment. I have a Midi keyboard. every Key triggers a Kit1 pad… fine. Now I switch to Kit 2. Every key still triggers a kit 1 instrument!!! Same with Kit 3… Why?

My expectation is that when I select between Kits in GA4 I the drum mappings will switch as well… but that doesn’t happen! I discovered that I can switch the Kit Midi channel in the upper left … and sometimes I can get kit 2 or kit 3 pads to be triggered by my keyboard, but It STILL TRIGGERS the Kit 1 pads at the same time!!! Is there a way that I can switch which Kit pads are triggered by my Keyboard? What should the Midi intput in Cusbase be set to for GA4? “Any”? or a specific Channel?

#8

When you right click on one of the four agents on top
you can always choose between “load kit” and “load kit with patterns”.

When you want to control different Agents independentely, create four Midi channels.
Make sure that every Agent responds to one of the channels. Then switch between Midi tracks
to trigger the one shots independently. Use the Main and not the Pattern input of GA.

#9

Ok… You know I think I got really confused from older GA4 tutorials… which seem to suggest that a GA4 Instrument track should be set to Midi Channel 10, since that is the standard GM “percussion” channel. Then the tutorials go on to suggest that when you double click on a recorded midi track, the Drum editor would pop up instead of the Key editor. But I see now that GA4 4.2 has changed this paradigm… and, (if I understand it correctly)… the better way to do it is to add separate Midi record tracks and than assign a different MIDI-in channel for each MIDI track to one of the corresponding four GA4 Kit that that are loaded. And This way you could record a separate MIDI pattern track too. but still have 4 possible sets of trigger controls over each kit. … Cool when it works… but confusing … :slight_smile: