I am not a drummer. Best I can do is some lame imitation of the intro to the drum solo in Inna-Gadda-Da-Vida 
. To overcome this deficiency, in Sibelius I would often create a song in an appropriate style in Jammer or Band In A Box, export the drums as a MIDI file, then dump them in the drum kit stave. Sibelius also provides an Add Drum Pattern addin, but the patterns are notoriously simple and lack variation.
So, I thought Iād try the same thing with Dorico, and yes, I can work through the process. But then I realized I have, delivered with Dorico, one of the top notch software drum machines on the market, in the form of Groove Agent. Really great sounds, patterns, and with the flexibility, one would hope, of easily adapting the drums to the needs of the music: holds, fills, etc.
The Problem: Doricoās documentation on āadding Grove Agent patternsā is incredibly terse, to the point of being no real help at all. I went looking for videos and tutorials, but, while there are several that deal with GA. itself, I canāt find much to provide a step by step process of using GA to add patterns to a Dorico flow.
And hence this post. Any suggestions?
Also, I understand that what comes with Dorico is a āstripped downā GA, and there seems to be some discussion going on that the full-featured GA 5 has some sort of compatibility or integration issues. Any problems one should know about?
Thanks for any help.
Have you seen this video? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bsa4n4nMcAM
I have tried pulling in drum grooves and/or using the midi trigger method and both seem to work as described.
1 Like
I saw this video listed, but the title threw me. Didnāt think Iād be interested in triggers, at least as I understood the term, which I have usually associated in conjunction with using MIDI in live performance. As it turns out, the video was extremely helpful, and also made me aware of the usefulness of MIDI triggers in Dorico, which look very helpful. Thanks!
I do wish the current incarnation of GA SE presented the available kits in a drop down. Cycling to the Next/Prev kit is a bit of a pain.
Not sure if this is a problem. I dragged some GA patterns in into the Drums track in Play Mode. But when I try to click them in the Drums track, they appear not to be selectable. Canāt delete them after I place them. Is the only way to delete/modify after placement in Write Mode? ie, selecting and deleting/repeating the notes?
I obviously donāt yet have a complete comprehension w.r.t. Play Mode, which I have mainly used to change instrumentation.
Also #2: once I add some Groove Agent drums, The Groove Agent dialog keeps popping up even if Iām not editing drums. Thatās annoying
Indeed, you canāt edit the āregionsā shown in the track overview in Play mode. Itās something we would like to implement in future, but for the time being the regions really only serve to show you where notes can be found. So you do indeed need to remove music in Write mode.
However, you donāt need to be in Play mode to drag in patterns from Groove Agent. You can have the Key Editor open in the lower zone in Write mode, and drag the pattern into the piano roll.
Iām not sure what you mean by the Groove Agent dialog: if you mean the plug-in window itself, you can close it by clicking the X button in its top corner like any other window, and it shouldnāt appear again until you explicitly ask for it to be shown.
Iām pulling drum patterns from Groove Agent into the drummer track in the Key Editor as suggested, @dspreadbury. But the playback is sounding nothing like the pattern within Groove Agent.
Am I using the wrong drum set? The only choice from Set-up menu is the basic drummer.
Thanks.
You might want to use Drum set (full) as the kit assigned to your player rather than Drum set (basic).