Can any one help please. I open up a project template, say electro or dance production, then i open up drum beat designer, (for the top drums midi track).
It has 8 pre defined sounds in the column on the left. And if you click on a sound module you get to choose another sound from several dozen sounds available.
This is all wonderful but HOW do you choose CUSTOM sounds? For example i got a custom kick drum beat and i want it playing in my drums track/beat designer, but how do i put it in the beat designer first?
While we are on the subject, grove agent one, i read the VST manual and i am still confused as to what purpose grove agent serves, should i combine it with beat designer all the time? On its own, can you make some beats without beat designer?
Certainly you can use Groove Agent One only to make beats, it’s no rule that you always should have it in combination with Beat Designer.
Just place Groove Agent one on an Instrument track (or in the Instrument Rack if you want multiple audio outputs from GA1) ; record live beats with it or program beats within the Key editor or Drum Editor.
If you’re wondering what other purpose Groove Agent One does, I can tell you how I use it. I don’t know anything about beat designer because I only play acoustic drums. First I record drums with 9 mics (only have 8 inputs, but toms 1 and 3 share an input). Then I create Midi notes from my BD, snare and toms. That Midi track is routed to GA1 and it plays the pads according to the notes. The layers in GA1 are very useful, for example I have 6 samples of tom nro 1:s in a single pad, same drum but played with different velocity. I only have to create one Midi track so that I can see all the drum notes at once in the Drum Editor. The different drum pads are routed to different outputs from GA1, so I can add EQ, comp & effects to them separately. Cymbals use the live sound from the mics, but all the actual drums are replaced with samples.
Advantages of this technique are better sound and the ability to add parts I can’t really play, e.g. when playing heavy metal with fast continuos double bass drum, I play the parts without playing the BD at all and add the line with Midi notes afterwards. I can also expand my kit. I only have 3 toms, but I can use as many toms as I like when replacing the actual sound with samples. It’s also possible to quantize a little if necessary. However I’ve noticed this can be done only very very little, because the original drum position can be heard via overheads if moved too much. I know audio quantization, but in my opinion, it ruins the sound of cymbals so better way is to just play tightly in the first place. There are some disadvantages too. It’s not always desirable to sound like a drum machine allthough in metal music it’s common nowadays. And if the recording contains much snare/tom rolls or very fast fills, it can be very difficult to find the real hit points and even if found, it’s very difficult to actually make them sound good.
Overall, this works if you want to sound like a Norwegian black metal drummer but haven’t got the skills, but will not work at all if you play more Nicko McBrain style.
