Groove Agent SE5: adding flanging to reverb

I’d like to have a flanging/chorus modulation effect on the reverb tail of a Groove Agent instrument - but no flanging on the instrument itself. So it’s just the wet signal being modulated. How would I set that up in the GA mix?

Hi,

In afraid this is not possible to do within Groove Agent. Do it in Cubase, please.

Okay. I’ve not done that so far, and the manual tells me that it’s possible only with Acoustic Agent kits. I use mainly Beat Agent kits, so is this mixing operation not possible with those?

Hi,

Could you please link, where did you read it?

Hi Martin
In the GA SE5 manual, p99, it states:

You can perform the mixing of an Acoustic Agent SE kit in the MixConsole of your Steinberg DAW rather than in Groove Agent SE. You can either start from scratch or use the mixer settings from Groove Agent SE as a starting point.
PROCEDURE

Right-click the kit in the Kit Rack and select Export Mixer to Cubase/Nuendo or Export Mixer and FX to Cubase/Nuendo.

The section above that about the Beat Agent does not show this, and it is clear from trying it in Cubase that it’s true. Right click on the kit in Beat Agent brings a menu at the bottom of which are only Import and Export Kit with Samples. So there isn’t a way to do this operation in Beat Agent, only Acoustic Agent. I’m not sure why this limitation exists.

The beat agent is much simpler than the acoustic agent.
The beat agent doesn’t need this.

The Acoustic Agent present some extra microphone positions, spill settings and room channels.
These are not present in Beat Agent.
It’s not a limitation in Beat Agent, it’s an extra feature of the Acoustic Agent.

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Which doesn’t really help me; I want to add a modulation effect to the reverb tail of instruments in Groove Agent’s Beat Agent whilst keeping the instrument un-effected with that mod effect. How might I achieve that?

Hi,

Route the output to the FX Channel via Send. Add Reverb and Chorus/Flanger to the Insert of the FX.

I assume you mean “route the output of Groove Agent’s channel in the Cubase Mix to the FX Channel via Send”. But that’s the entire kit, not individual instruments. Or do I misunderstand?

Hi,

You can use the multi-out in the Groove Agent and route the specific drum instrument to the dedicated Instrument Return Bus.

Ah. Sorry for being obtuse, but I don’t know what you mean, as I’m struggling to get to grips with the mix section of Groove Agent. What’s the multi-out, and what is the instrument return bus? Just imagine I’m very stupid about this and you’ll not go far wrong…

Hi,

In the Inspector of the Instrument track click to the Output button [->. Here you can enable the other outputs Out 2, Out 3. And this will craft the virtual Instrument Return Bus, which you can see in the MixConsole as the next faders or in the Project window as the automation tracks.

In Groove Agent, you can set the Output of any instrument to the specific Bus (like Out 2). This is the routing.

Then add the FX Channel, Insert Reverb and Chorus.

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Aha! This seems to work. I have two FX channels set up in the Mix, one for Reverb (insert) and that FX channel sent to the other for modulation (insert). It allows me to have modulation applied only to the reverb signal itself, not to the original instrument. Wonderful. I’d never noticed that other [-> on the Output of the Inspector. I’ll pay closer attention. If only Steinberg’s manual was so clear as your explanations.

Thank you, Martin. :grinning:

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You can easily do this from within Groove Agent (SE) 5 itself too.

Click the Mixer button and select the AUX tab. These are your “Send” effects, similar to the FX Channels in Cubase.

After you select your Send effects, go back to the Agent tab and adjust the FX Send level:

The stock drum kits have their Instrument Pads routed to different internal mixer channels (the “Agent” outputs) by default. This ensures that effects intended for your snares will only be applied to the snares, for example. You can adjust the routing for each Pad by Right Clicking them.

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Hi,

Thank you @Romantique_Tp , good to know.

I prefer to do the whole mixing at one place (Cubase), because you have all control and all relation ships at one place. What if you need to apply an EQ to the FX channel. Of course you can do it, but it’s out from your other channels.

I don’t see the point to do it in the Groove Agent, if your job is not to make a Groove Agent preset.

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How would I apply a send effect to an effect using this method? My original question was asking how to apply a modulation effect such as flanging to a reverb tail on a single drum instrument without applying that mod effect to the instrument itself.

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