Acoustic Agent kits are ‘locked’. That’s not a GA issue, but how the kits are designed to be used. Concept: You’ve just hired a drummer who brings his favorite kit, using the same sticks/mallets/etc, and the same ‘technique’ for every single kit piece, all recorded in the same room, with the same mics. They’re already set up for you for the most part, and laid out for mixing. FULL acoustic drum KIT…all designed to work together…and it should be convincing that the ‘same player’ is sitting on the drum throne.
Contrast that with just grabbing various samples and building a kit. It can sound pretty goofy to the trained ear, when it’s obvious samples were made using different sticks, a mix match of head types, different striking techniques, made in different rooms, etc.
Acoustic Agent kits also have those groove tools with macro screens that you can ‘dial in’. Changing the kit could break the way those grooves were intended work.
Other reasons for locking it might be copy protection, and just making the product slightly easier to service, and harder to ‘break’ by accident.
There’s a pretty solid work around if you need to add custom bits to a kit, or even mix and match more than one acoustic agent.
Since you get 4 kit slots…use them. Stack kits. While you cannot edit the pads of such ‘locked’ kits, you can ‘remap’ them a bit. You can ‘mute’ pads in kit slots that aren’t being used, and remap pads from other kits to use the same channel. Etc…
So, if you need ‘custom samples’…simply do it in a new kit slot. Use pads that are empty in the locked agent kit. Set both slots to the ‘same channel’. Remap some pads (change trigger note) if you really want/need it to be on a certain ‘trigger note’.
Here’s a thread/post on the topic from GA4 days. Still applies to GA5.
Groove agent 4 your own drum kit - Virtual instruments - Steinberg Forums