Resetting Instrument Pads

Virtual instruments Groove Agent
1

I just bought Groove Agent 5 and I’m going through the manual. I’m on page 20 of the PDF, in the section “Adding a Second Agent to Fatten the Sound”. Under the PROCEDURE section, on step 5 there’s a bullet point that says “Reset the instrument pads for all drum sounds that you do not want to use”. So, ok, I want to try that.

Well, first of all, I don’t know how to do that. I have to say the organization of this manual would be better if things were presented in a way that I didn’t have to search forward for concepts that haven’t been introduced yet. Just saying! Yeah, I know software is complex and difficult to explain linearly, but at least tell me where to find these concepts. Give me a pointer. Okay, there is a pointer to “Assigning Samples To Pads” on page 92. I go there and scroll down a bit to find “Removing Samples From Pads”. That sounds like resetting the pad. I don’t know if there is any other configuration associated with the pad aside from the sample, so it might not be the same, but it says right-click on the pad and click “Remove Sample”. I don’t have that item on my context menu. Here is the context menu that appears when I right-click on an instrument pad:
Groove Agent pad context menu

On page 54 there’s actually a section called “Instrument Pad Context Menu”, but it doesn’t have “Remove Sample” (although it does have “Remove All Samples”), and it doesn’t look like mine either:

Groove Agent manual - Instrument Pad Context Menu
Groove Agent manual - Instrument Pad Context Menu799×508 56.3 KB

Why don’t I see this context menu when I right-click on an instrument pad?

2

The context menu is different, depending on the type of Agent (Beat, Acoustic or Percussion) loaded into a Kit slot.
Load a “Beat Agent” kit preset and the context menu will look like the one displayed above.
best regards
Gerrit

3

Why is that? Why can’t I alter the pads on the Acoustic Agent or the Percussion Agent kits?

4

The kits with the fancy dancing drum set macro pages have locked layers. These are easy to use as they are, and provide a well balanced ‘matching kit’. Same player, same technique(s) for striking the stuff, same sticks, same room, same mics, etc…

You could still do your kit doubling thing, but instead of emptying out the pads ‘mute’ them.

It’s also a way to combine bits of those sorts of kits into one. Load more than one kit, set them to the same master channel, mute out things that should not be sounding when a MIDI event comes in, and remap some pads to different MIDI notes, etc.

Another thing you can do when you just want to borrow a piece or two from a kit is ‘resample it’, then load it into an initialized Beat Agent program. In Cubase it’s as simple as making a midi track that plays the bits you want a free sample of to work with, then instant render. Slice and dice the part right there in Cubase, and drag it it onto GA pads.

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