Unified “Groove Pool” & Groove Preset Management (with Pattern Editor integration)

Cubase
1

Hi all,

There are already a few threads about grooves and MIDI groove presets-this is a consolidated request.

Problem:

  • Cubase’s groove system is powerful but scattered and clumsy:
  • Groove Quantize presets / MIDI Grooves are buried in the Quantize Panel preset list with no real organization.
  • Managing many grooves quickly becomes messy: no folders, tags, ratings, or notes.
  • Auditioning and A/B-ing different grooves on the same part is slow and click-heavy.
  • The new Pattern Editor / Pattern Sequencer doesn’t have a straightforward way to use saved Groove Quantize presets.
  • Extracted grooves from MIDI or audio just add more items to an already flat list.

Requested solution: Ableton-style “Groove Pool”

A central Groove Pool panel that brings everything together.

  1. Centralizes all grooves
  • One place for all Groove Quantize presets / MIDI Grooves: factory, user, extracted from MIDI/audio.
  • Basic management tools: folders / categories, tags, search, rename, rating, comments.
  • Backwards-compatible: existing Groove Quantize presets just appear here automatically.
  1. Drag-and-drop + quick audition
  • Drag from MIDI or audio parts → Groove Pool to create a new groove.
  • Drag from the Groove Pool onto MIDI parts, tracks, or Pattern events / lanes in the Pattern Editor.
  • Non-destructive groove assignment with simple controls:
  • Amount, swing, randomness, velocity influence, on/off toggle, plus a “bake/apply permanently” option.
  1. Deep Pattern Editor / Pattern Sequencer integration
  • Each Pattern event or individual step lane has a Groove slot linked to the Groove Pool.
  • Per-pattern / per-lane groove amount (e.g. looser hats, tighter kicks).
  • “Extract Groove from this Pattern” → creates a new groove in the pool.
  1. MediaBay-style organization
  • Grooves can be tagged, searched, and included in templates or content sets like any other media.

Why it matters

  • Modern production across pop, hip-hop, EDM, rock, etc. is heavily groove-driven.

Cubase already has the engine (Groove Quantize, swing, extraction); what’s missing is:

  • A clean, central UX.
  • Proper integration with the Pattern Editor and pattern-based workflows.

Summary

I’m asking for:

  • A central, Ableton-style Groove Pool in Cubase.
  • Proper organization, tagging, and auditioning of groove presets.
  • Drag-and-drop creation and application of grooves from/to MIDI, audio, and patterns.
  • Full integration with the Pattern Editor / Pattern Sequencer, including per-pattern and per-lane groove assignments.
  • Non-destructive per-clip groove controls (amount, swing, random, velocity) with the option to bake them in.

If anyone has any further ideas or recommendations relating to this, feel free to leave a comment! :grin:

Here are some previous threads about this topic:

5 Likes
2

Yep, overhauling the groove preset creation, audition and management system in Cubase is what I would consider to be a great new core feature for a future Cubase update.

It is currently very un-intuitive, scattered and clumsy.

1 Like
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Please consider voting in the top left. :grin:

4

Yes, great topic, cubase definitively need to update the groove pool.

Just to add a point to your list: what would be nice is a per project quantize panel list.

The problem now is that if you make a track with some swing in it and you create a quantize preset for it it just add into the quantize list with regular 1/8-1/16 presets that are useless in that situation, it make no sense. I would love to be able to say: for this track I only need 1/4-1/8 with swing lets say, and for this one 1/8 and 1/4 quintuplet, etc…

I think the architecture of the groove/quantize in cubase is way better than in ableton for example because the grid can actually reflect it but it just need some attention and little worflow tweaks from steinberg to get all the power from it.

1 Like
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I’m new to all this and am unfamiliar with groove presets but am looking for more flexibility in managing pattern bank presets. I have created a few pattern bank presets with my favorite drum beats. The pattern event pull-down selection menu works fantastic to quickly switch between up to 43 patterns, which seems to be plenty for my needs. After that the list doesn’t fit my screen, so rather than scrolling with the down arrow I find it better to switch to another pattern bank preset.

I would like to see more utility functions for organizing pattern bank presets. For example, the ability to:

  1. change the order of patterns within a preset,

  2. delete multiple patterns in one go,

  3. copy patterns from one preset to another preset, and

  4. export all patterns used within a project or track to a new preset.

I haven’t figured out my workflow yet, but so far to me it seems better to work with pattern events rather than export them to MIDI events. A down side is that only one pattern bank preset can be used at a time. So if my patterns are split across multiple presets, then the work-around is to use multiple VST drum track instances. The utility functions above would let me easily overcome that.

Please let me know if it would be better to make this a separate feature-request post.