Functional Decomposition of a Groove Agent Style

Groove Agent Styles can be mysterious things, but when you pull one to pieces it's much easier to figure out what's actually going on. So... let's do that!
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About me:
My name is Anthony Chisnall. I'm a musician & songwriter.
My channel is these things:
1. A place to share my music - both songs and instrumental pieces. Much of the music I write features in...
2. Tutorial videos about music composition and production
3. An outlet for me to discuss all things musical - including technical break-downs of software and tools that I use, as well as more wide-ranging discussions of topics that interest me.
I play the guitar (electric, acoustic, and bass), and record all of my own synth-based sounds myself too, but I can't sing very well (huge understatement!), and so my wife, Pauline, who has a lovely singing voice, has come to my rescue. You'll hear her on all of my songs.
All of my music is written in Steinberg's Cubase (currently Cubase 12).
I try very hard to make my videos PRACTICAL and no-nonsense - if I don't use a feature, I'm not going to waste your time trying to sound like an expert on it! This is the stuff I use day-to-day, so I think that's also what you'd like to hear me talking about.
Thanks to:
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Outro Template made by Grabster - / grabstertv

[@charleshoward2456]

Great informative video, with loads of helpful workflow and process ideas. Thanks again.

[@marsthesecondgenesis1291]

Antony, I cannot thank you enough for your amazing tutorials, especially the ones on groove agent. I have not seen any other tutorials that go into the depths yours do. Your tutorials are unique and so chocked so full of information you need to watch many times to take it all in! Maybe it's just me that's going a bit senile. 🤣 thank you for the time you take to make these videos.

[@OneManAndHisSongs]

That's awesome to hear, thanks very much for your feedback!

[@bencampbell5476]

Thank you for doing this, it's been tremendously helpful.

[@OneManAndHisSongs]

You're very welcome, thanks for the feedback!

[@GaryMatthews1]

Wonderful explanation. I am in the process of trying to use Groove Agent in my compositions, so this is very helpful. Thanks.

[@OneManAndHisSongs]

Thanks for the feedback Gary - much appreciated!

[@chrisjswanson]

Thanks Antony, great video. Super informative, and it's a good idea to break out the full style like that. I'll have to give it a try myself.

[@OneManAndHisSongs]

You're welcome! Yeah, it's a great way to really understand how styles hang together - hope you find the exercise useful :)

[@daja2946]

Always sooo worth the time to watch your informative videos. Keep up the good work and thank you!

[@OneManAndHisSongs]

I appreciate that, thanks for saying so!

[@a.l.recordingstudio1163]

Thanks a lot Anthony. For me, still, I use my ears all the time, because the variations of the velocity of the sounds makes the difference. And this is just hardly be seen in the drum editor. Cheers

[@OneManAndHisSongs]

You know something's gone a bit wrong when you find yourself editing individual drum velocities ;)

[@morioro]

Really like the styles, it’s a close as you can get to ‘playing ‘the drums live in a DAW better than any other Drum VST, just wish there were more of them. Pity the other VSTs don’t have this live element, basically your stuck with dropping the midi patterns into your DAW unlike styles where you can play the midi patterns and record them into the daw!

[@OneManAndHisSongs]

I agree, styles are amazing.

[@lotus-e-clan]

Excellent. Very methodical way of working. Probably slightly off the intention/scope of your GA5 tutes, but how do you select a 'good kit' for a song to begin with? Does kit tuning and EQ figure? Or do you just use the experience of your ears? I find choosing a style a nightmare using GA5.

[@OneManAndHisSongs]

I try not to overthink the very first steps, for fear of getting myself in a creative rut. I'll (sometimes literally) close my eyes and choose a kit/style combo at random, then see where it takes me. It seems to work out well enough. I find the first one or two musical instruments (be it bass, guitar or keys) are just as important to get up & running as quickly as possible in conjunction with GA. Basically, I throw 3 or 4 ingredients into a pot, stir, and then try to exercise my 'taste' buds (excuse the pun!) At this stage, kit tuning it NOT in the game - I want much broader brush strokes than that. There's a great quote from Brian Eno: 'The great benefit of computer sequencers is that they remove the issue of skill, and replace it with the issue of judgement'. I read that with positive eyes, and always try to listen with critical ears to the collisions I stumble upon!

[@syldeneu3297]

Thanks !! So, if I understand correctly, you can choose a kit because you like the sound it offers, but select different styles (patterns)? I don't quite understand how this works...

[@OneManAndHisSongs]

Exactly. The kit contains the sounds, the style contains the patterns, and they are COMPLETELY interchangeable. The only caveat I'd add is that some styles use kit pieces that might not be present in an alternative kit, and those notes will just output silence, but that doesn't happen very often.

[@miragemike]

This is great stuff Anthony. Is there a way to locate all of the midi for a particular style on our hard drive that can be dragged into the project to start the master track of all of the parts? Sure would save some time.

[@OneManAndHisSongs]

Thanks! Yes, there are multiple ways you could that that. You can export the MIDI files individually, or glue them all together and export them as one mass file, or even save the data as a MidiLoop in Cubase - that way the GA drum kit will be saved along with the MIDI data (that's what a MidiLoop is - VST Instrument + MIDI data).

[@miragemike]

@@OneManAndHisSongs Excellent!