So in order to fit the drums to the rest of the music in any given song the following technique has proven to be very effective.įirst, spread out your Bass and Snare drum hits somewhat evenly across the measure. When working with odd time signatures, most of the time the underlying music will have a very distinct groove.
#HOW TO USE GROOVE AGENT 4 FREE#
As a matter of fact, we are free to do that in any time signature, but this is more relevant in odd time signatures. The opposite is true! We are totally free to put our Bass and Snare drum hits wherever we think they might fit. As a result it may seem like it’s overly difficult to program drums in odd time signatures. While we can use a simple rule to build grooves in 4/4-time (explained above) in 5/4-time (and when working with odd time signatures in general), we can’t make these general statements anymore. However the techniques you’ll learn can be applied to any time signature, including 4/4-time or any odd time signature.
#HOW TO USE GROOVE AGENT 4 HOW TO#
The next sections of this article will show you how to program grooves in odd time signatures, particularly 5/4-time. You might not regularly hear anything else but 4/4-time on the radio, but there is a whole other world of groove possibilities beyond the limitations of four beats in one measure. While a vast amount of music is indeed written in 4/4-time there is, in fact, an infinite amount of possible time signatures available for you to use creatively in your songs. Drum programming beyond 4/4-time with odd time signatures If that looks unfamiliar to you or if you don’t know how to navigate to the equivalent of the above window in your program of choice check out this post about setting up your DAW for drum programming to get you started.
#HOW TO USE GROOVE AGENT 4 PRO#
The example above is taken out of a Cubase session but it should look pretty similar in Pro Tools, Logic, and all the other DAWs as well. The screenshot below shows how that might look in your Digital Audio Workstation (DAW). Now you can start refining your groove from there. Add the accompanying element (Hi-hat or a Ride or Crash cymbal) of your choice to each hit and you’re good to go. Now, when you are trying to program a groove for this kind of music but you don’t know where to start there’s a little trick you can use: Just put a Bass (Kick) drum hit on beats one and three and a Snare drum hit on beats two and four. I’m sure you’ll instantly feel how it works. We don’t have to get to technical but if you are not sure about the concept just turn on a mainstream radio station and count along to the music: One, two, three, four, one, two, three, four, and so on. What that means is basically that there are four beats in each measure (or bar). When you are working on a song in genres such as Pop, Rock, and Metal chances are it’s going to be in 4/4-time. Hope this helps - let me know if it is unclear.Programming Drum Grooves: From 4/4-time to odd time signaturesīy: Chris Nothdurfter Programming drums for mainstream hit songs Basically, you are taking the output of GA and feeding, playing it thru your soundcard and then REFEEDING it back into your soundcard inputs which the channel with 'monitor' enabled is attempting to add to the audio siginal.
If you do this and still are getting clipping, make sure that you DON'T have the MONITOR button ENABLED on your MIDI track - that would produce what you are experiencing.
You then can control Groove Agent's volume using the GA1 fader (I am assuming for simplicity's sake that you haven't rerouted the outputs in GA to the other three channels).
This will prevent GA from having a 'double tracked' effect while you monitor the recording. When you are done recording, DISABLE the MIDI IN on our midi track and ENABLE 'Groove Agent' on the MIDI OUT of your midi track. While you are recording from GA, DISABLE the MIDI OUT and set MIDI IN to 'Groove Agent' on your midi track. You should have 5 channels on your mixer: A midi channel and 4 audio channel (I think it calls it GA1, GA2, GA3, GA4).