Version 2 of Groove Agent Introduced

Steinberg Media Technologies GmbH announced the launch of Groove Agent 2, an update to its virtual drummer. Replete with dozens of fresh, up-to-the-minute styles and a battery of new drum sounds, Groove Agent 2 offers the latest drum grooves and styles within the comfortable confines of modern DAW environments supporting the VST, DXi, ReWire or AU plug-in formats.

"Groove Agent 2 is based on the same highly successful technology that made Groove Agent such a popular product," comments Helge Vogt, Steinberg's Product Manager for Virtual Instruments. "But GA2 offers a huge new library of additional, hypermodern styles and sounds for those productions that require the hippest drum grooves. And there are some other great refinements that will help establish Groove Agent 2 as the leading virtual drummer plug-in," adds Vogt.

The 27 new styles include an array of the latest grooves in diverse flavors currently in demand such as ultra-slick RnB, Bristol Trip Hop, Old Skool HipHop, Retro Rock, roof-raising Punk and grinding Grunge grooves. Providing the kerosene for the 27 explosive new styles are the 9 new drum kits. The all-new top-quality studio kit offers a highly polished, refined sound while being widely usable for many modern pop and rock productions. Other kit highlights include painstakingly recreated retro drum synths, ultra-hip noisy lofi drums, a diamond-hard metal kit as well as added percussive sounds.

Other feature refinements include added output busses, with up to 8 stereo outputs now available within the virtual mixer of the host application such as Steinberg's Cubase SX3. The highly convenient "No Internal Samples" switch disables all internal GA2 samples with a single mouse click, to ensure that no internal sound is triggered by, for example, a MIDI track of GA2 grooves which is feeding another drum machine or virtual sampler. Each group now also features its own Solo button, making it even quicker to hone in on the drum sound that needs particular attention.

The GUI has also been overhauled, with added scales and easier access to vital controls. Groove Agent 2 also offers a new "Save to MIDI file" feature, which stores GA2's rhythm output to a MIDI file for detailed editing, regardless of which DAW application hosting Groove Agent 2.

Price and availability Groove Agent 2 will be available for $249.99 SRP in February 2005. Existing Groove Agent customers can update to the new Groove Agent 2 version for only $79.99.

For more information, visit their web site at www.steinberg.net