Welcome to the forum, pnoman
And thanks for your message.
pnoman wrote:I'm trying to see if G-Stomper Studio could be used as a "beatbox", providing drum and percussion tracks for live playing. The Live Pattern/Song Arranger mode seems almost ideal for this kind of situation; I plan to have a tablet/phone on top of my keyboard, and would like to be able to start a pre-determined song arrangement, but change it on the fly when we e.g. decide to repeat a chorus or continue soloing over a bridge, etc. And this appears to be a strong feature of G-Stomper Studio

Thanks a lot. Great to hear that G-Stomper Studio covers your needs that well.
pnoman wrote:So compared to the competition (C******), this is very nice -- although I find the G-Stomper interface a little more multi-layer menu-driven than I would prefer.
I understand what you mean, and I agree, that the menu depth in G-Stomper Studio can be overwhelming.
The menus are unfortunately required to control all the details in G-Stomper Studio while keeping the main screens layouts in the typical Groovebox style.
Other apps might have less menu structures, but require more scrolling or similar.
However, if you have suggestions for improvements, always feel free to post them here;).
pnoman wrote:I plan to do the drum tracks in the Drum Grid, but cannot find out how to 1) individually vary the levels of each note, and 2) vary the timing slightly compared to the rigid grid -- which I can do on the competition. I know I can put accents on some notes, which basically means I can get to two different levels on each track, but I would like to be able to also put in e.g. more faint notes (e.g. like an up-beat ghost note). I would also like to be able to e.g. shift the timing individual notes (and maybe also the entire track) slightly away from the grid (e.g. putting some snare notes a bit late compared to the grove, while keeping the hi-hats on the exact beat, etc).
is there a way to do this?
Regarding individual levels:
You can set the Level (and most other parameters) per step, either manually using the
Step Edit feature, or you can use the
Randomize Parameter Automation feature to slightly randomize a parameter. Be sure to give the
complete chapter a closer look, as there are many ways to change/generate automation curves.
Regarding slight timing variation:
It's not yet possible, but we've planned some new features in that direction, which will let you vary the timing (and much more) per step, either manually or in a randomized way.
pnoman wrote:Also, I would mainly use this in (semi)acoustic settings, and therefore need an acoustic driven drum set (like the Rock kit, but with a bit more variation to choose between) as well as some percussion sounds (bongo, conga, shaker, cowbell, ...).
What add-on packs addresses this segment? Or maybe my planned use is slightly outside of the focus group -- in which case I guess I could create my own drum samples from my existing libraries?
I think both, EIP's PocketKit pro and PocketKit Platinium provide a nice set of acoustic drum samples:
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.eipstudiosohio.pocketkitprohttps://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.eipstudiosohio.pocketkitplatinumAlso the tropical house packs might have someting for you, as they all provide bongo, conga or similar:
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.planeth.gstflphdeepandtropicalhouse2Acoustic samples are not in our main focus. It might be that we'll provide such samples in the future, but for now, it's not in sight.
If you're up to create packs in that direction, just let us know if you need help with building the packs.