Latin - help
How the Latin machine works: styles, forge and seeds, VARY, song forms, instruments, fusion, FX and export.
Styles
Salsa, Bachata and Cumbia each have their own musical grammar - not just other sounds. Salsa is organised around the son clave (3-2 or 2-3, never switched inside a song) with piano montuno, tumbao bass and a percussion section that changes from verse to montuno to mambo. Bachata lets every instrument move between derecho, majao and mambo on its own schedule, with segunda and requinto as separate guitar roles. Cumbia keeps a steady offbeat groove and lets a hook return almost unchanged, the way the style lives.
Merengue is open as well. Its grammar is complete; the tambora is played from recordings of similar drums (tenor drum, frame drum, alfaia rim), because no CC0 recording of an authentic Dominican tambora exists yet. Its style tab is marked draft for that reason.
Forge and seeds
Forge makes a new song from a new seed. Every seed first draws a song genome - form, harmony family, groove, lead character, instrumentation, energy curve - and only then writes the notes. A new random seed that would sound too much like the previous song is skipped automatically. A seed you type in or lock is always reproduced exactly. The line under Song Forms shows the genome of the current song.
VARY
The circular arrow next to a track re-draws only that part; everything else stays note for note the same. Every press gives a clearly different version. The melody changes only gently - its character changes with a new seed. VARY on Drums also switches the percussion set (see below); choose a set by hand to keep it.
Song Forms and Sections
Song Form lists the forms each style really uses - for Salsa e.g. classic theme-montuno-mambo, mambo and moña, descarga, theme return; for Bachata the verse/majao/mambo plans; for Cumbia the A-B-C hook grammars; for Merengue the típico archetypes. Auto lets the seed decide. Sections builds your own form: press Empty, add sections, tap a section to change its length, move or remove it. The song is composed for exactly that order (Salsa keeps the clave across every border and fits the montuno to whole chorus cycles).
Generation Parameters
Density (notes per bar), Tension (passing and chromatic tones), Leap / Step (interval size) and Drama (dynamic contrast between sections) shape the birth of the song. In the middle position the song is exactly the one the seed gives. Reset to default returns all four and the form to Auto.
Instruments
Each style offers the instruments of its own tradition and of its well-documented branches, and every one of them is a recording: Salsa - trumpet, trombone, tenor sax, flute, violin, vibraphone; sections brass, trombones, trumpets, flute + violin, violins, sax + trumpet; piano, soft piano, electric piano. Bachata - requinto, nylon and clean guitar, violin; segunda, nylon or clean guitar. Cumbia - accordion, clean and tremolo guitar, combo organ, tenor sax, trumpet, flute; piano and organ comping; organ or strings as synth part. Merengue - accordion, tenor sax, trumpet; sax + trumpet; accordion, guitar or piano.
Percussion sets (Drums card): Salsa - conjunto (bongo, congas, timbales), charanga (timbales, güiro, congas) or with drum kit; Bachata - classic, urbana (kick and rim) or bolero roots (bongo and maracas); Cumbia - classic, with drum kit or hand percussion only; Merengue - típico or orquesta (with congas and kick).
Sources: CC0 libraries (VSCO 2 CE, VCSL, FreePats, Karoryfer, Osiris, Virtuosity Drums) and CC0 recordings from Freesound. Short brass and violin notes use real staccato and spiccato recordings. Two parts have no free recording of the original instrument, so they use documented close relatives instead of synthesis: the cascara is a stick on the side of a metal pot (timbales grew out of such pots), and the Merengue tambora combines a tenor drum, a muted frame drum and wooden rim strokes, chosen by measurement against a historic tambora solo.
Fusion / Genre Blend
Fusion moves the whole song towards another genre - not just one extra instrument. Depending on the blend, the partner reshapes the groove (its kick, snare and hats take over accents and the Latin fill percussion makes room), the bass (partner bass phrases on the sounding chords, the Latin anticipation stays), the comping (skank, stabs, power chords, loops or pads instead of the montuno or guitar figure), the melody and 2nd voice (articulation, laid-back timing, call and response - the melody's notes and motifs stay), the instrument roles, the arrangement (filter builds and drops, dub break, stop-start, beat break) and the sound (saturation, filter, pump, room, dub echo). The harmony stays Latin, and every partner tone follows the sounding Latin harmony; the clave, the conga or bongo groove, the güira and the tambora always stay. Each song leans on its own mix of these changes, so the same blend sounds different from song to song.
Live: choose a partner, a blend or None while the song plays - it keeps playing at the same place, nothing restarts. The sound changes at once, groove and bass from the next bar (Salsa: the next clave cycle), melody and comping from the next phrase; the Fusion line says "from bar ..." until then. None brings back the original song exactly.
Reggae - offbeat skank (muted guitar), dub echo, one-drop section, organ bubble. Metal - palm-muted guitar riffs on the Latin accents, breakdown, double-kick runs, stop-start endings; choose Dist. E-Guitar, Doom E-Guitar (Low) or Doom E-Guitar (Low) + Pedal groove on the Fusion card - the same metalcore guitars as Hip-Hop, House and Drum & Bass. In Merged the guitar also takes over the power-chord comping. Urbano (Dembow) - the dembow beat of reggaeton and Dominican dembow, chord plucks, a dembow drop in the break. House - Latin house: four-on-the-floor, off-beat hi-hat, backbeat, piano stabs, snare and filter builds. Techno - four-on-the-floor, off-beat and 16th hats, clap on 2 and 4, a synth ostinato (the only synthesized sound in Latin Tropical, because the synth is techno's own instrument), rolling bass, filter builds and drops. Hip-Hop - boom-bap kick and snare, chopped chord loops on electric piano, boom bass, a beat break before the main parts, a darker sound. Drum & Bass - a two-step breakbeat with ghost snares at the Latin tempo (double time in slow songs), long sub bass notes, an atmospheric string pad and snare drops. Hint adds a light colour in the silences of the Latin melody, Dialogue lets the partner answer the Latin lead, coro and horns in their gaps (the Latin comping makes room for each answer), Merged lets the partner take over the comping and play through the song while the Latin melody keeps the lead and the style stays recognisable. The Fusion card's volume sets only the extra fusion voice; muting it does not switch the fusion off. Below the genres, instrument colours add one extra instrument derived from the style itself (Salsa combo organ and funk guitar, Bachata sax and electric piano, Merengue vibraphone and electric piano).
FX
The FX track plays real percussion gadgets in the way the style uses them - vibraslap, whistles, siren whistle, ratchet, slapstick, mark tree, ocean drum, güiro sweeps, bell tree, timbale rimshots - at the intro, pickups, accents, calls and the ending. The FX card's echo and the Master card's tone, grit and sub work on top.
Volumes, FX and Master
Track order: Melody, 2nd Voice, Chords, Bass, Drums, Synth, FX, Master, Fusion. Volume 0 means muted and not exported. A Synth or FX card stays grey when the style has no such part in this song.
Performance
Sound: Full plays every voice with reverb, articulation samples and tone shaping; Light leaves those out for older devices. The page reloads when you switch.
Export
Export writes a multitrack MIDI file with a certificate (percussion on channel 10, General MIDI note numbers); from Standard every track also comes as its own file in a ZIP.
Plans
Latin is released: every plan plays it, Free included, with every style and every track. The paid plans add song exports and larger monthly amounts; Pro also opens the beta genres House and Drum & Bass. Details on the plans page.