Latent space

The Latent Space plays loops made by small trained models: a drum groove, a melody, or
several voices that play together, two or four bars long. Each model has learned a space of loops, and the Orbiter's X, Y and Z axes move a
point through it, so leaning the Planet morphs the loop: busier, sparser, a shuffle, a leap. The same
spot always plays the same loop, so a gesture you liked can be found again.

It is a generator: it leads an Orbiter's chain, before the MIDI effects and the instrument, and a
dimension has at most one. It plays while the transport runs. When a loop is worth keeping, send it
To piano roll and edit it by hand.

The model

One menu lists every model, under what it makes:

Kind	Styles
Percussion	Groove (rock, latin, funk and jazz feels from real drummers) · House (four-on-the-floor house and techno)
Melody	Bach (lines in the style of J. S. Bach)
Voices	Blue Ring (drums, chords, a walking bass and a melody, after jazz)

New styles appear in the menu as they are published. Changing the model keeps the point where it is
and plays the new model's loop from the next step. Percussion plays the General MIDI drum keys (kick,
snare, hats, toms, crash, ride); each lane's key can be changed under Lanes to match another kit.

The first time a model plays on a device it is downloaded (a few hundred kB, plus once what runs the
models); after that it plays offline too. Until then the screen says Loading model.

Voices

A Voices model plays several voices from one point in the space: Blue Ring has drums, chords, bass
and a melody, and they fit together because the same point makes them all. One Latent Space plays
them all, and sends each voice to a dimension of its own, where that
dimension's instrument and effects play it.

Where each voice plays: next to each voice's name (in the panel, and beside its lane on the play
surface), its menu picks I, II, III or Off. A model just picked plays its first voice
where the generator sits; the others start Off.
The other dimensions need no generator. Give them an instrument and effects; the voice arrives as
notes, as the piano roll would. An Arpeggiator there arpeggiates it, so chords sent to it become a
figure.
What can't take a voice is listed dimmed with why: a dimension led by a module that makes its own
notes (a Drum Sequencer, Step Sequencer, Axis Notes or another Latent Space), or one whose
instrument plays no notes.
One generator leads them all. Its X, Y and Z, Temperature, Variation, Density, Accent, Length,
Rate and Octave move every voice, wherever it plays.
Chords play as a held pad: every tone of the chord together, around middle C, for as long as the
model holds it.
Its screen and surface show every voice at once, a lane each. On the screen, the strokes at the
end of a lane say where it plays (one for I, two for II, three for III); a voice that's Off is faint.
A dimension's piano roll plays along with the voices it gets. A model with one voice has no voice menus.

Space

Control	What it does
X, Y, Z	Where the point is: 0 % is the model's most typical loop, ±100 % its edges. Map them to the axes, drag the crosshair on the screen, or the pad on the play surface (Z is the strip under it).

Take and shape

Control	What it does
Temperature	How freely the loop is drawn. 50 % is the model's own. Lower plays its most likely loop (percussion straight on the grid at 0 %); higher is looser and more surprising (percussion draws extra hits and their feel).
Variation	Another take of the same spot: other draws of the same loop (percussion: with Temperature above 50 %).
Length	How much of the loop plays, round and round: 1 beat, 2 beats, 1 bar, 2 bars or, for a Voices model, all 4 bars.
Rate	How long a step of the loop is: 1/16 as made, 1/8 at half speed. Or another dimension's hits: the loop's next note on each hit.
Density	Percussion: more hits up, only the surest down. 0 % plays the model's own hits.
Accent	Melody: how much the notes follow a drummer's accents. 0 % plays every note at one velocity.

A melody follows the Orbiter's key and scale (Follow, on as it loads): the model plays in major or
minor to match, and a pentatonic Orbiter gets a pentatonic line. Switch Follow off to pick a root and
scale of its own; Octave moves the line by octaves.

Spots

16 pads that keep places in the space, like a sequencer's patterns: tap Store, then a pad (or
Ctrl-click a pad) to keep where the point is; tap a stored pad to go back there. Spots are part of the
performance, saved with play snapshots.

To piano roll

To piano roll writes the loop playing now into the dimension's piano roll (it replaces the clip:
percussion as notes on the drum keys) and powers the generator off, so the piano roll plays the same
notes, ready to edit. Power the generator on again to go back to the live loop.

Where the models come from

Every model learned from music that can be shared:

Groove and House: the Groove MIDI Dataset by Jon Gillick, Adam Roberts, Jesse Engel, Mark
Rubin and Peter Barhoum, Google Magenta (2019), CC BY 4.0.
House also learned from Plantasia Space's own loops.
Blue Ring: music written for it from Plantasia Space's own rules of the style; no outside music.
Bach: editions from the Mutopia Project, public domain and CC BY
3.0. The pieces under CC BY 3.0, with their typesetters:
- Brandenburg Concerto No. 1 (First Movement, Allegro), BWV 1046, typeset by Ben Stewart
  (piece 1136).
- A piece by J. S. Bach typeset by Hermógenes Hebert Pereira Oliveira
  (piece 1902).

The credits live on this page; the model menu lists the models only.

The model​

Voices​

Space​

Take and shape​

Spots​

To piano roll​

Where the models come from​