Hard to believe, but it has only been one year since the first release of the Salsa Beat Machine. What started as a small personal project made for fun has become a popular software with thousands of users around the world, contributors and donors from more than twenty different countries, and we are still just at the tip of the iceberg.
So how far did we come in the last year? I have compiled for you a list of some keypoints in the development of the Salsa Beat Machine:
- Salsa Rhythm App for iPhone – July 2010
- Salsa Rhythm Wiki – June 2010
- 2000 Fans on Facebook page – May 2010
- Complete user interface redesign – March 2010
- Community group is launched – February 2010
- Guaguancó rhythms introduced - January 2010
- Merengue machine - January 2010
- Standalone version is available – December 2009
- Video Window added – August 2009
- Salsa Beat Machine introduced – July 2009
But all of this is just the beginning – there are a plenty of ideas and enhancement that you are going to see during the coming year. I am not going into detail in this post, but are welcome to join the community mailing list, read and get involved in the development of these ideas and features.
What I do want to tell you about is the general direction in which the Salsa Beat Machine is heading. So far, the Salsa Beat Machine offered the users a “sandbox” – a place where they could play and experiment with Salsa music without any prior knowledge of music theory, latin rhythms nor technical background. Even though this has opened the door to the world of Salsa for many people, we still feel we are missing some important points:
- There is no step-by-step guide for people how to use the SBM in order to improve their musicality,
- There are is very little information about different instruments, their roles, and how everything connects together to create the music,
- Most important – Many beginners do not realize the importance of understanding and feeling the music for improving their dance.
Therefore, we aim to improve the SBM for addressing these points. We already have a few community members helping us with this:
- Joel Dominguez is creating instructional videos explaining how to use Salsa Beat Machine to improve your musicality.
- Daniel Suchman is writing a comprehensive user-guide for the standalone version, including “how-to-use”, explanations about the instruments and theoretical background behind the Salsa music.
- Jason Ortiz is working on an online commercial for promoting the iPhone version.
- The community at SalsaForums.com helps to promote the Salsa Beat Machine amongst beginners.
We encourage all readers who care about the future of the Salsa Beat Machine to get involved, share and collaborate on your ideas, making the Salsa Beat Machine accessible for every Salsa dance student in the world. This is our vision for the coming year, and you can be a part of it !
Last but not least, celebrating the launch of the iPhone application and our anniversary, we are giving away free copies of the standalone PC version of Salsa Rhythm with the iPhone look & feel. You don’t need an iPhone to enjoy this version – its run on your ordinary desktop PC / laptop. You can see a screenshot and register to get your own copy here:
http://www.salsarhythmsoftware.com/iPhone/pc-download.html
Tags: anniversary, download, history, roadmap, videos