# How Maru fits together

> Understand the connections between plugins, sounds, Studio, the Engine and your account.

Canonical: https://maruaudio.com/help/platform-map
Documentation index: https://maruaudio.com/help/llms.txt

Maru connects three activities: making music with existing tools, creating tools and content of your own, and delivering that work to other people. You can start at any of them.

## Play, create and distribute

| Your goal | Starting point | What you work with |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Make music | [Plugins](https://maruaudio.com/help/plugins-overview.md) and Sounds | Instruments, effects, samples and musical content |
| Turn recordings into an instrument | [Samplers](https://maruaudio.com/help/samplers-overview.md) | Recordings, note or pad mappings and saved settings |
| Make an instrument or effect | [Create with an agent in Studio](https://maruaudio.com/help/studio-quick-start.md) | Your musical idea, its sound and its controls |
| Combine musical tools | [Racks and patches](https://maruaudio.com/help/racks-and-patches.md) | Modules, connections and their saved configuration |
| Add new sounds on demand | [Generation](https://maruaudio.com/help/generative-features.md) | Requests, jobs and results you choose to keep |
| Reach listeners and customers | [Publishing and exports](https://maruaudio.com/help/publishing-and-exports.md) | A playable page, content files or a supported plugin release |

Use **Studio** to edit an instrument, effect or bank with an agent. Use a **host**, such as a browser player or DAW, to play it. The **Engine** is the technology behind building and running Maru tools; you do not need to learn it to use a product.

## The same idea can have several forms

A percussion idea might become a sample pack, a playable bank, a drum instrument or a rack containing an instrument and effects. These forms carry different information. An audio recording preserves the sound; a project preserves editable behavior; a release prepares that behavior for a supported destination.

Choose the form your audience needs. One working browser version does not mean every installed or hardware destination is ready.

## Your account and your work

Your account connects hosted projects, your library, permissions and purchases. Local project folders and exported files have their own storage. [Projects, library and saved work](https://maruaudio.com/help/projects-and-library.md) explains what to keep and where to look.

Your [public profile and community connections](https://maruaudio.com/help/profile-and-community.md) help other people discover your work and help you return to creators you follow. You can build on an existing idea by [remixing a module in Studio](https://maruaudio.com/help/presets-and-sharing.md#find-a-module-to-remix).

## Build on the platform

Creators can develop connected products, while partners can bring parts of Maru into other applications. Follow [apps and integrations](https://maruaudio.com/help/apps-and-integrations.md) for those paths and [beta and early access](https://maruaudio.com/help/beta-and-early-access.md) for how to evaluate developing capabilities.