As an eventual project I wanted to write a quick and dirty sequencer for live/recording use in Pd (with effects etc). A sort of virtual groovebox that can take MIDI and audio inputs controlled by a MIDI foot pedal.

I was just curious about how easy it is to do modular things in Pd. I was thinking of structuring the program so that everything was an object:

• MIDI tracks
• Audio tracks
• Effects

There'd be a lot of work to do with timing etc. since I'd be using it as a glorified looper. But each track should have a 'list' of effects that are applied to it..

So; can I have buttons to add (an unlimited number) MIDI/audio tracks and then add effects to each track as I see fit? I know how I would code this in an OOP language but since Pd has all the audio handling and such useful objects I'd like to do it there.

I've got a lot to learn though!

The best advice I can give you is to get into the habit of creating abstractions and sub patches for every function.

It's tough to do some of the dynamic patching stuff you mention (that can be easily done in OOP) in Pd. But It can be done... you create messages that tell pd to create objects and connect them (those messages can themselves be dynamic), but in my experience, it can be buggy, jittery, and I don't know of a good way to create 'connect messages' - the messages that tell pd to connect this outlet of this object with this inlet of that object. - the nuisance is playing around with the numbers continuously via trial and error to find that it connects correctly.

Otherwise if you manually create your maximum number of tracks and all the dynamic ability you may want, then it's a lot easier to simply disable/hide/mute/whatever those tracks that aren't being used.

If you were a good boy and got into the habit of creating abstractions. You only need to create one track, and then call upon it (number of) times, use dynamic ($0, $1, etc) messages/arguments and use [send]/[receive] and [throw~]/[catch~] to handle routing of audio out inlet/outlets.

Maybe one of the pros here can chime in with alternative ways (or a better way of explaining what I just said... i'm in a rush!)

you can try the set of patches I assembled in a modular environnement using throw and catch. I use it to create sound in live like work flow. Maybe it will give you ideas and materials to start.

http://code.google.com/p/pdlive/downloads/list

well it's not dynamic but you can route signals and midi through 5 mono channels and then 8 loops. I don't use the track concept, I don't find it that useful when you work live. There 's patches for every effect / instrument / sequencer and you route data / signals with send and receive throw and catch
Don't hesitate to make improvements and post them !

cheers

Looks like an excellent patch (a looper is basically what i wanted) but i can't get any sound out. Probably using it wrong.. started 00_pdLive.pd then started Drum_generative_zuwift.pd which was sending to catch 1. Expected sound but no luck.

Well in the the zuwift patch you need to toggle the seqmsg box (left from the tempo) to get sound.

be sure that you "compute audio" in the main pd console and that the volume of channel one isn't null.

Apparently you are using it just fine did you get sound from other patches ?

it should work ... well I 've got sound on my setup

let me know if you have any troubles, or feedback

Aha! This is an excellent set of patches, I'll certainly explore it.. wish I had more time for pd