Hello all,

I've not had much luck figuring out how to execute the basic concept of 'do/while' in PD.

Basically, I want to create a MIDI CC oscillator that cycles up and down between 0-127 (ping-pong) while a particular condition is met. The condition is a number that I'm sending over serial from Arduino that signifies a composition level, (level 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, etc). This number is then routed using a Route object into different branches which bang and send out MIDI CC data.

So far, everything is working in terms of routing and the general program works. What I don't get is how to 'cycle' something in PD. Here's what this particular section looks like, but it uses a bang right now, so only is working manually:

(route 1 2 3 4, etc)
(1 is the number that routes to the following bang)

BANG
TOGGLE
(route 1 0)
/ \
(0, 127 6000) (127, 0 6000)
/ /
(line)
/
(ctlout 5 15)

So, basically, I want this MIDI 'Oscillator' to ping-pong back and forth while the condition is met that the program is on 'level 1'.

I've been having success learning PD on my own, but am stuck on this part, and would really appreciate it if anyone can point me towards a concept or hint that might send me in the right direction.

Thanks in advance!

EDIT: I neglected to post the patch before.

http://www.pdpatchrepo.info/hurleur/programmController_v01.pd

hi sleepsignal!

I don't completely understand your explanation of the problem, but I can see in your patch that there are few possible causes of your trouble. First, the [trigger] object is essential if you want right execution order. Second, [random 5] will output random numbers from 0 to 4 and I can see that you put [route 1 2 3 4 5] after [random 5]. That means, if you get 0 on input, it will be routed on the rightmost outlet. Third, I think that you missed to connect all outputs from the [route 1 2 3 4 5]. Take a look at the attachment, I will highlight the parts of your patch which I am referring to. I hope it helps a little.

http://www.pdpatchrepo.info/hurleur/programmController_v01.pd

Thanks sinewave. I'll look into the trigger object. I'm working on the far left most branch. Although the random sections aren't hooked up yet, I'm still able to test out that section by clicking the bang, or forcing the random number to happen. There are some untied strings and sections that I am ignoring right now.

I think I have made some progress by using the metronome object to re-trigger the bang at a particular interval to make the action repeat. Now I just have to figure out how to start and stop the metronome.

Good point on the random going from 0-4! That would have been a stumbling block as I started testing out the full program later.

I will clean up and repost today my progress.

Thanks for your suggestions.

Hello all,

I attached a reduced, simplified and cmmented sketch which only contains the area I'm working on. It seems I am missing some fundamental part or logic behind PD which can execute the classic 'do/while' - ie; executing a block of code only when a particular condition is met.

Any advice is greatly appreciated!

Thanks.

http://www.pdpatchrepo.info/hurleur/MidiOscillate.pd

Is this the sort of behaviour you were looking for?

http://www.pdpatchrepo.info/hurleur/MidiOscillate2.pd

or maybe like this ...

http://www.pdpatchrepo.info/hurleur/ctl-ozzi.pd

@moog1 said:

Is this the sort of behaviour you were looking for?

That's exactly it! Thank you so much, I think I can expand on that through out some other parts of the program, too.

@Gromit said:

or maybe like this ...

That's really cool, Gromit, thanks a lot. It looks like a little machine. It will take a me a bit of time to dissect this, but I can see that it will provide a new level of interactivity, especially when I can change the speed based on sensor data.