I'm trying to figure out how to use an array as an amplitude envelope. So far in the various tutorials, I just see it used as a pitch envelope.

My guess is that you use tabread (no tilde) to read the array, but from there I have no idea as that tabread can be plugged in to vline, but you get an error if you send a bang to that tabread like you would a message with an envelope described.

If you can help with the first question, extra bonus points if you can answer the second. Once I have the array set up as the envelope is there a way to stop the array at a particular amplitude, hold for an unspecified period, then continue from the same spot (i.e., sustain)?

Thanks in advance!

You would use [vline~] to look up [tabread]. So if you have a table that is 100 points long, you would just have [vline~] ramp from 0 to 99 and plug its outlet to the inlet of [tabread].

Amplitude modulation is just multiplication. So multiply the sound source by the output of [tabread].

Thanks Maelstorm!

This got me to about 99% of where I want to be. At least to a working demo of the pd end of this particular feature.

Now, bearing in mind that the array drawn here has nothing to do with my ultimate goal for this (which, full disclosure, is programmatically-assisted drawing of the envelope in an android app)... bearing that in mind,

Can anybody take a quick look at this simple patch and tell me why I get static at the beginning of either hit or hit_sus, and also on fade if I bang it before either hit?

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

Hey, cool, figured it out. tabread4~ instead of tabread~ took away the clicks for some reason!

[tabread4~] interpolates over 4 points. [tabread~] does not, so that's not for some reason that your clicks disappeared

Well, yes, I have read the help page. Not sure if it's spline, polynomial or linear. And I have no idea how it translates to no clicks.

I haven't looked at your patch, but it's probably because you are reading the table at a slower rate than one sample at a time. If you have a fractional index for [tabread~], it will just truncate the fractional part, rounding it down and snapping to one index. So it's just hanging onto one sample for a while, then suddenly jumping to the next sample and hanging on to it, etc. [tabread4~] will smoothly transition between samples instead of just snapping to the on below a fractional index, so you don't get the sudden jumps.