I read some posts saying it's not possible to convert a symbol to a float.
However I found out there is a way and it's not even complicated.

It took me hours though to try all the other ways that don't work.
So for anyone who is trying the same, here's how to do it:

1. put your symbol into [symbol2list]
(optionally using a known delimiting character)
2. use [unpack f]
(to select the first (or only) element)
or
use [unpack ? ? f ? ?]
(to select a special list element you want to extract)
3. continue to work with the f output of unpack which is a float now
(if you chose the right delimiting character and element for your input of course)

I could only get it out of unpack as a symbol.
But I just found the solution.
Thanks for your help though: I already learnt so much just from reading tons of posts of you.

I'll bring this up for a new problem:

I'm working on reading out parameters from a vst.
I managed to split the space-separated attribute string using [unpack] but now I'm stuck.

Is there any possibility to extract the float value of such a string:
0.9980Amount

Ah, just discovered [stripfilename], I think that could work out.

So now I discovered vst~ and hooked it up with the PinkyPluggo VST which works great - as long as I don't bring up the editor. As soon as I try to manipulate the UI of the plugin, it crashes pd. Which is annoying because I need not only to read out some parameters but also to load an audio file into PinkyPluggo. Maybe I can exploit a hack they did to support startup file loading. Anyway this would be a very inflexible solution.

Anyone more familiar with the vst~ external?

hey elektromeier

I also want to trigger video using timecode records.
I made a pd patch using fiddle~ today to test its capability against the final scratch signal.
at high speed the detection is relatively accurate.
when you lower the pitch you get totally useless results unfortunately.

you mentioned ms pinky. I just realized that they offer an SDK.
hmm. that might be a good option.
otherwise I have to press my own timecode vinyl