to begin with, have a look at the tutorials that came with pd (through help>browser)
very helpful are the tutorials and examples by eg andy farnell (obiwannabe.co.uk), frank barknecht, derek holzer (the granulator), claude heiland allen (find them through google or the pd list archives at http://lists.puredata.info/pipermail/pd-list).
but do keep in mind that "just" making the text inaudible to various degrees might involve quite a bit of work: you'd best think of pd as a programming language, so you have to really know what you want to do and more or less build it from scratch. having said that, i think on andy's site, or else in the list archives (i don't know the forum that well yet, you'll probably find useful info here too) you'll find info on some objects that already do sth ([moog~] for instance, [pong~], [kink~], [fdn~] or the iem filters). most of these are in pd-extended, is that what you're using? their help files will show you examples, if you can find them. (if they don't open through the object, try reference>object in the help browser, though quite likely you'll have to search through the library folders to find them.
good luck! robbert

anyone out there who has done a pd version of the roland spd-s patching system?
i'd be very happy to hear about it!
cheers, robbert