Hello,
I am trying to decide how best to manage a couple of ideas in my code flow and could use some advice on how to create the sequencing for my multi track sequencer.
Should I have a ~gen for each track that has all of it’s own track data and I call ~gen track1, then ~gen track 2, etc? Or is it better to have a higher level setup that would consist of a main loop that contains: 1) global for all of the tracks, 2) get button / knob states, 3) process tracks, 4) set LEDs. And inside of the “process tracks” I would then sequence each track in that pass?
One last thought: How do I ensure that the sequencers start playing several samples at the same time? For example: if all sequencers were playing the same audio file they would all start at the same time? (if that is even possible).
overall I am asking these questions because I have the basics going for my single track sequencer and I would like to take the next steps to extend this to 2, then 4, then 8 tracks. Thus, arranging this in a reasonable way is somewhat of a mystery to me as I am not quite used to programming on a DSP.
Any thoughts, help, or suggestions would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks,
Brett
Hi
I’m not sure if this helps, but…
Yes, it generally makes sense to have each track be a sub-[gen] object subpatcher, but then to have some shared properties that come from outside these subpatchers. In particular I recommend having a shared timing source, probably based on a ramp signal, and feed that signal into all “tracks” subpatchers. (It doesn’t prevent you from doing polyrhythm or polymeter if you want to do that too – just add a [rate] object to each track re-time the ramp.) But having a shared timing source is the best way to ensure your events (e.g. staring a sample playback) are synchronized.
You can turn a ramp into a “step” by quantizing, e.g. if you have a ramp that goes from 0 to 1 over 1 bar, you can get 8 steps by multiplying the ramp by 8 and then using a [floor], so it will go 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 and repeat. You can send that step function into a [change] to detect when the step changes. So e.g. to trigger a sample on step 3 you would check the [change] [and] step [== 3]. That will give a single-sample spike that you can use to reset a sample player’s counter, or a [latch] for a sample & hold, etc.
Similarly, the actual sample [data] objects should be outside the subpatcher, so that they only load once. The subpatcher’s code can still use them.
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@grrrwaaa,
Thank you, this is super helpful and I greatly appreciate that you took the time to write this up.
I do have one follow-on question:
How do I pass a data block it into a subpatcher?
Thank you again for taking the time to write this up.
Brett
Just use the same name.
Create [data foo] in the top patcher, use [peek foo], [dim foo], [poke foo], [sample foo] etc etc in the subpatcher.
@grrrwaaa,
Thank you, that makes it super simple, I tried using setparam and that wasn’t working. … turns out it is much simpler. 
Great to hear and thank you again for your time and help.
Brett
That sounds like a super nice project! Are you willing to share that max patch in the future? Or you only doing it for your own music or whats the plan for the final release if there is a final release haha
Would help me a lot to know more about max gen. I can say I’m good in max, but gen is still a little mystery for me. I’m getting better but never did such a big und compöex patch like a sample sequencer. Would like to see such things in a patch to learn more.
Greetings franky
Hi @LottiKarotti16,
Yes, I plan to OpwnSource the code and the custom hardware I am creating. Right now I’ve taken a short pause on the coding in order to start to get some hardware created. I’m creating a prototype that will just be the EuroRack module with knobs, a jack or two, a few LEDS, and a place to dock a Daisy Seed just to see how it can all fit together.
from there a friend of mine is going to help me do the electronics board layout and such… so once I get the look/feel down for the device i’ll be back to coding… and who knows, I suspect i’ll code in-between as well to just keep my min on what is next for the code. 
I’ll keep you posted as I go, and feel free to check in as well.
Thanks,
Brett
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