Hello! I'm still an intermediate user of PD at best, and am always grateful for the help I find on this forum.
For a project in current development I want to be able to:

• Record a sequence of audio files, each one being assigned a unique name (adding a unique number at the end will work fine, for example recording1, recording2, recording 3, etc.)
• During the recording process I want to be able to playback the most recent recording at will
• After recording an indeterminate number of audio files, I want to play the files back in a looping pattern, as though they were dropped into a sequencer
• Finally, I want to be able to erase all of these files in order to begin the process again

This is quite a lot for me so I'm working in stages, starting at the beginning. I am familiar with the writesf object, and have used it to record incoming audio, but I'm having some trouble writing each file with a unique name so it doesn't just overwrite the prior recording.

In the past I have often used the $ symbol to substitute numbers. This isn't working in this instance, it just creates a soundfile called $.wav - the screenshot below shows where I'm at. I'm sure it's fairly basic stuff, but if someone can point me in the right direction, or to the right resources, I'd be very grateful!

Also, if there is an existing patch or another object that better acheive what I've listed above, please feel free to direct me there: I've tried looking through the forum but with little success so far! Thanks so much!

Please ignore the playback / readsf part, I know that's not fit for purpose at present with that silly 'open $' message. It's more of a placeholder right now.

@Dizzy-Dizzy So close! Just add a 1 after the dollar sign, i.e. [open $1, start( and things will work. In a message, $n is a placeholder for the nth item in the list that was input to the message. In your case, makefilename only outputs a list with one symbol in it, so you're asking for the first (and only) item.

@jameslo thanks for setting me straight on that! Things are getting closer to what I had in mind now, although I would be really interested in any advice I can get on making the playback 'sequencer' more controllable and rhythmically interesting - I have it super basic at present but will be working on it this week.

Can anyone help me stop the audible clicks I'm getting at the beginning and end of each recording? Should I use a different object to writesf~? I see a lot of documentation on using arrays for sampler projects. Thanks!

@Dizzy-Dizzy You get clicks because the first or last sample is not zero.....so when you play the file the audio suddenly jumps from zero to some value for the first sample...... same at the end.
You can duck the audio...... take the volume down to zero smoothly at the end before you stop writing, and bring the volume up from zero after you start writing.
Put a [vline~] into the right inlet of [*~ 2] and bang messages into the [vline~] to do that...... after you start writing and before you stop writing.
[0, 2 3 0( at the start and [0 3( at the end should do the job..... a 3msec fade in/fade out.
You will need to delay the [stop( message to [writesf~] so that the volume has come down to zero before it stops writing.
David.

Thanks @whale-av - I was actually already trying to do something along these lines with the [line] object but couldn't nail the parameters, it was either clicking or making a weird fluttery fade in.

So, I'm trying it with [vline~] per your recommendation, and I'm getting an error message when I try to connect the output of [vline~] to the right inlet of [*~ 2] that reads "can't connect signal outlet to control inlet".

I understand that signal messages and control messages aren't interchangeable, but this object has me stumped: it only accepts control messages and only outputs signal messages? How do I connect it?

OK, I think I got it by googling and looking at some other patches: the [*~ 2] object needed to have the 2 argument removed. I changed it and it's accepting the connection from the [vramp~] to the right inlet now. Thanks!