Hey folks,

I'm trying to do something that sounds simple but I can't get it to work.

I’ve got a folder full of .wav files named like A1.wav, A2.wav, etc.
What I want is:

Select one of them randomly

Load it automatically into two arrays: arrayL and arrayR (for stereo files)

I already have a patch that does both things individually:

Block 1 → picks a random file and builds the full path**
**
Block 2 → uses [soundfiler] to load files into arrayL and arrayR**

But I can’t figure out how to connect them properly.**

HERE the patch files: player-array-singolo-stereo.pd [link text](link url)

thanks in advcance

@avenir Wow, I think you were just 2 or 3 clicks away! Try this:

@jameslo Thanks for the reply,I’m really sorry — let me correct myself: the files are not actually named like a1, a2, etc. What I really need is a mechanism that reads the actual files in a folder, gets their filenames, and then loads them into an array. I believe this part is wrong: makefilename %s/A%%d.wav — maybe I’m missing some other piece here. I’d really appreciate any further help!

@avenir This will give you a list of files in a folder and let you play them with [readsf~].
You can replace the player part with [soundfiler] and arrays as above.
cart-5-vanilla.zip
David.

@whale-av Hi David,

First of all, thank you for sharing the cart-5-vanilla patch — the folder selection and track listing work perfectly.

However, I'm encountering a problem with the Start_Random function.
When I click "Play single", it opens a file dialog correctly and plays the selected file using [readsf~].
But when I click "Start_Random", it only prints the randomly selected filename in the console and updates the tracklist display, but no audio is played.

@avenir Ah...! .. I missed one old 32-bit external.
A track display error fixed too.
Should be good now I hope........ cart-5-vanilla.zip
David.

@whale-av Thanks David, but I think there's an error — list2symbol isn't being recognized

@avenir Thank you for testing.
Should get there in the end..... cart-5-vanilla.zip
David.

@whale-av Great, work awesome!

@whale-av Hi David,
just a few thoughts — I noticed it works well with folders containing (maybe only .wav files?) small-sized files. I found this patch on the forum which seems slightly more efficient.

How it works:
On the left, you can use the "Open Dir" bang to select the folder, and then use the large bang to randomly play each individual file. I just added a scope and a metro to automate the playback process, but this one seems to work more reliably.

It would be great if your patch could also handle larger directories and different file types.

P.S. I found this kind of patch especially useful as a sound explorer, feeding it Ableton project folders — and the wow effect is guaranteed when navigating through the "Processed" and "Freeze" folders!

Random-files-select-ok.pd

@avenir
@jameslo
Nice patch.
Just one question: what is the easiest way to make the previous .wav file not stop when the next file starts? That way you would have some overlapping sounds (at most in a certain time interval all the files could play at the same time).
Thanks,
a.

@atux said:

Nice patch.
Just one question: what is the easiest way to make the previous .wav file not stop when the next file starts? That way you would have some overlapping sounds (at most in a certain time interval all the files could play at the same time).
Thanks,

Hey, thanks for the kind words!
I'm still pretty new to Pure Data myself, so I don’t have a full solution yet but I totally see what you mean about overlapping sounds.

From what I understand, one way to achieve that would be to use multiple [readsf~ 2] objects, one for each potential overlapping sound, and cycle through them. So instead of always opening the next file on the same player, each random file could be routed to a different [readsf~], letting the previous one finish naturally.

If anyone here has a cleaner approach or example, I'd love to learn from it too!