Hi.

I am pretty new at using PD. I have been playing around a bit on it. I have created various patches within one file. How do I link them all together so that they all play at once as a whole piece of music?

Option 1 (simple): Use [send] and [receive] objects to communicate across patches. [send here] will be received by [receive here] in any patch, and just like a regular cable, you can use it to send anything. Use [send~] and [receive~] for audio.

Option 2 (advanced): Create abstractions. An abstractions is a PD patch encapsulated as a PD object. This sounds complicated, but it's actually quite simple: Just save your patch in the home folder you're working in, then open a new patch and create an object with the same name. For instance, if your saved patch is called "drums.pd", then create an object [drums]. To communicate with the abstraction, you'll need to use [inlet] and [outlet] objects. These will create the familiar PD inlets and outlets, which you can connect to. Use [inlet~] and [outlet~] for audio.

Then you might try finding the tempo related [metro] objects in your different patches and replace them with a [receive tempo]. Then have a single metro in a new patch that can control all of patches with a [send tempo].

You could replace all the [ dac~ ] with [send~ somepatchnameleft] in each patch and add a bunch of [ receive~ somepat....] to your new patch and feed a single [dac~]. Replace adc~ with a receive~ and you can feed one patch into another.