Hey,
I've recently switched from MAX/MSP to pure data because I plan to put my patch in its final form on a raspberry pi however I'm having a hard time installing externals that I found online. More specifically I want to do pitch tracking on bass guitar and I found this post
https://forum.pdpatchrepo.info/topic/5964/bass-pitch-tracker
it sounds like it does precisely what I need so I downloaded and compiled the C code I'm just no sure how to get from the output file to a .dll I can use in pure data.

In general a little lost on how to install externals that don't come up into the search into pure data. I've been searching for tutorials but haven't been able to find one that helps me. Any help on the matter is greatly appreciated!
Cheers,
Trevor Naumann

PD now has an external package manager built in, so go to Help --> Find Externals and search for what you want. However, in Windows, the latest version of Vanilla, 0.49, became 64bit, which automatically makes most of the 32bit externals listed on the repo inaccessible (which is really annoying). If you're good at compiling you could try to compile them for yourself. Once it's compiled, tell PD the location of the directory (Preferences --> Path) and you should be good to go.

If all you want to do it pitch tracking, have a go with Vanilla's native [sigmind~] first.

I'm also struggling with this. I have a couple of PD books, but it's amazing how poorly documented this is.

I discovered that with a library on the path in PD, I can reference objects within it with a qualified path

eg:

[easyflow/spigot~]

works when the easyflow library is on the path.

Would this work for you? Maybe it will help if you are creating your own patches?

In my case, for compatibility I need just

[spigot~]

apparently there is an import/declare capability so that I won't need a fully qualified path but I can't find documentation for it.

@Paul-Freeman Yes........put [declare -path subfolder] or [declare -path C:/..... path to/folder] into your patch.
David.

@LiamG Yea I understand getting externals that show up in this search tool. Super handy tool they have implemented. What I'm trying to get a grasp on is a.) how to go from an externals raw C code to something I can use in Pd and b.) how to use Externals that you can find online. I'm fairly certain I've added them to path correctly so it could just be this 32bit vs 64 bit discrepency that's messing me up. I am OK with comping, as in I can do it but definitely not great. I might read up a bit on compiling and see if I can compile some of the 32 bit externals as 64 bit. That's what you mean ya? I kind of assumed (for not particular reason) there was more to conversion of 32 and 64 bit than just the way it's compiled.

Ok so bit of an update. Installed pure data-extended last night and tested out [helmholtz~] in that this morning before work added the external without any trouble. So seems the problem with others externals may very well have been this 32 vs 64bit discrepancy. Still would love to try and use moog1's basspitch tracker if I can figure out how to get from the c code or output file after compiling the c code to .dll I can use in pure-data. Thanks for your thoughts everyone!