Ok, so i'm pretty new to PD, although we used max this semester at uni, and i rigged up a simple guitar synth patch, that also would trigger drum loops from different notes played.

So ive messed around with midi, audio signals, and keystrokes, and id like to get a joystick input.(Ive searched and seen a few threads, but none really addressed my issues.)

I've downloaded hid and its working fine, however, it only recognises my computers keyboard, despite the fact i have the joystick plugged in.

Also, alot of the parts of the patches that were in the hid folder dont work.

If someone could give a new kid a helping hand, it would be much appreciated.
I have alot of plans for the future, including a pd based electric drum kit that will be alot easier with this information.

Well, now I have that sorted out, I thought I'd post up the resulting patch, which still needs a lot of work, and will end up in max for a uni project.

The final version, will have sounds triggered by a midi control, and then using the joystick, I will turn the panning and volume control for each individual sound on by holding down a button on the joystick.
Basically, this will let me move sounds about mid-performance.
Seeing as the joystick also has a throttle control on it as well, i was thinking of adding in a filter of some sort.

But to keep it in PD for now, anyone have any idea how I would get a switch like the one in max, with one input and two out, that a bang will determine which side the signal is sent to?

(sorry if the subpatches dont work, I've never uploaded a patch before and I'm not sure if I'm meant to save those seperately. It works fine on my computer anyhow)

Edit: Also, you will need to put in your own sound file in the subpatch "fileplayer"
I still use readsf because i can never get tables or arrays to seem to work.

http://www.pdpatchrepo.info/hurleur/hidtest.pd

Thanks for sharing your results. Good luck with the project submission.

A switch like you describe can be built with [spigot]

I am curious about one thing, why convert the patches to Max?

The project isn't actually due until the end of semester, which is atleast 10 weeks away, so it should improve alot inbetween.

[spigot], I'll have to check that out, thanks.

I have to rebuild the patches to max because thats what we are using on the computers at uni, and we have to perform with them at the end of semester.

For some reason they've decided we are only allowed to use max. I think it would be easier for them to use pd, because then everyone could used it at home as well.

Damn, which university/program?

"For some reason they've decided we are only allowed to use max. "

That is a decision often taken for reasons of grading/marking. If you are the course lecturer then it's easier if all students work in the same framework.

"I think it would be easier for them to use pd, because then everyone could used it at home as well."

It might not be "easier" if the company that makes Max offer a support contract to your college. It is certainly more expensive, but possibly cheaper than having technical staff at the college who know how to support the software they use to teach. This trades off a profit motive against the best interests of students and is one of the many reasons I strongly advocate the use of open source free software tools in education. I think the use of proprietry tools is insidious, divisive, contrary to best educational practice and often the product of aggressive lobbying by companies to publicly funded organisations. It's insidious because companies vie to hook students on their products hoping they will advocate them later in their commercial careers. However I strongly believe educational establishments have a duty to offer an impartial view by teaching principles not products. And of course it is divisive by placing poorer students at a disadvantage and thus encouraging software piracy. It runs contrary to best educational practices because closed source programs go against the very philosophies of shared knowledge, free enquiry, peer review and openness that are essential in science and education. I believe that students should be encouraged to develop these essential life skills. Secrecy is the enemy of progress. If you can't see how something works you can't learn much about it.

Anyway, those are my personal opinions and they certainly don't imply any judgement on you or your uni, always happy to lend an ear whatever tools you use.

Well last semester they said I'd have to use max, this semester though it seems they have decided I can use PD after I spoke with my lecturer about using my own laptop.

The reasons they weren't so keen on me doing it were,
1. The staff are experienced in MAX
2. Thats on all the computers, so it was easier than having to install in on a machine for me to use for the performance at the end of the semester.

mnemonic, it's the University of Western Sydney, in the Digital Music course.

So onto my patch, I've cleaned it up a bit with more subpatches, and some streamlining of work(ie. the button above [pd hid] which closes currently open devices, refreshes the list, and opens device 2(which is the joystick i have plugged in)

I've also worked out arrays, so all of those are down the bottom in [pd arrays].

Theres also comments to label some stuff.

Right now theres 4 channels, which I figure should be enough to start with now.

Any suggestions on what I could add to it would be awesome, I have all semester (14 weeks) and week three only just finished.
What can I say, I was struck by an idea one day at work and just got it going.

http://www.pdpatchrepo.info/hurleur/Joystickpatch1.5.pd

Looking good dude. I think 4 channels is plenty for now.

A few remarks:

The pan control should really be one control that fades between the left and right channels, otherwsie the volume control is redundant if you have separate left and right fades. You might like to look at "equal power" panning. If you get stuck ask and I'll send you an example.

Because you have 4 sources that are all potentially at full scale you should divide the total sum by 4.

Perhaps give the [lpf~] a default value when the patch starts.

Maybe start using abstractions for the bits you duplicate instead of subpatches.

You could do quite a few things to build on the project from here. One would be to use the other joystick controls to add a bit of reverb, phasing, flanging or other effects. You could modulate two of the audio sources to get crazy effects. At some point you might want to make a "meta control" that can switch between channels you want to add some effect to.

At the moment the loops all run asynchonously (in their own time) That's cool, but for beat mixing you might like to try synchronising them all to the same pulse or having a speed control for each one so they behave like turntables and you can mix the beats.

Nice to see the comments, keep putting lots in to explain your work, it's woth lots more marks !

About the Max/Pd thing: It's real kind of your tutors to allow you to use both, I guess what I said about the policy being to do with giving everyone a level base was right rather than any strict policymandating Max. If you want to make life easy on your course masters and yourself may i suggest sticking to really simple Miller Vanilla Pd , don't use anything too fancy or you might find the difference between Pd and Max causes you headaches later on.

About final peformances: Same thing goes. If you try and make your patch portable and not depend on unusual externals life will be easier. It means building more things from scratch, but that's the best part

have fun!

@obiwannabe said:

A few remarks:

The pan control should really be one control that fades between the left and right channels, otherwsie the volume control is redundant if you have separate left and right fades. You might like to look at "equal power" panning. If you get stuck ask and I'll send you an example.

The volume control is so that I can fade each channel in and out.
But an example would be excellent.

@obiwannabe said:

Because you have 4 sources that are all potentially at full scale you should divide the total sum by 4.

Will do.
Also another thing, should I be keeping the [*~] between 0 and 1?

@obiwannabe said:

Maybe start using abstractions for the bits you duplicate instead of subpatches.

Yeah, I need to learn to do this, I should work my way through tutorials or something.

@obiwannabe said:

You could do quite a few things to build on the project from here. One would be to use the other joystick controls to add a bit of effects.

At some point you might want to make a "meta control" that can switch between channels you want to add some effect to.

At the moment the loops all run asynchonously (in their own time) That's cool, but for beat mixing you might like to try synchronising them all to the same pulse or having a speed control for each one so they behave like turntables and you can mix the beats.

All these sound like awesome ideas, I guess it's back to the drawing board to try work these out.
Infact, at uni we have access to these cv to midi converters and a whole load of awesome gadgets like distance sensors and bend sensors which would work nicely with tweaking effects.

I guess for the synchronising, I would need to resize the array to a certain length after loading in the sample then keep it in check with a [metro]?
A continuous resize might be a bit cpu intensive. I think I recall a patch that allowed you to slow down/reverse/change the boundaries of a sample while it played, being posted around here somewhere.

@obiwannabe said:

If you want to make life easy on your course masters and yourself may i suggest sticking to really simple Miller Vanilla Pd , don't use anything too fancy or you might find the difference between Pd and Max causes you headaches later on.

Ah yes, I realise now I'll need to include all the externals I've used, which to date seem to be [hid] and [spigot]

Infact, I'll just burn the entire current version on the disc I hand in with all the externals I'm using.

Thank you mr obiwannabe.

Ok, I have a new problem here, but wasn't sure if I should start a new thread for it seeing as its the same patch.

I got back onto it again after a bit of a break and started cleaning it all up, I also put in a flanger, seeing as it was the easiest thing I could think of.

Now, i seem to be having issues with the flanger.

Every time the flanger reaches either end of the band I've allowed it, i get a stack overflow error.

Also, now that ive fixed a whole lot of other errors while my internet was down mid post, I can't work out how to fix this c and d multiply error.
I've gone through it and cant seem to work it out.

One last thing also, the flanger seems to do so little, any suggestions? i tried it first on this drum loop, and the flanger alone is in the file "how it should work"
(I have a sneaking suspicion that [spigot~] isn't the object I want)

I guess i should draw some simple maps here for people to get through to the problems.

The flangers can be found through,
Control>Flange>flanger.

That first Flange part has the [spigot~] in it.

C and D, are the [delwrite~] and [delread~] tables found inside controls2.

Thank you for checking it out if you can.
I think I really just need someone to essentially proof read it for me.

http://www.pdpatchrepo.info/hurleur/Joystick_2.0.zip