discopatrick

So you've written your M4L patch, tested it in Max, tested it in Live, and it all works great.

Then you add a second instance of your device to Live and you realise that any send/receive messages you've been using are transmitting across the entire Max environment, and thus confusing all your devices!

Is there a best practice way of avoiding this?

One way would be not to use send/receive objects, but they are turning out to be quite useful so I'd rather not lose them. I'd like to find a better way.

Here's my proposed solution: every instance of the device I add to Live should have a unique ID - somehow this should be automatically generated. This unique ID should then be appended to the name of every send and receive object in the device instance - thus send objects will only be 'heard' by receive objects within the same instance.

Sound good? Anyone got any better ideas? Or maybe a tutorial along these lines? Thanks.

best-practice-for-isolating-mulitple-instances-of-the-same-m4l-device

hi discopatrick. all that has happened here is you have not read the manual.

there is an excellent built in system for dealing with uniquely named send/receive pairs.

preface all you send/receive names with three dashes (---), and they will turn into unique id's for that device once loaded. these are available throughout any level of that device. this goes for everything - buffer~s, play~s, coll's, etc etc etc. for unique id's that are only at the level of one abstraction deep, you just need to use the standard Max method of #0.

Yes, I've seen these three dashes before on patches and wondered what they signified. Now I know.

And no, I haven't read the entire manual... not yet! Thanks for taking the time to help despite this. I did search for a solution before asking, but obviously not with the right search terms.

actually, i apologise for being an idiot, as in fairness to you, this hugely important feature of max/maxforlive is buried in the documentation, even though it should be tutorial number 1. such is life.

Just in case it helps anyone else, the three dashes are documented online here:

https://cycling74.com/docs/max5/vignettes/core/live_symbols.html

I had the same problem with "multi instanciated" patches in M4L, now I understand the function of ---

I had the same problem with "multi instanciated" patches in M4L, now I understand the function of ---
Thanks for the question,
Thanks for the answer.


best practice for isolating mulitple instances of the same M4L device