abstraction
Hello everyone,
In the MSP tutorial “Additive Synthesis” uses an abstraction that is called “partial~” in the patch the name of the abstraction appears next to a decimal number “partial~ 1.”.
Why can this be …?
Whatever value comes into the left inlet of partial~ will be used as the fundamental base frequency of the oscillator (the cycle~ object), but before that number gets to cycle~ it will be multiplied by the partial number. The partial number will normally be an integer for a harmonic partial, but partial~ also allows for the possibility of non-integer inharmonic relationships to the base frequency. Whatever number was typed in as the argument to partial~ will set the initial value of that partial number (the multiplier factor); the partial can be changed by a number coming in the second inlet.
To understand how that's achieved, see the documentation page on the topic of "Arguments and Special Characters in Max - $ and # Symbols and name spaces in Max".
In the MSP tutorial chapter on Additive Synthesis, the example graphic that purports to show the contents of partial~ is a bit misleading because it doesn't show the # argument.
Here's what the content of partial~ looks like: