confused about pattr
I'm working on a concerto for max/msp-processed violin & orchestra. It looks like pattr objects will make the patch much easier to interact with, but I'm having trouble wrapping my head around the whole pattr system. Here are some specifics, and any help or direction would be greatly appreciated. I've read help files, tutorials and references, but feel like I still don't get it.
Basically, I want to be able to have a series of pre-sets which direct a pedal played by the vln to various control variables & set other variables to various levels in the patch & sub-patchers. As far as i can tell, pattrstorage lets me set up presets like this, and to edit them as text in XML files. Cool.
pattrhub seems to be the way to send messages to named objects, but maybe autopattr is the way to do that?? Not clear why I'd use one over the other.
And I thought autopattr and pattrhub were supposed to see all named objects, which would then be reflected in clientwindow and storagewindow of pattrstorage ... but that doesn't seem to work as I expect ... some named objects show up, and some don't.
I seem to be able to enable an object for pattr if I attach an explicit "pattr @bindto name" to an object ... but I also thought that that was what autopattr did. However, I find that autopattr adds really strange names to objects I don't anticipate it will see ... and which take me quite a bit of time to search the patch for ... so that I've turned off the @autonaming feature in autopattr, and taken to just naming object mnemonically if I want to access them via pattr.
Finally ... in the examples of pattrhub & autopattr and pattrstorage (I think) these three objects all have arguments which look like buffer names, or file names ... or maybe just random arguments to be cute??? I have a feeling these are meaningful, but I can't seem to grock it.
Sorry to be so dense, but I think that if I can understand this, I'll be home free. Of course, I can just go back the the way I've done this in the past and make a zillion send/receive combinations ... but it looks like pattr stuff is more elegant, if I could just get a handle on it ... and the ability to examine and edit the XML files looks really useful.
Thanks,
-- Neil
It's not so difficult.
I just started playing with pattrstorage and autopattr and they are brilliant! And offer Lot's of easy GRM style preset interpolated fun. Though interpolation on menus may not be what you want (see my patch).
As the name suggests 'pattrstorage' is in charge of storing and recalling information.
and 'autopattr' can be used to automatically name objects in the patcher.
Look at this example where some objects are excluded from the reach of 'autopattr'. the use of '@autoname 1' as the first argument to 'autopattr' makes it auto-name exposed objects (surprise surprise). The use of 'yournamehere' as the second argument refers the named objects to the pattrstorage object with the argument 'yournamehere'.
The following should get you going, refer to each objects help file to find out more: