Drawing a line that responds to sound

mrosenschein's icon

Hello

I'm trying to make a patch that will draw a continuous line as a response
to sound input from a microphone. I.e. if there is no sound the line will just move forward at a constant level, if there is sound at a high pitch the line will rise at an appropriate angle, if there is a low pitch the line will go down...any pointers would be greatly appreciated :)

laonikoss's icon
Max Patch
Copy patch and select New From Clipboard in Max.

Here's one way to do it:

You need to adjust it, though, to suit the range of incoming pitches, and also sensitivity issues etc etc (so, perhaps only count a pitch if it is above a certain dynamic etc).

NOTE: You need the [pitch~] external, which you can download here: http://web.media.mit.edu/~tristan/maxmsp.html . These might also be useful, if you haven't got them already: http://crca.ucsd.edu/~tapel/software.html (probably [fiddle~] in your case)

mrosenschein's icon

Okay well I've managed to do this so far. But it's not really working. Can anyone explain clearly how fiddle~ works?

2199.drawsound.maxpat
Max Patch
mrosenschein's icon

the pitch~ external isn't working...I'm getting this error message:

this application failed to start because fftw3.ll was not found. re-installing the application may fix this problem.

...also, how do i open the patcher that you've uploaded? I'm sorry, I'm new at this.

laonikoss's icon

To install the [pitch~] external, copy it to Applications -> Max5 -> Cycling74 -> max-externals (or create a folder).

To open the patcher I posted, copy the code and paste it into a new MaxMSP window.

Did you take a look at the [fiddle~] helpfile? It is a bit complicated, [pitch~] is based on [fiddle~] and is basically a more digestible version of it, focusing on pitches (but not as versatile).