Random playback from buffer~

frizzwig's icon

Hi there

As part of a uni project im cutting up some famous speeches for use in a track and i am going to use Max to chop and play the samples in time but in a random order. I am working on two possible methods to deal with this.

I need a patch to read from certain points in a buffer~ although to do this I need a way of locating certain words/phrases in the buffer. I then need a way of randomly playing these parts of the sample (which would most likely be triggered using a metro object)

Alternatively

I could chop up the words/phrases from the speeches and load them into separate buffers which could then be triggered

any help on the following would be appreciated

a) should I use one buffer~ read from different points OR multiple buffers - which do you think would work best?

b) is there a way to locate specific points in a buffer? (to send this data to the groove/play to trigger it from that specific point)

c) a good way of randomly triggering these

(ive been using max for about 2months and have a good, but basic, understanding )

thanks - Mike

Medd's icon

I've been using Roth Michaels' rm.slice for chopping up audio stored in a [buffer~] into chunks. You can then play these back at random, check it out:

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

If you're using a single buffer you might want to store your start and end points in a coll, then you can retrieve them using a number message.
Here's a quick patch using a waveform display to choose them. Rm.slice looks good too though I can't seem to find a link to download.

Medd's icon

rm.slice grabs start and end points and puts them into a [coll]

Apologies, here's a download link:

alfonso santimone's icon

thanks dickmedd!
but there's no download link at maxobjects.com
...or am i missing it?

Medd's icon

Apologies again!

Down the bottom of this thread Roth's posted it!

Roth's icon

Nope, I'm the one that should be apologizing — it looks like something got bugged with those links on my site. I'll fix that later tonight when I'm home. The zip I posted in the thread dickmedd posted is the same version that is on my site. I'll be posting to that thread soon when I post another update.

PS: @dickmedd apparently my iPhone thinks I mean to type sickness when I type your screen name. ;)

frizzwig's icon

cheers guys! some really useful stuff

Charles Matthews's icon

Got it now - this is great, going to come in really handy. Thanks.

Lance Ford Jones's icon

@Charles: the patch posted above works great in Max 6 but will not work for me (or my students) in Max 5. I can't see why. Why?