Floating Point

Well, it's got to be a simple thing, but I can't seem to save the contents of a gen patcher-- I've been trying to make a simple gen~ subpatch within a larger patch and the patch saves, but when I reopen it the gen part is just the default (two ins an add and an out). All my work is gone-- what am I doing wrong?

Well, it's got to be a simple thing, but I can't seem to save the contents of a gen patcher-- I've been trying to make a simple gen~ subpatch within a larger patch and the patch saves, but when I reopen it the gen part is just the default (two ins an add and an out). All my work is gone-- what am I doing wrong?
T


gen-patch-wont-save

I think that if you want the gen patch to be saved within your patch you have to keep your gen untitled (ex. [gen~]). If you name it (ex: [gen~ audiosubpatch]), you have to save the gen patch separately and keep it in the same folder (or within your file preferences).

I don't know it is clear or if it is true, but that is what I understand about it.

ok, thanks pm, I did put in a name arg for it so that's probably the case-- will try again when I get the chance...

What version of Max are you using? Can you give steps to reproduce your original problem?

@terry
What version of Max are you using?  Can you give steps to reproduce your original problem?
thanks!


I don't think I can give steps to reproduce, but I can give more detail about what happened.

1. new patcher, n, gen~, double click, make gen patch with 6 inlets, 2 outlets, and using buffer, wave, delay, and some +, *, !- operators. The parent patch had nothing else in it except the gen~ object.

2. After some gen patching, decided to call it something (using name arg), all my patching reverted to gen default state (the kind of thing that would happen in early versions of max when making a subpatch)

3. Made a new patch, named the gen object straight away this time.

4. inlets 1 and 6 took signals, and inlets 2-5 took floats from the parent patch-- first I thought OK, in gen for inlets 2-5, I'll need to put an f object between the inlet and the first operator because they're not signals (flawed logic there?) . So I did that.

5. Then wired up the parent patch with the ezedac accepting the outputs of the gen.

6. Fed some noise~ into inlet 1 (turned audio on), sent floats to the other inlets (and a sig to inlet 6), nothing happened.

7. Thought I was wrong about the [f] operator, so removed them from inside gen, and converted the floats in the parent patch to signals using [sig~]

8. The noise signal was passing though gen out to the ezedac, but it shouldn't have been doing that (the patch was supposed to gate, delay and window a signal to create a grain). This was probably an error on my part, given this was (and still is) my first attempt at doing a gen patch.

9. So I thought I'd better do diagnostics, so made a new outlet [out 3] in gen while audio was on, but a new outlet at the bottom of the gen object did not appear-- I could edit, turn audio on & off etc, but the gen object representation in the parent patcher would not update.

10. So I thought I'd better save my (parent) patch, closed, reopened, and the gen object was now in its default state again (but still with the name argument I gave it previously).

That's about it, btw this was also the first time I had opened up and used this version of Max; I had earlier in the day downloaded it after purchasing it. The install presumably overwrote the old beta version of MAx 6 that I had (never authorised) from last year.

1.    new patcher, n, gen~, double click, make gen patch with 6 inlets, 2 outlets, and using buffer, wave, delay, and some +, *, !- operators. The parent patch had nothing else in it except the gen~ object.

2.    After some gen patching, decided to call it something (using name arg), all my patching reverted to gen default state (the kind of thing that would happen in early versions of max when making a subpatch)

3.    Made a new patch, named the gen object straight away this time.

4.    inlets 1 and 6 took signals, and inlets 2-5 took floats from the parent patch-- first I thought OK, in gen for inlets 2-5, I'll need to put an f object between the inlet and the first operator because they're not signals (flawed logic there?) . So I did that. 

5.   Then wired up the parent patch with the ezedac accepting the outputs of the gen.  

6.   Fed some noise~ into inlet 1 (turned audio on), sent floats to the other inlets (and a sig to inlet 6), nothing happened.

7.   Thought I was wrong about the [f] operator, so removed them from inside gen, and converted the floats in the parent patch to signals using [sig~]

8.   The noise signal was passing though gen out to the ezedac, but it shouldn't have been doing that (the patch was supposed to gate, delay and window a signal to create a grain). This was probably an error on my part, given this was (and still is) my first attempt at doing a gen patch.

9.   So I thought I'd better do diagnostics, so made a new outlet [out 3] in gen while audio was on, but a new outlet  at the bottom of the gen object did not appear-- I could edit, turn audio on & off etc, but the gen object representation in the parent patcher would not update.

10.    So I thought I'd better save my (parent) patch, closed, reopened, and the gen object was now in its default state again (but still with the name argument I gave it previously).

That's about it, btw this was also the first time I had opened up and used this version of Max; I had earlier in the day downloaded it after purchasing it. The install presumably  overwrote the old beta version of MAx 6 that I had (never authorised) from last year.


If you create the [gen~] with no name, then it will be embedded in the main patcher. You can save the genpatcher to disk (it will create a gendsp), but what you are editing will still be the embedded version, not the file on disk.

If you rename a [gen~] object to e.g. [gen~ myfile], then it effectively creates a new objet which will replace whatever you had previously (just like any other max object). So you must save the embedded genpatcher to disk before renaming the [gen~], not afterward (as in your step 2).

If you create the [gen~] with a name, it will try to find & load the gendsp file from disk. If it can't find the file, it will just create a default gen patcher with the [+] object instead. Sounds like that's what happened with your step 10?

evidently I need to tread more carefully with gen.

but I did save the patcher first before closing it (step 10); I haven't had time to try re-doing the process in a more orderly manner, which I know I should do-- I also had a gen example patch make max crash, so maybe I'll do reinstall....

evidently I need to tread more carefully with gen.
but I did save the patcher first before closing it (step 10); I haven't had time to try re-doing the process in a more orderly manner, which I know I should do-- I also had a gen example patch make max crash, so maybe I'll do  reinstall....

Hmmmm...following the steps outlined by Graham it still does not see the .gendsp file. I have a pointer in the file preferences especially for storing gen routines but this seems to make no difference, its not seeing the file and thus creates a standard gen~ object. I'm using 6.05 as 6.07 crashes constantly (imac 2,8 intel core duo Os x10.7.4.

I'll wait until the next update see if it solves the issue

gen~ patch wont save