cycle~

Sample and hold

The idea of “sample and hold” is to capture the amplitude of a signal at a particular instant in time, and hold it constant for a while. In MSP, the sah~ object allows you to do just that.

Vibrato

In music the term vibrato (Italian for “vibrated”) means small repetitive fluctuations of pitch and loudness in a tone. Singers and instrumentalists use vibrato intentionally to add interest and expressivity to their sound.

Phase cancellation

When two sinusoidal waves have the same frequency, amplitude, and phase, they constructively interfere; the amplitude of their sum is twice the amplitude of each one alone. When they are exactly one half cycle out of phase, however, they completely interfere, and cancel each other out entirely; one always is positive when the other is negative, so their sum is always zero. When their phase relationship is somewhere in between those two extremes, the frequency of the sum will stay the same, but the amplitude and phase will change.

Using matrix~ for audio routing and mixing

The matrix~ object is an audio mixer/router that can be configured with any number of inlets and outlets. The arguments specify the number of audio inlets, the number of audio outlets (there's always one additional outlet on the right), and the initial gain for the connections of inlets to outlets. Each inlet is potentially connectable to each outlet with a unique gain setting. The gain of the connections is changed by sending messages in the left inlet.