inlet

Pseudo-random numbers appear random

Programming languages all provide some means of generating random numbers. Those numbers aren’t truly random, though. They’re what’s called pseudo-random. They’re actually generated by a known, deterministic process for generating a sequence of numbers, but that process generates a long series of apparently random numbers that doesn’t repeat for a very long time.

Providing a full path name

To ensure finding a file (regardless of any File Preferences… settings in Max) you may need to provide the entire path to the file in the hierarchical file system: volume name, folder name(s), and file name. This example shows how you can construct such a full path.

Linear mapping equation (lmap)

The term "mapping" refers to making a map of correspondences between a source domain and some other "target" range. (Think of the game where you are given words in one category and are challenged to try to find an appropriate correspondence in another category, as in "Kitten is to cat as puppy is to ...".) The simplest kind of numerical mapping is called "linear mapping". That's when a one-to-one correspondence is drawn from every value in a source range X to a value that holds an exactly comparable position in a target range Y.

Using timepoints for interactive sequencing

The timepoint object sends out a bang when the transport reaches a specified time position. This can be useful for causing something to happen—or for starting an entire process—at a particular instant during the transport's progress. A timepoint might, for example, even trigger a new time position value to be sent to the transport object itself, thus causing the transport to leap to a different time.

Other basic functionality of the transport object

This patch does some of the same things as the "GlobalTransport" patch in the Extras menu, and shows what is likely going on behind the scenes in that patch. The toggle labeled "Start/Stop" starts the transport and immediately turns on the metro to begin triggering time reports. The button labeled "Rewind" sends a time position of bar 1, beat 1, 0 ticks to the transport to reset its time.