The trapezoid~ object outputs a trapezoidal shape, rising linearly from 0 to 1 in a certain fraction of its time, then staying at 1, then falling linearly back to 0 in a fraction of its time. Its timing is driven by a control signal at its input, one that goes in a straight line from 0 to 1; so a phasor~ or a line~ is the obvious choice for input to trapezoid~. As the input goes from 0 to 1, the output draws the designated trapezoidal shape.
This patch shows an appropriate interface for a flanger, including dials to control delay time, flanging rate, flanging depth, and control over the mix between the dry (unaltered) and wet (altered) signal. Control over the dry/wet mix is a good thing to include in most audio effects.
Mapping one range of values to another needed range of values is a crucial technique in computer music. In this example, we want to map MIDI data values that range from 0 to 127 into a useful range for controlling the amplitude—and thus the loudness—of a sound in MSP.
The phasor~ object produces a linear control signal that goes repeatedly from 0 to 1. That's demonstrated in the upper left part of this patch. In general, a control signal that goes gradually in a straight line from one value to another is quite useful, but you don't always want it to repeat over and over the way that phasor~ does.
This patch converts MIDI velocity values to create an amplitude envelope to control a *~. The Test MIDI velocity to amplitude (vtoa) abstraction patch shows how this abstraction can be used.
This is an example of a patch loaded in a poly~ which uses midi values to load and transpose samples of guitar strings in a groove~. This patch is used as an abstraction inside of the Sampling Synthesizer in Max patch which includes pitch bend and mod wheel functionality and contains the buffer~ objects that the groove~ in this patch refers to.
When you play a note with MIDI, you usually want the note to sustain as long as the key is held down, then you want it to turn off (either immediately or gradually) when the key is released (when the note-off message is received). Because MIDI is designed to function in real time, in live performance, there is no duration information contained in a note-on message. The duration can only be known once the key has been released.
The line~ object calculates and performs that interpolation, sending out a signal that arrives at a specified destination value in a specified amount of time. Once the signal arrives at that value, it stays there until it receives another message telling it to transition linearly to a new signal value.
This patch will play random cosine tones within the range of two octaves above middle C.
Each cycle~ starts at 800 Hz and ramps to a note in the harmonic spectrum with a fundamental frequency of 100 Hz over 45 seconds after a delay of 5 seconds. The curve~ controls the amplitude of all of the cycle~ objects.