Programming Sound with Pure Data

Chapter 3Building Controls

In this chapter we’ll spend some time building tools and abstractions that will be useful in the more complex and interesting patches we’ll build in the next chapter. This is an important step in the process of learning Pd—you’ll be learning a lot about how patches function, but also building up a library of Pd components that will be useful to any type of patch you want to create in the future.

We’ll start by building a patch that will allow us to get a visualization, specifically a live graph, of an oscillator’s signal. Then we’ll abstract that patch into a reusable control to get an idea of how Pd deals with code reuse and abstraction. You’ll be able to drop it into any patch and get a quick idea of how a signal ...