Re: MaxMSP looping -

[Chris Muir <cbm@well.com>]

At 8:18 PM -0400 5/5/06, Brian Cass wrote:
>AFAIK, Max is the only one of these 3 that has the feature I REALLY 
>appreciate - alias modules. almost everything i do involves having 
>multiple versions of whatever looper/filter/gadget i have created. 
>basically bc i am dealing with multitrack looping. It is very handy in 
>Max to make one structural change and have all the other copies change 
>with it. I wish the Nord and Reaktor had this ability.

Yes, although I don't think of them as Alias Modules, but rather as 
Abstractions, Subroutines, Functions, or Methods (depending on my current 
programming language mindset). The Max community mostly calls them 
Abstractions.

I can tell you probably already know this, but for general pedagogic 
reasons, I'll continue. The use of instance variables makes all the 
difference. Lets say I have a patcher named Vibrato. I could have an 
argument to Vibrato that would change the type of vibrato that was 
applied.  For example, "Vibrato Guitar" could have positive going vibrato, 
while "Vibrato Violin" would apply vibrato that went positive and 
negative. This allows each instance of an abstraction to behave 
differently depending on what instance arguments it has.

It's also worth pointing out that patchers can be nested however deeply 
you need them to be.

-C

-- 
Chris Muir           | "There are many futures and only one status quo.
cbm@well.com         |  This is why conservatives mostly agree,
http://www.xfade.com |  and radicals always argue." - Brian Eno