Example C10.monophonic.synth.pd (Figure 3.16) also implements a monophonic, note-oriented synthesizer, but in this case oriented toward MIDI controllability. Here the tasks of envelope generation and sequencing pitches are handled using control streams instead of audio signals. New control objects are needed for this example:
:
MIDI note input. Three outlets give the pitch, velocity, and channel of
incoming MIDI note-on and note-off events (with note-off events appearing as
velocity-zero note-on events). The outputs appear in Pd's customary
right-to-left order.
:
filter out note-off messages. This passes
(pitch, velocity) pairs through whenever the velocity is nonzero, dropping
the others. Unlike notein, stripnote does not
directly use hardware MIDI input or output.
,
:
copy a message to outlets in right to left order, with type conversion. The
creation arguments (``b" and ``f" in this example) specify two outlets, one
giving ``bang" messages, the other ``float" (i.e., numbers). One outlet
is created for each creation argument. The outputs appear in Pd's standard
right-to-left order.
The patch's control objects feed frequencies to the phasor~ object whenever a MIDI note-on message is received. Controlling the amplitude (via the line~ object) is more difficult. When a note-on message is received, the sel 0 object outputs the velocity at right (because the input failed to match 0); this is divided by the maximum MIDI velocity of 127 and packed into a message for line~ with a time of 100 msec.
However, when a note-off is received, it is only appropriate to stop the sound if the note-off pitch actually matches the pitch the instrument is playing. For example, suppose the messages received are ``60 127", ``72 127", ``60 0", and ``72 0". When the note-on at pitch 72 arrives the pitch should change to 72, and then the ``60 0" message should be ignored, with the note playing until the ``72 0" message.
To accomplish this, first we store the velocity in the upper float object. Second, when the pitch arrives, it too is stored (the lower float object) and then the velocity is tested against zero (the ``bang" outlet of t b f recalls the velocity which is sent to sel 0). If this is zero, the second step is to recall the pitch and test it (the select object) against the most recently received note-on pitch. Only if these are equal (so that ``bang" appears at the left-hand-side outlet of select) does the message ``0 1000" go to the line~ object.
