programming with max/msp - Virtual Sound

Interlude B - Additional elements of programming with Max/MSP
There are two arguments associated with makenote, a velocity and a duration
in milliseconds. In the patch, we have set velocity equal to 1 (a placeholder,
as we will see), and duration equal to 500 milliseconds (or half a second).
When the object receives a note-on, it will send the pitch and velocity of the
note-on directly to its outlets, where, after the prescribed duration (500 milliseconds
in this example) a note-off is also sent. Note that the velocity sent
by the kslider (which in the example shown in the figure is a value of 103)
overrides the value of 1 that had been provided as an argument. This first
argument is only a placeholder that allows us to write a second argument, the
note duration, after it. The second argument can also be modified by sending
a value to the right inlet, which will replace the value originally specified in
the second argument.
Try playing some notes and changing the duration: observe how velocity values
first reflect the value generated by kslider, and then, after the time specified
by the duration parameter, they change to 0.
Now add an addition object to the lower part of the patch as shown in Figure IB.3:
Fig. IB.3 Transposing MIDI notes
This patch is similar to the one in the file IA_01_transposition.maxpat, which we
examined in the first section of Interlude A. In this case, every key pressed on
the keyboard generates two notes simultaneously, separated by a distance of
7 semitones: the interval of a fifth. Every time that a kslider key is pressed,
in fact, the value of the MIDI note number is sent to the makenote object and
also to the addition object that adds 7 to the first note number and then sends
its output to makenote. To create these note pairs, we didn’t need to repeat
velocity and duration values, since these values are sent to “cold” inlets of the
makenote object, which are stored as internal variables (the contents of internal
variables are re-used every time that a new value arrives at the “hot” inlet). In
the figure, for example, both notes (the middle C and the G above it) will have a
velocity of 112 and a duration of 500 milliseconds.
from “Electronic Music and Sound Design” Vol. 1 by Alessandro Cipriani and Maurizio Giri
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