[...]
if you want to have sample-accurate resolution, this is a non-trivial task.
zexy's [time] will give you the current system time, but Pd uses an audio buffer, so the actual system time might will typically not correspond (nor have a constant offset) to an imaginary timestamp attached to a "sample" as it leaves your soundcard.
Do I understand correctly that one sample from my ADCs will arrive at a random moment within the lengh of one buffer in Pd?
we did something like synchronous recording on multiple devices in the wilma project a couple of years ago (https://wilma.kug.ac.at).
iirc, it involved special hardware that was synched via radio (not NTP over WiFi) and encoded the wall clock timestamps within a dedicated audio channel.
Ah yes, WILMA!
In my case I want to go for the best possible resolution without a dedicated radio clock and with standard laptop hardware. Is banging [time] at every microsecond still the best way maxing my cpu?
Thanks a lot! Peter