This is from the jmax list ( a post by John Whitley) and I had some questions about the description of PD.

<snipped portion describes block~ for jmax users>

Miller's DSP graph abstraction technique solves a problem that has been bugging me for years: how, within the visual language of Max, to avoid needless rote duplication.

A class that abstracts over a portion of the DSP graph can have considerable expressive power. Two more sample applications of this technique immediately come to mind:

• "voice~" A voxalloc class reimplemented via DSP graph abstraction within a patcher. voice~'s leftmost input is a control data input, similar to the current voxalloc. Other inputs are duplicated in a straightforward fashion. The contents of the patcher represents a single prototypical voice, duplicated according to the number of voices required. Each voice is transparently switch~'ed on only when required, and the outputs of all voices are summed as with block~.

• A "bus~ <N>" class, that causes N copies of the patcher to be connected in series, the output of each connected to the input of the next. (Offhand, I recall seeing a Shepard tone patch on the ISPW that used this bus technique.)

Is the block~ object the only one that implements this type of abstraction at the moment? Has anyone done something like voice~? Any clarification about how this is currently implemented would be appreciated.

Karl