[PD-dev] Request: Transmit control data on signal connections (including multichannel)

[Alexandre Torres Porres]

This is something I wanted to request for a while, and now with the
mutlichannel connections it seems to be the right time to do this. This is
also something that works in MAX (though I am not sure how it is managed in
multichannel signals).

In MAX you have inlet/outlet objects that deal with both messages and a
subpatch can send on a single connection both audio and control messages.
MAX also has the [typeroute~] object that can split audio signal and
control messages, which can be used in this case.

We already have half of the stuff working in Pd. The [inlet~] object
already splits signal and control data with the 'fwd' argument. What we
miss is the ability of [outlet~] also accept and send this through a single
audio connection.

Use cases? This is really useful for a "modular like" system, with
abstractions that work like modules with visual controls (GOP) connected to
each other. I am designing a system like this now, inspired by euro-rack
synth modules by the way. I wouldn't like to extend this discussion so much
and bore you people with technical details of this project. It really seems
like a great convenience that people would like and I bet others will come
up with more use cases and special cases where this really saves the day.

For my purpose, what we have to do now is create more outlets / inlets and
connect them, or use global sends/receives. I have an external that gets
'$0' of a parent patch which also helps, but I think using this makes
things easier and more powerful. I would have the liberty to design more
functional modules.

This seems especially useful with multichannel connections, where we could
also send control parameters for a specific channel, which can be retrieved
inside [clone] with our already existing [inlet~ fwd] configuration.

What do you say?

cheers
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