Open a new patcher and create a new object named ‘preset’. It is another graphical object which presents itself as a rectangular box with many small square buttons.
The preset object on top, memorizing three statuses of the objects below. Shown is preset n. 1.
This object is simply able to store the status of your patcher, and remembering it when you open it from scratch. It can also memorise many different statuses of your patchers, more properly called presets, that you can recall just with a click. This is extremely powerful for a performance, so that you can test in rehearsal the settings that you like, and have them ready on the fly.
Here is shown preset n. 2
When I refer to ‘performance’ I just mean anything you need to do live to create your sounds on stage, or in your studio. We will see over the course of these lessons how important is embedding human flexibility/variability inside a Max patcher to create even more interesting sounds.
At this stage you can use the preset object simply by placing it on the patcher, and when you want to store a status, SHIFT+CLICK on one of the square buttons. That will store a status of the patcher that will be saved when you save the patcher. To recall that status, simply click on the related preset button. A saved preset status is a slightly different colour (in Max 7).
You can also use the preset object by sending instructions via messages. The messages store 1, store 2, etc. will save the preset. An integer sent to the preset object will recall that preset number. A message clearall, or clear + the preset number will respectively reset the object or the individual preset.
Here shown the different messages you can send to preset
Loadbang
When you load a patcher, you want some settings to be recalled immediately. The preset object is the best to store the presets, but you might also need an object that is able to trigger the preferred preset. That is the loadbang object. It simply triggers a bang as soon as the patcher is loaded. You can attach it to whichever object you need to trigger at startup. In this example I attached it to a preset object to load up preset number 3 at the beginning of the patcher:
Loadmess
Loadmess is another object which behaves exactly the same as loadbang. Instead of triggering a bang at startup, it triggers a message. That is a useful operation you might find yourself in the need of doing quite often. In the example below I have used it to initialise my oscillator frequency to 300 Hz.
