Assignment 4 and patching tips

Here are a few things I've noticed going through your assignment patches:

• You only need one dac~ (digital to audio converter, the loudspeaker icon) per patch. This turns the audio on or off for the *entire* patch. The danger is, if you have two or three ezdac~s scattered around your window (or even off the edge of the screen if your window is too big), you will be making sound without understanding why.
• Always use a volume control (I recommend live.gain~) as the next-to-last element in your patch, right before the dac~. You really need a way to control the volume.
• It's a good idea to have some kind of preset value (either loadbang, loadmess, the preset object, or pattr) to initialize your number boxes, volume sliders etc. Especially with volume, you can do damage if you turn on the audio at full blast. Personally I think of this like Han Solo coming out of hyperspace with his shields up - you don't want to get killed as soon as you hit the on button!