Data Types
Every handle in Patchies has a type — video, audio, message, or analysis — shown by its color. You can only connect handles whose types are compatible.
Handle Colors
| Color | Type | Used for |
|---|---|---|
| Orange | Video | Visual frames between visual objects |
| Blue | Audio | Audio signals between ~ objects |
| Gray | Message | Numbers, strings, bangs, and custom data |
| Purple | Analysis | FFT frequency data from fft~ |
Basic Rules
- Multiple connections are fine — one outlet can feed many inlets, and one inlet can receive from many outlets
- Video (orange) connects only to video inlets
- Audio (blue) connects to audio inlets, and also to audio parameter inlets (see below)
- Message (gray) connects to message inlets, and also to float-accepting signal inlets (see below)
- Analysis (purple) from
fft~connects to both message and video inlets
Audio Parameter Modulation
Some audio object inlets are audio parameters rather than raw signal inlets — for example, osc~'s frequency and gain~'s gain. These are special: they accept both message and audio signals.
This lets you modulate a parameter with another oscillator:
[osc~ 2] ──► [osc~ 440].frequency (2 Hz wobble on the pitch)
Tip: When you start dragging from a blue (audio) outlet, any audio parameter inlets in the patch turn from gray to blue to show they're connectable.
Float-to-Signal Inlets
Some signal inlets accept a plain float number to set a constant value — a pattern borrowed from Pure Data. Arithmetic objects like +~, *~, -~, /~ and comparison objects like >~, <~, min~, max~ all work this way.
[msg 0.5] ──► [*~ ].inlet 1 (sets the multiplier to 0.5)
You can connect either a message outlet or an audio outlet to these inlets:
- Sending a float sets the constant used when no audio signal is connected
- The constant can also be set as a creation argument:
*~ 0.5multiplies by 0.5 from the start