Advice

This program works fairly well, most of the time.   You have to learn to accept the fact that it has limitations.  These limitations will only diminish as hardware gets more efficient.  I have found that when preparing very complicated mixes it is sometimes useful to create 22k mono versions of 44k stereo files in order to be able to hear more at once.  (You can use the NeXT program sndconvert to do this.) When I like what I get I then change the file names  back to the 44k stereo files and write the mix to disk.  Another useful trick is to write selected portions of the mix to disk and then place these soundfiles in the mix, commenting out the data used in their creation.  This way you can save a record of all the steps that went into making a mix in one file.

Sometimes when you start to play a mix it will skip at first as pages get copied into virtual memory.  If you stop the play after about 10 seconds and then start it again it will work better the second time.

It is useful to save your scripts periodically while working.  If the driver and interface get into a deadlock position you will lose everything.  Just type command-s.

If you want to prepare elaborate combinations of playnotes, it is probably best to use some other program like Cmix or lisp or whatever turns you on, to prepare notelists.  Then simply copy and paste these from an edit or terminal window into the playnote window.

If you have several mixes you want to combine, placing one after the other, and assuming that they are on separate scratchpads, and are all starting from time 0, you can use the offset= feature.  Just copy one playnote window into the pasteboard, and then paste it on the end of another.  Make sure your file numbers are appropriate and then just say offset=20 or whatever time you want the second group to begin, before the first of the second group of playnotes.