Yes the code could be very greatly improved it is very turged.
Apologies for asking for help on such code but I am trying to get a proof of concept going and will optimize once I can get my head around this.
On the processing side you are being very wasteful sending the data as strings and giving the Arduino a lot more to do in converting that string into an int value.
If you only send int values then you cut down one hell of a lot of work the system has to do. Note your Arduino serial buffer is only 64 bytes anyway.
Super thanks for this. To get to think of it I need only a byte (?)/channel since I will send values from 0 - 16 only. So 64 bytes in all. Could you please let me know if this line of thought is correct? This would fit nicely within the 64 byte serial buffer?
Also on the processing side if I change the freq_array to byte, is there a way to send the byte array in a single go or would I need to run a loop to send the individual values?
As always much appreciate the help!!
Thanks
Nitin