Hi,
there’s a number of interesting and critical topics related to these examples and I’m sorry that I can’t go into detail with all of them. For the SynthDef variant I’d definitely recommend not to go with PlayBuf; Osc and BufRd are the right tools for this (see their help files). E.g. you get distortion with PlayBuf already with frequencies where the sixth partial is below Nyquist (see freqscope).
To get the same flexibilty of Osc (up to rather high frequencies) with language-based triggering is impossible because of limited OSC bandwidth and imprecision of language-based timing in realtime. Here some remarks on the latter:
Taking Out instead of OffsetOut in the pattern variant is a further reason for imprecision, but as said, if you you want sample-accuracy + realtime control see Osc.
BTW if you post an example, especially with a potentially rather unpleasant sound, please consider lowering the amplitude.
Hope that helps, best
Daniel