Musical instrument string modifying device2009-10-24 00:00:00AbstractApparatus for modifying a musical instrument string as it is being fabricated by winding a fine metal wire helically about a core, the apparatus comprising a first roller having a fixed axis and a second roller mounted on a moveable arm for moving the second roller toward and away from the first roller, and a controllable air cylinder apparatus connected to said moveable arm for moving the second roller toward the first roller. As the string being wound and rotating passes between the two rollers and is maintained between guides, the crown or outer arcuate surface of each helical winding is flattened at the outer surface of the string, resulting in a string which produces less noise when the player slides his fingers along the string to change positions, and which still provides perfect intonation and frequency response.ClaimsInvention is claimed as follows:
1. An apparatus for modifying a musical instrument string having a core and a cover wire of circular cross-section helically wound on said core, said apparatuscomprising a frame, a first roller rotatably mounted on an axis fixed with respect to said frame, and a second roller rotatably mounted on an axis moveable with respect to said first roller, guide means for maintaining said string in proper position topass between said rollers while said string rotates about its axis and additionally moves axially through said rollers, and power means for applying force to urge said second roller against said first roller, thereby compressing said string andflattening the crown of said cover wire on the outer surface of said string while maintaining substantially the original curvature of said cover wire in the remainder of said cover wire.
2. An apparatus according to claim 1, wherein a lever arm is pivotally mounted on said frame and supports said second roller, and wherein said power means is engaged with said lever arm for urging said second roller toward said first roller.
3. An apparatus according to claim 1, wherein said guide means is mounted on said frame.
4. An apparatus according to claim 3, wherein said guide means comprises a pair of plates spaced apart to permit said string to pass therebetween.
5. An apparatus according to claim 3, wherein said guide means comprises a pair of opposed rollers rotatably mounted on said frame.
6. An apparatus according to claim 2, wherein said power means comprises a compressed air cylinder having a piston rod operatively connected at one end to said lever arm.
7. In combination, a string fabricating apparatus having means for rotating a musical instrument string and for winding a helically arranged cover wire on said string as the core rotates and means for moving said string axially, and an apparatusfor modifying said string as it rotates and leaves said fabricating apparatus comprising a frame, a first roller rotatably mounted on an axis fixed with respect to said frame, a lever arm pivotally mounted on said frame and having a second roller mountedon said lever arm, guide means for maintaining said string in position as it passes between said rollers, and power means operating on said lever arm for forcing said second roller in the direction of said first roller to compress said string betweensaid rollers as said string rotates and is gradually moved in an axial direction, whereby the crown of said cover wire is compressed to form flats on the outer surface of said string, and whereby the curvature of the remainder of said cover wire remainssubstantially unmodified.DescriptionBACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
(1) Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to musical instrument strings, and more particularly refers to an apparatus for modifying the surface of the strings to prevent the production of noise when the fingers are slid along the strings.
(2) Description of the Prior Art
Musical instrument strings are manufactured by winding a fine metal wire around a core. The wire may be formed of silver, copper, alloys of either or both, or aluminum. The cores are formed of gut, nylon, or metal wire such as steel. Since thefine wire wound around the core has a substantially circular cross-section in order to provide good intonation, when the player moves his fingers along the strings, since the peaks of the wire are spaced apart, a considerable amount of noise results. Various means have been utilized to modify the string to avoid or reduce the degree of noise. In one method, the string is ground with a centerless grinder after the string has been wound to produce a flat surface. This method has a disadvantage inthat the mass of the wire winding is reduced. To compensate for this, it has been found necessary to use both a larger diameter core and a larger diameter covering wire. To utilize a string manufactured by this method, it is necessary to increa...
Method and apparatus for facilitating group musical interaction over a network2009-10-20 00:00:00AbstractA method for providing real-time musical interaction among a plurality of players connected via a network includes the steps of analyzing local player's musical performance to extract emulation data that represents the musical performance; transmitting emulation data to remote players over a network; receiving emulation data from remote players over the network; and using the emulation data to emulate the remote player's musical performance by locally generating approximations of the performances.Claims
What is claimed is:
1. A method for facilitating real-time competition between players of a game, the method comprising the steps of:
(a) receiving music performance input from a local player;
(b) generating audio output responsive to the received input;
(c) receiving emulation data extracted from a remote musical performance; and
(d) generating a local approximation of the remote musical performance using the emulation data, the local approximation synchronous with the local musical performance.
2. The method of claim 1 wherein step (a) comprises receiving music performance input from a local player via a game pad.
3. The method of claim 1 wherein step (a) comprises receiving music performance input from a local player via a fake musical instrument.
4. The method of claim 1 wherein step (b) comprises playing a note to indicate a successful input.
5. The method of claim 1 wherein step (b) comprises playing an error message to indicate unsuccessful input.
6. A method for facilitating musical interaction over a network, the method comprising the steps of:
(a) receiving emulation data representing a remote user's musical performance; and
(b) locally generating an approximation of the remote user's musical performance using the received emulation data, the approximation synchronous with a local musical performance.
7. The method of claim 6 wherein step (a) comprises receiving emulation data, the emulation data comprising a moving average of recent remote musical performance events.
8. The method of claim 6 wherein step (a) comprises receiving emulation data, the emulation data comprising a moving average of timing deltas between recent remote musical performance events.
9. The method of claim 6 wherein step (a) comprises receiving emulation data, the emulation data comprising an identification of recent remote musical performance events.
10. The method of claim 6 further comprising extracting local emulation data representing a local musical performance.
11. A means for facilitating musical interaction over a network, comprising:
(a) means for receiving emulation data representing a remote user's musical performance; and
(b) means for locally generating an approximation of the remote user's musical performance using the received emulation data, the approximation synchronous with a local musical performance.
12. The means for facilitating musical interaction over a network of claim 11 further comprising means for receiving music performance input from a local player.
13. The means for facilitating musical interaction over a network of claim 12 wherein the means for receiving music performance input from a local player further comprises means for receiving music performance input from a local player via a game pad.
14. The means for facilitating musical interaction over a network of claim 12 wherein the means for receiving music performance input from a local player further comprises means for receiving music performance input from a local player via a fake musical instrument.
15. The means for facilitating musical interaction over a network of claim 11 further comprising means for extracting local emulation data representing a local musical performance.
16. The means for facilitating musical interaction over a network of claim 11 further comprising means for generating audio output responsive to the received input.
17. The means for facilitating musical interaction over a network of claim 16 wherein the means for generating audio output responsive to the received input further comprises means for playing a note to indicate a successful input.
18. The means for facilitating musical interaction over a network of claim 16 wherein the means for generating audio output responsive to the received input further comprises means for playing an error message to indicate unsuccessful input.Description
FIELD OF THE INVENTION
This invention relates to electronic music systems and, more particularly, to an electronic music system by which game players interact musically with one another in real-time over a network.
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
Music is a temporal medium, the organization of sound in time. Accordingly, music making is highly timing sensitive. When a musician presses a key on a piano, the musician expects the result to be immediately audible. Any delay in hearing the sound, even as brief as few milliseconds, produces a perceived sluggishness that impedes the ability of the musician to use the instrument.
Music making is also often a collaborative effort among many musicians who interact with each other. One form of musical interaction popular among non-musicians is provided by a video game genre known as "rhythm-action," which requires a player to perform phrases from a pre-recorded musical composition using the video game's input device to simulate a musical instrument. The best-known example of this genre is the BEATMANIA series of games published by Konami Co., Ltd. of Japan. An example of the game environment provided by BEATMANIA is shown in FIG. 1. In this series of games the notes in musical phrases are graphically displayed to the player as a series of visual markers 104 spaced along one or more timelines 110, 120, 130, 140; each marker 104 corresponds to one note in the phrase. In the environment shown in FIG. 1 the visual markers move from the top of the display to the bottom of the display. As each marker 104 on the scrolling timelines passes a graphical cursor 108 displayed along this timeline, the player must simultaneously press a button on the input device corresponding to the correct timeline to play the sound of the corresponding note at the correct time. If the player performs this action successfully for a sufficient percentage of the notes, he scores well and wins the game. If the player fails to perform this action successfully for a sufficient percentage of the notes, he scores poorly and loses the game. Two or more players may compete against each other, typically by each one attempting to play back different, parallel musical phrases from the same song simultaneously (shown in FIG. 1). The player who plays the highest percentage of notes correctly achieves the highest score and wins.
Multiplayer gaming increasingly incorporates various networking technologies that allow multiple players to compete against each other from remote physical locations via networks, and networked multiplayer gaming has become extremely popular. Unfortunately, however, the latency inherent in networked communication imposes a significant engineering and design burden on video game developers: data signals are often subject to large and unpredictable transmission delays. These transmission delays do not significantly impact turn-based games (such as chess) or other game genres in which timing sensitivity is not critical to gameplay. In action games and other "real-time" games, however, gameplay is extremely sensitive to the timing of various events, and transmission delays inherently result in inconsistencies continually forming between the local game states of the various players of a networked game. Consequently, developers of timing-sensitive networked games have had to invent various methods for gracefully performing "conflict resolution" to resolve divergent local game states.
The rhythm-action genre has a unique attribute, however, that makes traditional conflict resolution methods inapplicable. Specifically, the core activity of multiplayer rhythm-action involves simultaneous music-making, which is highly timing sensitive, by two or more players. If these two players are separated by a network, the data representing musical notes played by one player will incur transmission delays when being sent to the other player. If note data were simply transmitted to a receiving machine it would trigger corresponding audio that would sound "out of sync" to the receiving player, resulting in cacophony. One solution to this problem would be to mute the audio from remote players on the local player's machine. However, this would significantly degrade the entertainment value of the game experience by destroying musical communication between the players.
Therefore, a need exists for a system and method that enable musicians to achieve the experience of real-time musical interaction over a high-latency network, such as the Internet.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
It is an object of the invention to provide a system and method that a group individuals connected to a netwo...
Waveform data processing system and method 2009-10-12 00:00:00A waveform memory for storing data of musical tone waveforms can be mounted in and dismounted from an electronic musical instrument body. The waveform memory is thus replaceable, permitting the sounding of tones with various varieties. In addition, if musical tone waveform data corresponding to a tone designated for sounding is not stored in the memory, it is automatically loaded in the memory, thus permitting automatic sounding of tones to be requested.
Claims
What is claimed is:
1. A waveform data reading/writing device for an electronic musical instrument comprising:
first waveform storage means capable of being mounted in and removed from said electronic musical instrument and having storage capacity to store data of musical tone waveforms;
first reading means for reading the data of musical tone waveforms from said first waveform storage means;
third waveform storage means, in said electronic musical instrument, for storing the data of musical tone waveforms read by said first reading means;
third writing means for writing the data of musical tone waveforms read by said first reading means in said third waveform storage means;
third reading means for reading the data of musical tone waveforms from said third waveform storage means;
second waveform storage means, in said electronic musical instrument, including a semiconductor for storing the data of musical tone waveforms read by said third reading means;
second writing means for writing the data of musical tone waveforms read by said third reading means in said second waveform storage means;
automatic performance information storing means for storing automatic performance information;
automatic performance information reading means for reading the automatic performance information in an order of performance from said automatic performance information storing means;
designating means for designating a musical tone according to the automatic performance information read by said automatic performance information reading means;
second reading means for reading the data of musical tone waveforms from said second waveform storage means according to a designation by said designating means;
output means for outputting the data of musical tone waveforms read by said second reading means as data concerning the musical tone designated by said designating means;
checking means for executing a check with respect to the musical tone designated by said designating means as to whether the data of musical tone waveforms corresponding to the musical tone designated is stored in said second waveform storage means;
fourth reading means for reading the data of musical tone waveforms from said third waveform storage means according to the check by said checking means; and
fourth writing means for writing the data of musical tone waveforms read by said fourth reading means in said second waveform storage means.
2. The waveform data reading/writing device for an electronic musical instrument according to claim 1, wherein the data of musical tone waveforms is of a sampled type.
3. The waveform data reading/writing device of claim 1, wherein the data of musical tone waveforms corresponds to sounds of various musical instruments or corresponds to groups of spectra of specific frequency bands according to specific formants.
4. The waveform data reading/writing device of claim 1, wherein the data of musical tone waveforms corresponds to touch data, range of touch data, pitch data, or range of pitch data.
5. A method of waveform data reading/writing for an electronic musical instrument comprising the steps of:
(a) storing data of musical tone waveforms in a first waveform storage area capable of being mounted in and removed from said electronic musical instrument and having storage capacity;
(b) reading the data of musical tone waveforms from the first waveform storage area;
(c) writing the data of musical tone waveforms read in step (b) in a third waveform storage area provided in said electronic musical instrument;
(d) reading the data of musical tone waveforms from the third waveform storage area;
(e) writing the data of musical tone waveforms read in step (d) in a second waveform storage area provided as a semiconductor in said electronic musical instrument;
(f) storing automatic performance information;
(g) reading the automatic performance information in an order of performance stored in step (f);
(h) designating a musical tone according to the automatic performance information read in step (g);
(i) reading the data of musical tone waveforms from the second waveform storage area according to the designation in step (h);
(j) outputting the data of musical tone waveforms read in step (i) as data concerning the musical tone designated in step (h);
(k) checking with respect to the musical tone designated in step (h), whether the data of musical tone waveforms is stored in the second waveform storage area;
(l) reading the data of musical tone waveforms from the third waveform storage area according to a result of the check in step (k); and
(m) writing the data of musical tone waveforms read in step (l) in the second waveform storage area.
6. The method of waveform data reading/writing of claim 5, wherein the data of musical tone waveforms is of a sampled type.
7. The method of waveform data reading/writing of claim 5, wherein the data of musical tone waveforms corresponds to sounds of various musical instruments or corresponds to groups of spectra of specific frequency bands according to specific formats.
8. The method of waveform data reading/writing of claim 5, wherein the data of musical tone waveforms corresponds to touch data, range of touch data, pitch data, or range of pitch data.
9. A waveform data reading/writing device for an electronic musical instrument comprising:
first waveform storage means for storing data of musical tone waveforms;
first reading means for reading the data of musical tone waveforms from said first waveform storage means;
second waveform storage means set in said electronic musical instrument for storing data of musical tone waveforms used for musical tone generation;
second writing means for writing the data of musical tone waveforms read by said first reading means in said second waveform storage means;
automatic performance information storing means for storing automatic performance information;
automatic performance information reading means for reading the automatic performance information in an order of performance from said automatic performance information storing means;
designating means for designating a musical tone according to the automatic performance information read by said automatic performance information reading means;
second reading means for reading the data of musical tone waveforms from said second waveform storage means according to a designation by said designating means;
output means for outputting the data of musical tone waveform read by said second reading means as data concerning the musical tone designated by said designating means;
checking means for executing a check with respect to the musical tone designated by said designating means as to whether the data of musical tone waveforms corresponding to the musical tone designated is stored in said second waveform storage means;
third reading means for reading the data of musical tone waveforms from said first waveform storage means according to a result of the check by said checking means; and
third writing means for writing the data of musical tone waveforms read by said third reading means in said second waveform storage means.
10. The waveform data reading/writing device of claim 9, wherein the data of musical tone waveforms corresponds to sounds of various musical instruments or corresponds to groups of spectra of specific frequency bands according to specific formats.
11. The waveform data reading/writing device of claim 9, wherein the data of musical tone waveforms corresponds to touch data, range of touch data, pitch data or range of pitch data.
12. The waveform data reading/writing device of claim 9, wherein the data of musical tone waveforms is of a sampled type.
13. The waveform data reading/writing device of claim 9, wherein said first reading and second writing means write the data of musical tone waveforms read from said first waveform storage means in third waveform storage means, read the data of musical tone waveforms from said third waveform storage means and write the read data in said second waveform storage means.
14. The waveform data reading/writing device of claim 9, wherein said first waveform storage means is capable of being mounted in and removed from said electronic musical instrument.
15. A method of waveform data reading/writing for an electronic musical instrument comprising the steps of:
(a) storing data of musical tone waveforms in a first waveform storage area;
(b) storing data of musical tone waveforms used for musical tone generation in a second waveform storage area set in the electronic musical instrument;
(c) reading out the data of musical tone waveforms from the first waveform storage area;
(d) writing the data of musical tone waveforms read in step (c) in the second waveform storage area;
(e) storing automatic performance information;
(f) reading the automatic performance information in an order of performance stored in step (e);
(g) designating musical tone generation according to the automatic performance information read in step (f);
(h) reading the data of musical tone waveforms from the second waveform storage area according to the designation in step (g);
(i) outputting the data of musical tone waveforms read in step (h) as data concerning the musical tone designated in step (g);
(j) checking, with respect to the musical tone designated in step (g), whether the data of musical tone waveforms is stored in the second waveform storage area:
(k) reading the data of musical tone waveforms from the first waveform storage area according to a result of the check in step (j); and
(l) writing the data of musical tone waveforms read in step (k) in the second waveform storage area.
16. The method of waveform data reading/writing of claim 15, wherein the data of musical tone waveforms corresponds to sounds of various musical instruments or corresponds to groups of spectra of specific frequency bands according to specific formants.
17. The method of waveform data reading/writing of claim 15, wherein the data of musical tone waveforms corresponds to touch data, range of touch data, pitch data, or range of pitch data.
18. The method of waveform data reading/writing of claim 15, wherein the data of musical tone waveforms is of a sampled type.
19. The method of waveform reading/writing of claim 15, wherein the reading in step (c) and writing in step (d) are executed to write the data of musical tone waveforms read from the first waveform storage area in a third waveform storage area, read the data of musical tone waveforms from the third waveform storage area and write the read data in the second waveform storage area.
20. The method of waveform data reading/writing of claim 15, wherein the first waveform storage area is capable of being mounted in and removed from the electronic musical instrument.
21. The waveform data reading/writing device of claim 1, wherein the reading of the data of musical tone waveforms by said second reading means is controlled by a start address, loop top address, and loop end address.
22. The method of waveform data reading/writing of claim 5, wherein the reading of the data of musical tone waveforms in step (i) is controlled by a start address, loop top address, and loop end address.
23. The waveform data reading/writing device of instrument according to claim 9, wherein the reading of the data of musical tone waveforms by said second reading means is controlled by a start address, loop top address, and loop end address.
24. The method of waveform data reading/writing of claim 15, wherein the reading of the data of musical tone waveforms in step (h) is controlled by a start address, loop top address, and loop end address.
Description
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to a waveform data processing system and a method of waveform data processing for electronic musical instruments and, more particularly, to control of writing and reading data of musical tone waveforms in electronic musical instruments.
2. Description of the Related Art
In a prior art tone generator for an electronic musical instrument, sampled musical tone waveform data is stored in a waveform memory, and is read out when a key-"on" event signal is supplied. The key-"on" event signal is also supplied to an envelope generator for calculating envelope waveform data. The envelope waveform data is used to multiply the musical tone waveform data for D-A (digital-to-analog) conversion, the converted data being output. The key-"on" event signal may correspond to an "on" event concerning a keyboard key or correspond to automatic performance information.
In the waveform memory, musical tone waveform data of sinusoidal waves, triangular waves, rectangular waves, etc., is stored for one wavelength portion, and it is read out repeatedly at a rate corresponding to the tone pitch. In some tone generators, for more closely approximating sounds of actual musical instruments, musical tone waveform data of a plurality of gradually changing waveforms or an attack waveforms of musical tones and portions of waveforms subsequent from the attack is stored in a waveform memory.
However, the musical tone waveform data stored in the waveform memory is fixed and cannot be altered. Therefore, tones sounded in performance have fixed tone color and poor variations.
To obtain sounding of tones having a variety of tone colors, it is necessary to store a great number of different kinds of musical tone waveform data, and doing so requires an enormous waveform memory capacity and a complicated process for selecting and accessing stored data.
The present invention seeks to solve the above problems, and its object is to provide a waveform data processing system, which permits sounding tones of a great variety of tone colors without the need to increase the storage capacity of a waveform memory means.
With the prior art tone generator, there are cases when waveform data stored in the waveform memory is not desired by the operator, that is, waveform data corresponding to musical tones desired to be sounded may fail to be stored. Particularly, when waveform data corresponding to tones desired to be sounded fail to be stored in the case of automatic performance, the performance may fail to be executed or may be interrupted.
Another object of the invention is to provide a waveform data processing system for an electronic musical instrument, which permits necessary musical tone waveform data to be automatically transferred and stored.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
According to the invention, a first waveform storage means for storing data of musical tone waveforms is provided such that it can be mounted in and dismounted from an electronic musical instrument body. Musical tone waveform data is read out from the first waveform storage means and written in a second waveform storage means provided in the electronic musical instrument body. The written musical tone waveform data is used for tone generation. The musical tone waveform data for the tone generation thus can be changed variously by replacing the first waveform storage means and without need for increasing the storage capacity of the second waveform storage means provided in the electronic musical instrument body.
With respect to a tone designated for generation, a check is made as to whether corresponding waveform data is stored in the second waveform storage means, in which musical tone waveform data used for the tone generation is stored. Depending on the result of the check, the musical tone waveform data noted above is read out from the first waveform storage means and is written in the second waveform storage means. Thus, even if musical tone waveform data corresponding to a tone desired to be sounded is not stored, it is automatically supplied from the first to the second waveform storage means. The tone to be sounded can thus be sounded without fail.
BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS
FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing the overall circuit of an electronic musical instrument;
FIG. 2 is a view showing the content of musical tone waveform data MW:
FIG. 3 is a view showing a panel switch group 3 and a LCD 23;
FIG. 4 is a view showing a working memory 22 in a RAM 6;
FIG. 5 is a flowchart showing a main routine:
FIG. 6 is a flowchart showing a routine (step 09) of opening a disk holder 38:
FIG. 7 is a flowchart showing a routine (step 10) of closing the disk holder 38:
FIG. 8 is a flowchart showing an information loading routine (step 36):
FIG. 9 is a flowchart showing an automatic performance routine (step 07):
FIG. 10 is a flowchar...
