Yamaha Corporation

Nippon Gakki Seizo Kabushiki Kaisha

Masanobu Chihana

Hiroyuki Torimura

Akira Nakada

Takeo Shibukawa

Harumichi Hotta

Kazuhide Iwamoto

Yasuo Nagahama

Tatsuhiro Koike

An electronic musical instrument apparatus includes a pad and fret switches. When the pad is stricken while any one of the fret switches is depressed, at least a musical tone is generated. The apparatus has different modes of performance operation including a first melody mode, a second melody mode, a base mode, a first chord mode, a second chord mode, an ad-lib mode and the like. In the first melody mode, each time the pad is operated, a note event is read out from a memory, a previous tone that has been generated is muted and, at the same time, a next tone for the note event read out is immediately generated so that a legato-like performance can be performed. If desired, a mute switch is operated to mute a previous tone that is being generated so that a staccato like performance is performed. In the second melody mode, the base mode, the first chord mode and the second chord mode, performance data for note events is successively and continuously read out from a memory. Each time the pad is operated, the apparatus generates at least a tone for a note event that is read out at a moment of operation of the pad. In the ad-lib mode, different tones for ad-lib performance are assigned to the fret switches. When the pad is operated while any of the fret switches is depressed, at least a tone having a pitch assigned to the fret switch is generated.

Electronic musical instrument with musical performance assisting system

An electronic musical instrument including: a mode selecting unit for selecting a mode from a plurality of modes including an automatic performance mode and a manual performance mode; a musical style storage for storing performance atmosphere data of a plurality of musical styles; a performance data storage for storing performance data of a plurality of programs each matching one of the musical styles; a musical style selection member responsive to a manipulation by a performer for selecting a musical style from the performance atmosphere data stored in the musical style storage; a musical tone signal generator for generating a musical tone signal in accordance with a musical tone parameter; and a musical tone parameter generating unit for generating and outputting the musical tone parameter to the musical tone signal generator during the automatic performance mode, in accordance with the performance atmosphere data representing the musical style selected by the musical style selection member and the performance data of a program suitable for the musical style.

Electronic musical instrument with automatic performance function

Indicators are provided in corresponding relations to individual keyboard keys. For each of plural phrases of a given music piece, information is supplied that represents at least the highest-pitch note to the lowest note in the phrase. During performance of the music piece and on the basis of the supplied information, the indicators, for each phrase, indicates all notes within a range from the highest-pitch note to the lowest note of the phrase. Thus, the player can easily position his hands over accurate keys and thereby can comfortably carry out performance operations for each phrase. Notes to be performed in each phrase after a first note corresponding to predetermined performance timing in the phrase may be indicated in different manners (for example, by varying degrees of brightness) depending on performance timing differences, from the first note performance timing, of the notes. Alternatively, individual notes of each phrase may be sequentially indicated quickly in advance of the actual phrase performance. These modifications allow the player to intuitively recognize the order of performance, Further, by indicating at least one of the current and next notes in a manner different from other notes, it is advantageously shown very visibly which notes should be performed now and next.

Electronic musical instrument having a function to indicate keys to be

An electronic musical instrument is disclosed in which the selection of timbre and rhythm contol functions is simplified, and the number of function switches and control panel surface area can be limited, even when the instrument has a large number of available timbre and rhythm control functions. The invention provides an electronic musical instrument employing various types of musical tone control data which are divided into groups. Additionally, the invention provides an input device which includes a plurality of switches, each switch corresponding to one of the above described groups of musical tone control data. The input device is capable of detecting the operation of the above mentioned switches. Additionally provided is a tone control data management device in which flag data is stored to indicate which of the above mentioned groups of musical tone control data have been selected, the flag data being updated any time one of the above mentioned switches corresponding to a group of musical tone control data has been operated. Also, a musical tone control device is provided such that based on the above mentioned flag data, musical tone control data is selected, and based on the selected musical tone control data, musical tone control is effected.

An electronic musical instrument having switches for designating musical

A musical-tone-signal-generating apparatus which determines the current tone-color-designation state on the basis of the operation of one or more tone-color-selection switches, reads from a memory tone-color-control information that specifies the tone colors corresponding to the current tone-color-designation state, and controls the generation of musical-tone signals on the basis of the tone-color-control information. The tone-color-control information includes various data necessary for generating one or more tone colors selected by the tone-color-selection switches. Thus, the apparatus can generate a plurality of tone colors simultaneously with a simple configuration.

Musical-tone-signal-generating apparatus having mixed tone color

This electronic musical instrument comprises digital tone generation circuits having a plurality of tone generation channels each being capable of selecting a tone color independently from other channels. In each of the tone generation circuits, digital tone signals having the selected tone colors are produced in response to operation of a key or a switch. A specific number of analog channels are provided for processing analog tone signals channel by channel and a channel divider is also provided for distributing the digital tone signals generated by the digital tone generation circuits to these analog channels in specific combinations according to the selected tone colors. This channel divider further mixes the distributed digital tone signals together for each of the analog channels for time-division-multiplexing the mixed digital tone signals for each of the analog channels. The multiplexed digital tone signals are converted to analog signals by means of a single digital-to-analog converter. The converted analog signals are sampled and held for each of the analog channels and are made parallel.

Electronic musical instrument performing D/A conversion of plural tone

A touch responsive apparatus in an electronic musical instrument for controlling a musical tone of the instrument detects an after-touch of a key touch such as the depth or force of a key depression after the key has been depressed, and generates an after-touch control signal to perform an after-touch control which varies quickly toward a predetermined target value independently of an detected after-touch to such an extent as will not generate a click, and which thereafter follows the detected after-touch.

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Hamamatsu, Japan

Masanobu Chihana