Yamaha Corporation

Nippon Gakki Seizo Kabushiki Kaisha

Mitsubishi Denki Kabushiki Kaisha

Shigeru Muramatsu

Tadaharu Kato

Hisashi Takeyama

Kiyoshi Kawamura

Tsutomu Sasaki

Yuji Fujiwara

Yasuhiko Oba

Yasutoshi Kaneko

Toshiyuki Iwamoto

Akihiko Komatsu

Junichi Mishima

Keisuke Watanabe

Yasuhiko Ohba

Mitsuru Kitajima

Shigeaki Sato

Toshiro Sakai

Syuzo Okabe

Koichi Saigo

Haruki Uehara

Jun Ishii

Shinya Koseki

Yoshinori Hayashi

Yoshimasa Isozaki

Jun Yamamoto

Taro Kawabata

Hiroyuki Murakami

Tatsuya Makino

Kinya Nozaki

Shigeru Shida

Takamichi Sawase

Masashi Yamada

Katsuo Ito

Mitsuhiko Mori

Hazime Hayashida

Takeo Horie

Hidehiko Yamada

Hanzou Taguchi

A keyboard apparatus, including: a key that is pivotable by depressing and release operations between: a pivotal movement start position corresponding to a non-key depression state; and a pivotal movement end position corresponding to a key-depression end state; a hammer body that is pivotable between: a pivotal movement start position; and a pivotal movement end position for imparting inertia to the key depressing operation; and an elastic portion to apply elastic force to at least one of the key and the hammer body, wherein the elastic portion is configured not to apply the elastic force to the key and the hammer body in the non-key depression state and configured to start to apply the elastic force in a direction toward the pivotal movement start position to the at least one of the key and the hammer body from a certain point in a forward stroke of the key depressing operation.

Keyboard apparatus

A keyboard apparatus capable of enhancing the return capability of hammer assemblies upon key release to improve the capability of repeated key striking and capable of reducing a height size of action units to make the keyboard apparatus compact. The keyboard apparatus includes hammer assemblies each having a butt disposed pivotable about a hammer pivot shaft and a hammer shank extending from the butt. In a non-key-depression state, the hammer shank obliquely extends downward. As viewed from side, a straight line passing though a gravity center position of the hammer assembly and the hammer pivot shaft forms an acute angle less than 45 degrees relative to a horizontal plane in the entirety of a key depression and key release stroke.

A keyboard apparatus wherein a hammer body having movable and stationary engagement portions is configured such that, in its pivotal movement in a forward direction, a click feeling in a key depression touch is generated when the movable engagement portion comes into contact with and gets over the stationary engagement portion, wherein a distance from a hammer pivot shaft to the movable engagement portion at a certain key stroke position in a key depression stroke becomes smaller with an increase in a pressing drive force, and wherein the movable engagement portion comes into contact with the stationary engagement portion in the pivotal movement in the forward direction where a magnitude of the pressing drive force is less than a prescribed value, and the movable engagement portion does not come into contact with the same where the magnitude of the force is equal to or larger than the prescribed value.

A keyboard apparatus capable of being easily designed to have action units whose upper end positions are made low and whose efficiency of drive of whippens is increased. Each of keys of the keyboard apparatus has an upper front part, a bent part extending downward from a rear end of the upper front part, and a lower rear part extending rearward from a lower end of the bent part. An upper surface of a rear end portion of the lower rear part nearly horizontally extends at a height position lower than that of a key fulcrum. Action units are disposed above respective ones of rear end portions of the keys. A driven point of a whippen of each action unit is located at a position lower than the key fulcrum in a non-key-depression state.

A lever is supported by a lever supporting portion. The lever is urged by a first spring and a second spring. The urging force of the first spring varies over the entire operational range of the lever. The second spring and a third spring are provided serially through a movable supporting member. The displacement of the movable supporting member is restricted by a fixed supporting member. If the urging force of the second spring exceeds the urging force of the third spring, the restriction on the displacement of the movable supporting member is removed. Therefore, the present configuration provides a player with feeling similar to that the player perceives when he manipulates a damper pedal of an acoustic piano.

Pedal apparatus of electronic musical instrument

An electronic keyboard musical instrument has a load applier, which gives rise to inner force sense equivalent to another musical instrument such as a piano in the player through black keys and white keys, and the load applier has a mechanical load applier applying a part of load to the keys and an electromechanical load applier applying a remaining part of load to the keys so that the manufacturer can reduce the actuator in size.

Inner force sense controlling apparatus, method for controlling inner force sense and musical instrument using the same

An upright piano type action has a wippen, a jack, a butt, a swinging shank (hammer shank), a swinging member (hammer), a catcher shank, a backcheckand a catcher. To any of the moving members, namely the butt, the swinging shank (hammer shank), the swinging member (hammer), the catcherand the catcher shank, a weightoris attached. The weightsare placed to apply loads, respectively, in a state where a key is not being depressed, in a direction opposite to a direction in which the moving members swing for hitting.

Upright piano type action

A surfaceof a butthas a flat portionwhich is situated forward and has a small inclination angle and a slanting pressure receiving portionwhich is situated backward and has a large inclination angle as areas pushed up by a jack. Between the flat portionand the slanting pressure receiving portion, an escapement portionhaving an obtuse angle is formed. The escapement portionis provided to correspond to a position of the jackplaced immediately after the start of swinging of the jack. The inclination angle of the slanting pressure receiving portionis determined such that in a stage where a key starts returning from a slow full stroke key-depression, a position at which the buttis in contact with the jackis maintained with the buttswinging backward.

A pedal device of an electronic keyboard musical instrument comprises a pedal lever swingable according to a depressing manipulation and a reaction force exerting unit for exerting on the pedal lever a reaction force of an amount which depends on an amount of the swing of the pedal lever. The reaction force exerting unit comprises, as an integral unit, a first movable member to be displaced via a thrust rod transferring the swing of the pedal lever, a first urging member which urges the first movable member in a direction to exert the reaction force on the pedal lever, a second movable member to be displaced by the first movable member after the swing of the pedal lever exceeds a predetermined amount, and a second urging member which urges the second movable member in the direction to exert the reaction force on the pedal lever. The first movable member, the second movable member, the first urging member and the second urging member are arranged coaxially around a common axis. The first movable member and the second movable member are capable of thrusting along the common axis.

Pedal device of electronic keyboard musical instrument

A leveris supported by a lever supporting portion. Through a first pivoting member, the leveris urged by a reaction force stabilization spring, a first springand a second spring. The downward displacement of a second pivoting memberis restricted by a fixed supporting member FR. If the urging force of the first springexceeds the urging force of the second spring, the second pivoting memberis displaced upward. A contact member which is in contact with the first pivoting memberand the second pivoting memberto produce friction force is also provided.

A leveris supported by a lever supporting portion. The leveris urged by a first springand a second spring. The urging force of the first springvaries over the entire operational range of the lever. The second springand a third springare provided serially through a movable supporting member. The displacement of the movable supporting memberis restricted by a fixed supporting member FR. If the urging force of the second springexceeds the urging force of the third spring, the restriction on the displacement of the movable supporting memberis removed. Therefore, the present invention provides a player with feeling similar to that the player perceives when he manipulates a damper pedal of an acoustic piano.

A leveris supported by a lever supporting portion. The leveris urged by a spring. A friction producing memberis in contact with a pivot restricting memberwhich is interlocked with the leverto produce a frictional force in a direction opposite to the direction in which the leverpivots. Such a configuration allows a pedal apparatus to exhibit hysteresis in characteristics of the amount of depression of the leverand reaction force.

An actuator unit includes: a performance operator drive device including a movable member that mechanically drives the performance operator member; an optical pattern having a pattern to cause an amount of light reflection or light transmission to gradually vary in accordance with movement of the movable member; and an optical sensor that irradiates light toward the optical pattern and receives light reflected from or transmitted through the optical pattern. One of the optical pattern and the optical sensor is provided to move in interlocked relation to the movable member, and the amount of the reflected light or transmitted light, based on the optical pattern, is detected by the optical sensor, so that a moving position of the movable member is detected on the basis of the detected amount of the reflected or transmitted light.

Actuator unit for performance operator, keyboard musical instrument and actuator unit assembly

A material for a key of a keyboard instrument may include, but is not limited to, a base resin; and particles of a moisture control material that performs chemical sorption of moisture. The moisture control material increase in volume with moisture-sorption. The moisture control material decrease in volume with moisture-desorption.

Material for keys of keyboard

A testing system is incorporated in an automatic player piano for specifying a half pedal point of a damper pedal at which the loudness of tones is lessened, and an automatic player moves the damper pedal to the half pedal point so as to lessen the loudness of tones in an automatic playing; the testing system accumulates pieces of experimental data expressing relation between the loudness of tones and a current pedal position of the damper pedal, and searches the pieces of experimental data for points of reflection; and the testing system determines the half pedal point through an internal division on the line between the points of reflection.

Growing community of inventors

Mori-machi, Japan

Shigeru Muramatsu