Yamaha Corporation

Nippon Gakki Seizo Kabushiki Kaisha

Yamaichi Electronics Co., Ltd.

Shuichi Sawada

Hideo Suzuki

Yoshinori Hayashi

Akihiko Komatsu

Atsushi Toyoda

Nariyasu Yaguchi

Souichi Takigawa

Yoshihiko Murase

Atsuo Hattori

Masahiro Sugiura

Yoshiki Terada

Kenichi Nishida

Yukio Wakui

Ryuji Hashimoto

Kenichi Miyazawa

So Tanaka

Kazuo Masaki

Masuhiro Okada

Masayoshi Yamashita

Keizo Harada

Emiko Suzuki, Legal Representative

Toshitaka Yoshino

Katsuhiko Imagawa

Masaya Tsuchie

A drum pad capable of providing an excellent percussion feeling and securely adhering a base portion to a body portion made of rubber. The drum pad has a rear-side clothlike material which is provided on a rear surface of the body portion and into which the rubber of the body portion is impregnated. The base portion is fixed to a rear surface of the rear-side clothlike material via a fixing layer made of pressure sensitive adhesive or adhesive and provided on the rear surface of the rear-side clothlike material.

Drum pad and manufacturing method thereof

Grounded, circular movable electrode and divided electrodes, formed on a surface of a circular printed board, are opposed to each other via a double-face tape, functioning also as a spacer, with a slight gap interposed therebetween. As a pad is struck with a stick, the gap between the movable electrode and the divided electrodes changes so that capacitance between the movable electrode and the divided electrodes changes, in response to which signals are output from the divided electrodes. The divided electrodes are sandwiched between the grounded movable electrode and a grounded shielded electrode and thus are not influenced from external disturbances. As the pad is struck with the stick, the gap and hence capacitance between the movable electrode and any of the divided electrodes in the struck position changes, in response to which signals are output from the divided electrodes

Pressure sensor and data input apparatus

A drum pad has a knitted material that is strechable and has a top surface to be beaten by a stick and a rear surface opposite to the top surface, a resin member that is strechable and thinner than the knitted material and that is capable of being thermally fused and bonded to the knitted material, and a rubber. The drum pad is formed of a first layer portion, a second layer portion, and a body portion. The first layer portion is formed in a region of the knitted material including the top surface thereof but not including the rear surface. The body portion is formed of the rubber. The second layer portion is formed in a remaining region of the knitted material other than the first layer portion and formed between the body portion and the first layer portion.

Three valve assemblies are linked with finger buttons and inserted into a pipe structure of a trumpet for changing the length of air column, and a supporting system assists a player in fingering on the finger buttons; sensors are adhered to the finger buttons so as to supply a detecting signal representative of force exerted on the finger buttons by the player to a controlling unit; when the force exceeds over a threshold, the controlling unit energizes actuators connected to the valve assemblies so as to make the player feel the valve assemblies lightly changed.

Wind musical instrument with pitch changing mechanism and supporting system for pitch change

A key actuating system () of a keyboard musical instrument is provided which helps quickly push the keys by reducing reaction force with respect to force of pushing the keys during manual operation, and which supports a person having less strength to play the keyboard musical instrument. The key actuating system for a keyboard musical instrument generates a sound when a key () is pushed including: a pressure detection sensor () detecting a pushing pressure on the key; a status detection sensor () detecting a movement status of the key: an actuator () actuating the key in a pushing direction of the key; and a control portion (), when the pressure detection sensor detects the pushing pressure and the status detection sensor detects motion of the key, controls operations of the actuator in order to maintain the detected pressure by the pressure detection sensor at a pressure threshold which is in a range larger than 0 and smaller than a pushing pressure on the key which is necessary for making a sound.

Key actuating system

A player changes the pitch of tones produced through a trombone by controlling the breath and a slide, and the control of slide is not easy for children, handicapped persons and old players; a supporting system is combined with the trombone, and includes a manipulating board fitted to an appropriate portion of the trombone close to the slide, a driving mechanism connected to the slide and a controlling unit connected to the manipulating board and driving mechanism; when the player wishes to change the pitch of tones through the sliding motion of the slide, he moves a lever on the manipulating board by a distance shorter than a target stroke of the slide, and the controlling unit calculates the target stroke so as to supply a driving signal to the driving mechanism; and the driving mechanism exerts force on the slide so as to assist the player in varying the length of the column of air.

Wind musical instrument equipped with slide and supporting system for assisting player in performance

A saxophone has a complicated key mechanism for selectively closing and opening tone holes, and fingering on touch buttons and keys is not easy for children, handicapped persons and old players; a supporting system is combined with the saxophone so as to assist a human player in fingering, and includes sensors, actuators and a controlling unit; while the human player is fingering on the touch buttons and keys, the sensors inform the controlling unit of changes of the depressed touch buttons and depressed keys, and the controlling unit supplies driving signals to the actuators associated with the tone holes to be closed so as to permit the human player easily and quickly to play music tunes.

Wind musical instrument having pads for closing tone holes with mechanical assistance and supporting system used therein

A probe unit comprises a flexible substrate made of an inorganic substance and having an almost straight edge, an electro conductive film formed on a surface of the substrate and having a plurality of contact parts aligned on a surface of the edge and can contact with electrodes of a sample and lead parts connected to the contact parts, wherein the substrate is elastically deformed together with the contact part while the plurality of the contacts parts are supported by the edge when a force is added to press a surface of the contact part.

Probe unit and its manufacturing method

A slide unit is slid on a flat slide plane of a table to adjust the relative positions of a plurality of slide units along a direction parallel to the flat slide plane. Even if the slide unit moves together with a movable unit along the direction parallel to the flat slide plane, the relative positions of a plurality of movable units will not change along a direction vertical to the flat slide plane. By sliding the slide unit on the flat slide plane of the table and moving the movable unit along the direction vertical to a slide surface, the relative positions of a plurality of probes mounted on the movable units can be adjusted independently and separately along the directions parallel to and vertical to the flat slide plane.

Probe head, its assembly method and probe card

A probe unit to be fixed to a probe device for testing functions of a test body. The probe unit includes: a substrate; probe pins formed on the substrate by lithography, the probe pins having distal ends protruded from the substrate and being made in contact with electrodes of the test body; and a positioning member formed on the substrate by lithography at a predetermined position relative to the probe pins, the positioning means abutting upon a member for positioning the substrate relative to the probe device.

Probe unit and its manufacture

A probe unit has a plurality of metal leads regularly juxtaposed on the surface of a substrate. Each metal lead has a resilient contact piece in a front portion of the lead, the resilient contact piece being spaced apart from the substrate surface or extending over an edge of the substrate. The cross sectional shape of the resilient contact piece is an arc shape and/or has a projection near at the distal end of the resilient contact piece.

Probe unit having resilient metal leads

By constituting a MR head with a pair of magnet films defining a recess on a lower gap layer, the recess having generally an inverted trapezoid shape in cross section; a magnetoresistive film covering a bottom and side wall of the recess and partial upper surfaces of the pair of magnet films; and a pair of electrically conductive films formed on the magnet films and being in contact with said magnetoresistive film only at a position outside of the recess, it becomes possible to reduce a variation in reading track widths of MR heads even under mass production.

Magnetoresistive head, manufacture thereof, and magnetic recording/reproducing apparatus with such magnetic head

Projected ABSs (air bearing surfaces) are formed on a disk facing plane of a slider. Three-dimensional corners constituting the corners of ABSs are chamfered. Two-dimensional corners constituting side edges of ABSs are not chamfered and has sharp edges. Damages of a disk surface and breakage of the slider are prevented when the slider collides with the disk surface by external shock.

Damage-reduced magnetic head

In a laminated construction of a soundboard for use in musical instruments such as the piano, the use of a core having larger shearing elastic modulus and/or smaller shearing loss tangent than that of the fore and rear plates assures small shearing loss in the treble range, and greatly improves the total tonal balance over the entire tonal range.

Soundboard for musical instruments

A thin-film magnetic head is constructed by a lower core, a first insulating layer, a gap layer, a plurality of coil conductor layers, a plurality of insulating layers and an upper layer. The coil conductor layers are respectively embedded in the insulating layers. Each of the coil conductor layers is spirally formed on the gap layer, and the coil conductor layers are sequentially piled up on the gap layer. The gap layer is formed on the first insulating layer which coats and insulates the lower core. Then, an edge portion is formed by sandwiching the first insulating layer and the gap layer between the lower and upper cores. The first insulating layer whose shape affects the writing/reading efficiency of the thin-film magnetic head is protected by the gap layer. Preferably, the gap layer is formed by coating Al.sub.2 O.sub.3 film or SiO.sub.2 on the first insulating layer.

Growing community of inventors

Hamamatsu, Japan

Shuichi Sawada