Yamaha Corporation

Yasunao Abe

Masao Kondo

Hideaki Shimaya

Mikio Ito

Shinichi Ito

Eisaku Okamoto

Kotaro Mizuno

Satoshi Miyata

Takashi Ishida

Shoji Tokunaga

An electronic musical instrument having a rhythm performance function includes a first memory for pre-storing plural rhythm tone kinds, rhythm selecting switches each capable of designating one of said rhythm tone kinds and a rhythm tone generator having plural channels. The selected rhythm tone kind is assigned to each channel of the rhythm tone generator. A rhythm tone corresponding to the selected rhythm tone kind is generated by each channel so that continuous rhythm tones will be generated by plural channels based on time division system. In addition, before playing a rhythm performance, rhythm patterns can be arbitrarily programmed and then stored into a second memory by operating the rhythm selecting switches and other switches corresponding to the predetermined rhythm tones of plural musical instruments. Further, the roll of rhythm tones can be continuously generated, wherein volume information stored in the first memory is determined such that tone volume of the roll of rhythm tones is set smaller than that of the normal rhythm tones.

Electronic musical instrument having a ryhthm performance function

In such an application where one memory stores both tone forming data and operation controlling data and the memory is selectively accessed from separate devices utilizing the respective data, a control section utilizing the operation controlling data normally has access to the memory. When it is desired to read out the tone forming data from the memory, a utilization-request signal is generated from a tone source section. When the utilization-request signal is generated, the tone source section is allowed to access the memory only for a time necessary to read out the tone forming data. Accordingly, the memory accessing times for the control section and tone source section are not fixed and thus access to the memory can be made in a flexible manner. Particularly, access to the memory by the control section (having a computer, for instance) utilizing the operation control data can be done with a highly enhanced efficiency, and thus, as a whole, efficient memory access without waste can be achieved.

Method and apparatus for efficiently controlling access to stored

In an electronic musical instrument, a complete range of a keyboard can be split into at least two registers, so that a different kind of tone color can be assigned to each of two registers. The electronic musical instrument provides at least four tone-color designating switches, one edit switch and two kinds of indicators. Each of the four tone-color designating switches is capable of independently designating a certain tone color. Herein, two tone-color designating switches are provided to designate two tone colors respectively for use in one register, while other two tone-color designating switches are provided to designate two tone colors respectively for use in another register. The edit switch designates each of parameters which are used to define a property of the tone color. The first indicator indicates the tone color currently designated, while the second indicator indicates the parameter currently edited. Thus, the production of the musical tones using at least one of the two tone colors can be designated with respect to each of the two registers.

Electronic musical instrument capable of splitting its keyboard

A control panel is installed in an electronic equipment for selectively setting a plurality of parameters by a desired value so as to control the electronic equipment. The control panel has first operation members each manipulable initially to undergo a select action for selecting one of the parameters, the same being manipulable subsequently after the select action to undergo an input action for inputting a desired value. At least one second operation member is disposed separately from the first operation members and is manipulable in combination with one of the first operation members to undergo an input action for inputting a desired value. A CPU is responsive to the select and input actions of the same first operation member for setting the selected parameter by the inputted value, and is otherwise responsive in combination to both of the select action of the first operation member and the input action of the second operation member for setting the selected parameter by the inputted value.

Control panel of electronic equipment for setting parameters with signal

An electronic musical instrument having a common memory, a tone generator and a control section. The common memory stores a plurality of musical tone parameters and is accessed by the tone generator and the control section. The tone generator generates a musical tone based on the musical tone parameters stored in the common memory and writes a musical tone parameter indicating the current state of the musical tone being generated by the tone generator, in the common memory. The control section directs the tone generator to generate a musical tone by writing the plurality of musical tone parameters corresponding to the musical tone in the common memory and controls the tone generation by monitoring the current state of the musical tone based on the musical tone parameter stored in the common memory. In the electronic musical instrument, the load of the control section for controlling the tone generator is reduced, and the circuit sizes of the control section and the total memory capacity required for the electronic musical instrument are also reduced.

Electronic musical instrument having a control section memory for

An electronic musical instrument having a key-depression-detecting circuit for detecting a depressed key on a keyboard and for generating tone-pitch data corresponding to the depressed key, a tone-color-designating circuit for sequentially designating a desired tone color among a plurality of tone colors, a tone-color-data-storing circuit for storing tone-color data associated with the tone colors sequentially designated by the tone-color-designating circuit, an ensemble-tone-designating circuit for designating a predetermined number of tone colors among the most recently designated tone-color data stored in the tone-color-data-storing circuit; and a musical-tone-signal-generating circuit for generating a plurality of musical-tone signals in a parallel fashion, each of the musical-tone signals having a tone color corresponding to one of the tone colors designated by the ensemble-tone-designating circuit, and having a tone-pitch corresponding to the tone-pitch data generated by the key-depression-detecting circuit. The invention facilitates the selection of a desired combination of instrument sounds in an ensemble as well as changing the combination.

Ensemble tone color generator for an electronic musical instrument

Electronic musical instrument having a rhythm performance function

The present invention provides an automatic music playing apparatus for generating musical tone signals according to music playing information. The apparatus is essentially composed of (a) a tone generating unit having a plurality of tone generating channels for generating musical tone signals in response to tone generation control information; (b) a channel number designation unit for separately designating a desired number of tone generating channels of the tone generating for each part of the musical; and (c) an assignment unit for assigning music playing information to at least one of the tone generating channels.

Automatic music playing apparatus having plural tone generating channels

An automatic accompaniment apparatus performs an automatic accompaniment having much variety with less storing amount of information (e.g., rhythm pattern data or pattern data). Based on the stored information, generation of tone or chord is controlled. In addition, tie expression or shifting operation is also controlled. In the shifting operation, some of constituent tones constituting the chord are sequentially generated in a shifting manner. The tie expression is applied to the constituent tones which are commonly used between preceding chord and present chord.

Automatic accompaniment apparatus

The present invention relates to an electronic rhythm performing apparatus which can generate both automatic rhythm sounds and manual rhythm sounds. In particular, the present invention relates to an apparatus which allows an operator to temporarily stop the generation of automatic rhythm, tones or to reduce the volume of automatic rhythm, tones at a predetermined point in the music; and to later produce a manual rhythm sound as the indication that the automatic rhythm sound should be resumed.

Electronic rhythm performing apparatus generating both manual and

The automatic musical tone generating apparatus for generating musical tones with slur effect includes a pitch information storing device, a read-out device for reading out pitch information at a predetermined tempo from the pitch information storing device, a tone signal generating device for producing tone signals having pitches corresponding to the pitch information read out by the read-out device, a slur information storing device, a slur effect impartment detecting device for detecting, on the basis of the slur information stored in the slur information storing device, whether or not the slur effect is to be imparted to the musical tones corresponding to the read out pitch information, and a pitch information altering device for altering, when the slur effect impartment is detected, the read out pitch information to a pitch information gradually approaching to the pitch of the musical tone to be produced next and out-putting the altered pitch information to the tone signal generating device. The automatic musical tone generating apparatus for generating musical tones with slur effect allows a performer to realize the slur effect with no unnaturality by simple performance technique.

Automatic musical tone generating apparatus for generating musical tones

The present invention provides an automatic music playing apparatus for automatically playing music, the music being composed of consecutive segments. The apparatus is essentially composed of (a) a memory device for storing musical data corresponding to the segments; (b) a control unit to read the musical data of the segments in a predetermined order and start reading data of a preselected segment consecutive to the segment being read according to an instruction therefor; and (c) a musical tone generator for generating musical tone according to the musical data read by the control means.

Automatic music playing apparatus

A sequencer unit of electronic musical instrument including a plurality of sequencers each storing specific performance data which are generated by operating a keyboard in advance. In the case where an automatic performance is played based on first performance data of selected one sequencer and then second performance data of another sequencer are selected, the first performance data are smoothly changed over to the second performance data and then the automatic performance is played based on the second performance data at a desirable timing which can be arbitrarily determined. Even when the ending timing of performance data to be written in the sequencer does not match with the end of bar, the length of performance data read from the sequencer can be easily adjusted to predetermined bars. Further, it is possible to easily adjust a break period in which the automatic performance is broken so that keyboard performance can be played.

Sequencer unit of electronic musical instrument

For use in or with an electronic musical instrument, an automatic accompaniment apparatus has a keyboard, a chord detector detecting a chord played on the keyboard, a judging circuit judging chord establishment of the detector chord, and a chord accompaniment tone generator producing, in accordance with an automatic rhythm pattern, chord tones for the detected chord when chord establishment is judged. This apparatus further comprises a tone generator for producing the tones of arbitrarily depressed keys when chord establishment is not judged. Thus, automatic accompaniment and manual performance are automatically selected according to the state of key depressions.

Automatic accompaniment apparatus realizing automatic accompaniment and

An automatic rhythm performance apparatus comprises at least a rhythm pattern memory for pre-storing plural kinds of rhythm patterns, an ending switch and a rhythm tone source. The rhythm patterns correspond to rhythm performances such as the Latin American Music, the Rumba Music and the Tango Music. Each of these rhythm patterns comprises one normal pattern and at least one ending pattern. Normally, the rhythm tone source generates rhythm tones in accordance with the normal pattern which corresponds to a normal part of a tune. When the ending switch is manipulated, the rhythm tone source generates other rhythm tones in accordance with the ending pattern, so that an ending rhythm performance is executed from a start timing determined by the manipulating timing of the ending switch. When each rhythm pattern consists of two ending patterns, the ending rhythm performance is executed in accordance with selected one of the ending patterns.

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Hamamatsu, Japan

Yasunao Abe