Electrical musical instrument with automatic sequential tone generation
AssigneeWarwick Electronics Inc.
InventorsJohn R. Brand, David J. Mate
Life of this patent
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Abstract
An electronic organ includes digital circuitry for automatically enabling in a sequential manner a plurality of gates to pass tone control signals to keyers which generate corresponding tone output signals. The digital circuitry includes a tone counter which sequentially enables a plurality of tone gates, and an octave counter which sequentially enables output gates having inputs from the tone gates. A clock generates clock pulses which are rapidly counted by the note counter to sequentially scan the note gates. When a tone control signal is passed, the output of a note detector causes a divider to be inserted between the clock and the note counter to maintain enabling of the note counter.
Claims15
An electrical musical instrument comprising:
- selection means for producing tone control signals representing musical tones which are to be produced;
- a plurality of gates coupled to the selection means and each being individually enabled to pass a corresponding tone control signal if present when the gate is enabled;
- keyer means coupled to the plurality of gates and responsive to the tone control signals passed by the gates for producing corresponding musical tones;
- and
- cycle means coupled to the plurality of gates for enabling the gates in sequence, including a clock for producing clock signals which are capable of stepping the cycle means to sequentially enable the gates, a divider for dividing the clock signals to produce divided clock signals which are capable of stepping the cycle means and which have a substantially longer time duration, and logic means for selecting either the clock signals or the divider clock signals to step the cycle means.
An electrical musical instrument comprising:
- selection means having a plurality of control lines each of which may carry a note control signal thereon;
- a plurality of note gates each having an output and a first input coupled to a corresponding one of the plurality of control lines and a second input;
- note counter means having a plurality of note cycle lines each coupled to different ones of the second inputs of the note gates, the count of the note counter means enabling a corresponding note cycle line to enable a corresponding one of the note gates;
- keyer means responsive to note control signals for producing corresponding musical tones;
- a plurality of groups of output gates having outputs coupled to the keyer means with each output gate having a first input and a second input, each group corresponding to a different octave of tones which can be produced by the keyer means and all output gates in the same group having their first inputs respectively coupled to the outputs of corresponding different ones of the plurality of note gates;
- octave counter means having a plurality of octave cycle lines with each octave cycle line being coupled to all second inputs of all output gates in different ones of the groups of output gates in order that the count of the octave counter means will simultaneously enable all output gates in the same group;
- clock means for generating clock pulses to cause the note counter means to count;
- and
- an octave cycle circuit for causing the octave counter means to count after each complete cycle of counting of the note counter means.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.