US 3,955,459 A · Electronic musical instrument

Abstract

An automatic performance system in an electronic musical instrument comprises circuits for forming digital performance information signals by converting the displacement of movable members operated according to the contents of a performance into digital signals, and circuits for forming musical tone information signals corresponding to the contents of the performance from harmonic rich tone signals by controlling predetermined signal paths with electronic switches operated in response to the performance information signals, the digital performance information signals being detected and stored, and read out into the electronic switches at proper time instants, whereby all of the performance information signals are automatically reproduced as musical tone information signals with fidelity. The digital performance information can be automatically modified as desired in the process of storage and reproduction thereof to obtain modified musical tone information, and can furthermore be stored as information in a compressed state which contains digital signals indicating the occurrence of events in the performance and relative time information between the events.

Claims4

Dependent claims

In an electronic musical instrument of the type having a plurality of manually operable members including keys, control knobs, pedals and the like for controlling the musical instrument output;

and means for developing digital signals representative of the settings of said manually operable members;
an automatic system for developing, in a compressed format, the sequence of said digital signals developed during use of the electronic musical instrument comprising:
a. means receptive of and responsive to said digital signals for developing event signals corresponding to changes in the settings of ones of said plurality of manually operable members;
b. a counter for developing relative time digital signals representative of the time interval between successive ones of the event signals representative of changes in the setting of a corresponding one of said plurality of manually operable members;
and
c. a first-in/first-out memory for sequentially storing said event signals and the corresponding relative time digital signals, and for reading-out the stored event signals and the stored corresponding relative time digital signals at intervals less than the intervals represented by said event signals, thereby to develop a compressed sequence of signals representative of a sequence of settings of said manually operable members.

3 more elements

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.

Electronic musical instrument

Life of this patent

Electronic musical instrument

Life of this patent

Abstract

Claims4