Electronic musical instrument with automatic arpeggio performance device

An electronic musical instrument of a type capable of selectively sounding one or more tones designated by key depression comprising:

• sounding tone designating means for designating tones to be sounded;
• constituent order nominating means, connected to said sounding tone designating means, for specifying the pitch order values of the respective designated tones when repeated through octaves;
• an order pattern generator for generating numerical signals timewisely aligned one after another in a predetermined pattern, said numerical signals respectively defining the ordinal pitch locations of the constituents of an arpeggio to be played;
• tone selection means connected to said constituent order nominating means and to said order pattern generator for selecting tones which, with respect to said specified pitch order values, are in the ordinal locations identified by said numerical signals;
• musical tone producing means, connected to said tone selection means, for producing musical tones corresponding to the selected tones, and wherein said constituent order nominating means comprises:
• a first circuit for counting the designated tones in the order of their tone pitch;
• and wherein said tone selection comprises:
• a second circuit for comparing a numerical value counted by said first circuit with said numerical signals and detecting coincidence therebetween;
• and
• a third circuit for selectively outputting tone information for one of the designed tones counted by said first circuit when said second circuit has detected coincidence.

An automatic arpeggio system for a keyboard musical instrument of the type having a tone generator for generating musical tones specified by note codes supplied thereto, said system comprising:

• arpeggio constituent note selection means for providing selected note signals corresponding to the names of one or more notes selected for inclusion in said arpeggio,
• arpeggio pattern generator means for generating an arpeggio pattern signal consisting of a sequence of pitch location numbers each specifying the position of a tone in order of pitch, said pattern signal establishing the sequence in which selected notes are to be generated in said arpeggio,
• signal selecting means, cooperating with said note selection means and said pattern generator means and receiving said selected note signals and responsive to occurrence of each pitch location number in said sequence, for providing to said tone generator a note code corresponding to the note signal of the selected note having a pitch order position corresponding to that specified by said pitch location number, and wherein said constituent note selection means comprises:
• a key coder, responsive to keys depressed in a certain keyboard of said instrument, for providing said selected note signals in the form of digital key codes having numerical values corresponding to the order of pitch of each note name, and wherein said signal selecting means comprises:
• a note counter of modulo equal to the total number of note names, and means for incrementing said note counter upon occurrence of each pitch location number,
• a comparator for comparing the contents of said note counter with the numerical value of the selected note signal,
• a tone number counter, incremented each time there is coincidence between the contents of said note counter and the selected note signal, and
• circuitry, cooperating with said means for incrementing, for terminating the incrementing of said note counter when the contents of said tone number counter equals the value of said pitch location number, said signal selecting means then providing to said tone generator a note code corresponding to the contents of said note counter.