Electronic musical instrument

An electronic musical instrument having a pluralty of elongated playing members, wherein sounds of varying pitch are produced by depressing the said playing members at different positions along their lengths, and wherein the timbre and loudness of the sounds produced by playing said instrument are continuously controllable by the performed during playing, to enable the sound and feeling of an acoustic musical instrument to be more nearly attained, comprising the following associated with each playing member,

• audio oscillator means for producing a square wave audio output signal, the frequency of which is dependent on the position at which the playing member is depressed by the performer,
• divider means for dividing said output signal by a plurality of different division factors which correspond to different octaves to provide divided square wave output signals,
• means for converting a selected one of said divided square wave output signals to a pulse signal, said means for converting having a pulse width control input for accepting a signal for controlling the width of the pulses of said pulse signal,
• means for converting said pulse signal to a ramp signal,
• a bandpass filter network comprised of a plurality of bandpass filters, each having a different center frequency, said filters being equal in number to the number of said different octaves, said bandpass filters having a controllable center frequency and having a center frequency control input for accepting a signal for controlling said center frequency,
• switch means for selectively connecting either said pulse signal or said ramp signal to said bandpass filter network,
• voltage controlled amplifier means for amplifying said pulse or ramp signal after said pulse or ramp signal is filtered by said bandpass filter network, said voltage controlled amplifier means providing an amplified output signal and having a gain control input for receiving a gain control signal,
• voltage controlled low pass filter means for filtering said amplified output signal for providing a tone output, said low pass filter means having a pass band control input for receiving a signal for controlling the pass band of said filter means,
• manually adjustable pivotable key control means capable of being reproducibly moved to a plurality of key control positions for generating a key control signal for varying both the amplitude and overtone content of said tone output, said key control signal or a signal derived therefrom being fed to said gain control input of said voltage controlled amplifier, said band control input of said voltage controlled low pass filter, said pulse width control input of said means for converting the square wave to a pulse signal, and said center frequency control inputs of said bandpass filters, for simultaneously controlling the loudness and timbre of said tone output as the position of said key control means is changed.