Musical tone generating apparatus employing microresonator array
AssigneeYamaha Corporation
InventorsJames A. Wheaton, Erling Wold, John Strawn, Steven Warwick
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Abstract
A musical tone generating apparatus employs an array of microresonant structures to generate the harmonic component signals of a musical tone to be generated. The microresonant structures produce high frequency signals which are down converted to audio frequency range by mixing them with a high frequency reference signal. The desired tone color is achieved by modifying the relative amplitudes of the harmonic component signals to produce a desired tone color. A large number of microresonators are preferably integrated on a single integrated circuit substrate to provide a variable tone generating system in a relatively compact environment.
Claims19
A musical tone generating apparatus, comprising:
- pitch designation means, operable by a performer, for providing a pitch designation signal designating a tone pitch of a tone to be generated;
- means, responsive to said pitch designation signal, for creating high frequency physical vibrations, said means for creating vibrations including a microresonator structure formed on an integrated circuit chip;
- means for converting said physical vibrations to high frequency electrical signals, wherein said vibrations have a frequency substantially higher than the audible frequency range;
- means for down converting the high frequency electrical signals to audio frequency range signals based on a reference signal;
- and
- means for providing said converted audio frequency range electrical signals as musical tone generation signals.
A musical tone generating apparatus, comprising:
- manual performance input means for providing a tone pitch control signal;
- tone generation means, responsive to said tone pitch control signal, for providing a musical tone generation signal, comprising:
- a plurality of microresonators integrally formed on a substrate;
- means for selectively activating a predetermined number of said plurality of microresonators in response to said tone pitch control signal, wherein said microresonators provide output signals having frequencies substantially higher than the audible frequency range;
- means for combining the output signals from said selected microresonators with harmonic weighting signals;
- and
- means for shifting the frequency of the output signals from said microresonators to an audio frequency range based on a reference signal;
- and
- tone generation output means for receiving the shifted audio frequency range output signals from said tone generation means and providing them as a musical tone output signal.
A method for generating a musical tone signal, comprising the steps of:
- providing a tone initiation signal in response to activation of a manual performance interface by a performer;
- creating physical vibrations in a micromachined structure in response to said tone initiation signal;
- converting said physical vibrations to high frequency electrical signals having a frequency substantially higher than the audible frequency range;
- converting the high frequency electrical signals to audio frequency electrical signals;
- and
- providing said audio frequency electrical signals as a musical tone signal.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.