US 6,747,202 B2Granted

Sound generating system producing sound from vibrations in musical instrument through natural microphone simulation

AssigneeYamaha Corporation

InventorRyuichiro Kuroki

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Abstract

A sound generating system produces tones from an audio signal as if tones originally produced from an acoustic guitar are converted to an electric signal through a microphone; the electric signal is produced from vibrations of the strings through a pickup unit, and is converted to digital signals; a digital signal processor simulates reverberation generated through a resonator of the guitar and direct tones directly produced from the strings through plural sorts of digital data processing; the signal component representative of the reverberation is added to the signal component representative of the direct tones for producing the audio signal; the digital signal processor simulates the direct tones through the function of an all-pass filter so that the reproduced sound has the timbre approximate to the timbre of the original tones.

Claims20

Dependent claims

A sound generating system associated with a musical instrument, the musical instrument generating an original sound and vibrations, the sound generating system comprising:

a pickup unit attached to said musical instrument for converting said vibrations to a first electric signal;
a signal receiving section connected to said pickup unit, the signal receiving section receiving the first electric signal and outputting a second electric signal in response to said first electric signal;
a data processing section connected to said signal receiving section, the data processing section operable to:
(a) receive said second electric signal,
(b) modify said second electric signal to simulate a direct sound generated by said vibrations, thus producing a simulated direct sound signal,
(c) modify said second electric signal to simulate reverberations generated by said musical instrument, thus producing a simulated reverberatory sound signal, and
(d) add said simulated direct sound signal to said simulated reverbatory sound signal to produce a third electric signal;
and
a sound generating section connected to said data processing section, the sound generating section receiving said third electric signal and producing a sound approximate to said original sound.

6 more elements

A sound generating system associated with a musical instrument, the musical instrument generating an original sound and vibrations, the sound generating system comprising:

a pickup unit attached to said musical instrument for converting said vibrations to a first electric signal;
a signal receiving section connected to said pickup unit, the signal receiving section receiving the first electric signal and outputting a second electric signal in response to said first electric signal;
a data processing section connected to said signal receiving section, the data processing section operable to:
(a) receive said second electric signal,
(b) modify said second electric signal to simulate a harmonic series corresponding to an attack of a direct sound generated by said vibrations thus producing a third electric signal having a signal component representative of said harmonic series
(c) modify said third electric signal to simulate a direct sound generated by said vibrations, thus producing a simulated direct sound signal,
(d) modify said third electric signal to simulate reverberations generated by said musical instrument, thus producing a simulated reverberatory sound signal, and
(e) add said simulated direct sound signal to said simulated reverbatory sound signal to produce a fourth electric signal;
and
a sound generating section connected to said data processing section, the sound generating section receiving said fourth electric signal and producing a sound approximate to said original sound.

7 more elements

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.

Facts

Application: 10/180,057Filed 27 Jun 2002
Priority: JP 2001-19984029 Jun 2001
Published: US 2003/0000370 A12 Jan 2003
Granted: 8 Jun 2004
Term ends: Not estimatedThe source records don’t support an estimate.

Classification7 codes

G10H 1/0091
Details of electrophonic musical instruments: means for obtaining special acoustic effects
G10H 3/186
Using a string, e.g. electric guitar: means for processing the signal picked up from the strings
G10H 3/188
Means for processing the signal picked up from the strings: for converting the signal to digital format
G10H 2210/281
Acoustic effect simulation, i.e. volume, spatial, resonance or reverberation effects added to a musical sound, usually by appropriate filtering…