Hybrid wind instrument selectively producing acoustic tones and electric tones and electronic system used therein
AssigneeYamaha Corporation
InventorsNaoyuki Onozawa, Kazuhiro Fujita
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Abstract
A hybrid saxophone is a combination of an acoustic saxophone and an electronic system, and the electronic system includes key sensors for monitoring the keys and a tonguing sensor for detecting the position of the tongue together with a breath sensor and a lip sensor, and the pieces of playing data are brought to an electronic tone generator for producing electric tones; the mouthpiece of the acoustic saxophone is replaced with another mouthpiece, which does not supply the breath to the reed, and a rotary type air-flow regulator is provided in the mouthpiece so that the player feels the blowing same as that in the acoustic saxophone.
Claims20
A wind instrument for selectively producing acoustic tones and electric tones, comprising:
- an acoustic wind instrument including
- a tubular body defining a column of air inside thereof,
- a mouthpiece connected to one end of said tubular body and giving rise to vibrations of said column of air for producing said acoustic tones when a player blows thereinto, and
- a pitch changing mechanism provided for said tubular body and manipulated with fingers of said player so as to change the length of said column of air;
- and
- an electronic system including
- a quasi mouthpiece connectable to said one end of said tubular body instead of said mouthpiece and permitting said player to blow thereinto without provocation of said vibrations, and
- plural sorts of sensors for producing detecting signals representative of actions of organs of said player and supplying said detecting signals to a signal processing unit so as to permit said signal processing unit to produce an audio signal for producing said electric tones.
An electronic system combinable with an acoustic wind instrument having a tubular body, a mouthpiece and a pitch changing mechanism, comprising:
- a quasi mouthpiece connectable to one end of said tubular body instead of said mouthpiece and permitting a player to blow thereinto without provocation of vibrations of a column of air in said tubular body, and
- plural sorts of sensors for producing detecting signals representative of actions of organs of said player and supplying said detecting signals to a signal processing unit so as to permit said signal processing unit to produce an audio signal for producing said electric tones.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.