Patent ID: 9626947
Date: 2017-04-18
CPC Classifications: G10H

Claim:
1. A stringed instrument, comprising: a body, the body having a bridge and a saddle mounted thereon; a neck and a headstock, a nut being disposed where the neck and the headstock meet, the headstock having a plurality of tuning machines mounted thereon; a fretboard mounted on the neck and the body, the fretboard extending from the nut and having a plurality of electrically conductive frets; a plurality of electrically conductive strings, each string extending from a corresponding one of the tuning machines, over the nut, parallel with the fretboard, over the saddle, and being secured to the bridge; and fret scanning circuitry configured to conduct a sequence of full board scans, each full board scan including selectively applying drive signals to the strings, selectively measuring fret signals resulting from the drive signals for adjacent pairs of the frets, and generating fret data using the fret signals, the fret data representing one or more fret hits, each fret hit representing a corresponding one of the pairs of frets bridged by a corresponding one of the strings, wherein the fret scanning circuitry is further configured to compare the fret data for consecutive full board scans, determine that an amplitude of a first fret signal for a first pair of frets and a first string and representing a first fret hit declines by less than a dithering gap amount for each of a first number of the consecutive full board scans, and retain the first fret hit as a valid fret hit even if the amplitude of the first fret signal falls below a fret hit threshold.