Source: http://www.google.com/patents/US5410099?dq=7,599,983
Timestamp: 2014-10-23 02:42:35
Document Index: 390495831

Matched Legal Cases: ['art 1', 'art 1', 'art 1', 'art 1', 'arts 1', 'art.\n8', 'art.\n9']

Patent US5410099 - Channel assigning system for use in an electronic musical instrument - Google PatentsSearch Images Maps Play YouTube News Gmail Drive More »Sign inAdvanced Patent SearchPatentsA channel assigning system which effects an assignment of a channel other than a predetermined number channels which are preferentially assigned to any part of a piece of music, to a part thereof. To thus ensure an efficient use of the channels. Further, the predetermined number of channels to be assigned...http://www.google.com/patents/US5410099?utm_source=gb-gplus-sharePatent US5410099 - Channel assigning system for use in an electronic musical instrumentAdvanced Patent SearchPublication numberUS5410099 APublication typeGrantApplication numberUS 08/150,269Publication dateApr 25, 1995Filing dateNov 10, 1993Priority dateAug 6, 1990Fee statusPaidPublication number08150269, 150269, US 5410099 A, US 5410099A, US-A-5410099, US5410099 A, US5410099AInventorsTaichi KosugiOriginal AssigneeKawai Musical Inst. Mfg. Co., Ltd.Export CitationBiBTeX, EndNote, RefManPatent Citations (13), Referenced by (11), Classifications (5), Legal Events (3) External Links: USPTO, USPTO Assignment, EspacenetChannel assigning system for use in an electronic musical instrumentUS 5410099 AAbstract A channel assigning system which effects an assignment of a channel other than a predetermined number channels which are preferentially assigned to any part of a piece of music, to a part thereof. To thus ensure an efficient use of the channels. Further, the predetermined number of channels to be assigned to any part of the piece of music can be ensured by assigning channels, other than the channels to be secured to newly performed musical tones.
What is claimed is: 1. A channel assigning system for use in an electronic musical instrument, comprising:directing means for directing a plurality of musical tones, each belonging to a musical tone part, to be sounded; a plurality of musical-tone generating channels in a number less than a number of said directing means and equal to a maximum number of actually sounded musical tones to be sounded simultaneously; initial channel assignment means for assigning a predetermined number of said plurality of musical-tone generating channels to each musical tone part wherein said plurality of musical tones having a particular musical tone part are assigned to the predetermined number of said plurality of musical-tone channels assigned to the particular tone part, prior to said plurality of musical tones having a different tone part; discerning means for discerning whether at least one idle channel exists among the predetermined number of said plurality of musical-tone generating channels for each musical tone part; channel assigning means for assigning each of the plurality of musical tones directed by said directing means to one of said plurality of musical-tone generating channels, said channel assigning means including, first assignment control means for assigning a first of said plurality of musical tones directed by said directing means to an idle channel of said predetermined number of said plurality of musical-tone generating channels corresponding to a musical tone part of said first musical tone when said discerning means indicates that at least one idle channel of said predetermined number of said plurality of musical-tone generating channels corresponding to the musical tone part of said first musical tone exists, and second assignment control means for diverting the first musical tone directed by said directing means to an idle channel of said predetermined number of said plurality of musical-tone generating channels corresponding to another musical tone part, when said discerning means indicates that at least one idle channel of said predetermined number of said plurality of musical-tone generating channels corresponding to the musical tone part of said first musical tone does not exist and when said discerning means indicates that at least one idle channel of said predetermined number of said plurality of musical-tone generating channels corresponding to another musical tone part does exist; whereby said channel-assigning means diverts said predetermined number of said plurality of musical-tone generating channels corresponding to the other musical tone parts to the musical tone part of said first musical tone and from said predetermined number of said plurality of musical-tone generating channels corresponding to the musical tone part of said first musical tone to the other musical tone parts. 2. The channel assigning system of claim 1, wherein each musical tone part represents timbres of said plurality of musical tones.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION To achieve the foregoing object, in accordance with the present invention there is provided, a channel assigning system for use in an electronic musical instrument, which comprises directing means for directing that a musical tone should be sounded a number, of musical-tone generating channels which is less than that of the directing means and equal to a maximum number of actually sounded musical tones which can be sounded simultaneously, a discerning means for discerning whether or not an idle channel among the musical-tone generating channels is assigned to a musical tone which is not being sounded, a channel-assigning means for newly assigning a channel to a musical tone of a part when the predetermined number of musical-tone generating channels corresponding to the part are assigned to musical tones of the part, when the result of the discernment indicates that an idle channel exists, and an assignment control means for newly assigning one of the musical-tone generating channels, each of which is assigned to a musical tone of a part in addition to the predetermined number of musical-tone generating channels corresponding to the part, to a musical tone of a part prior to the other musical-tone generating channels when the predetermined number of musical-tone generating channels corresponding to the part are assigned to musical tones of the part when the result of the discernment indicates that no idle musical-tone generating channels exist.
BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS Other features, objects and advantages of the present invention will become apparent from the following description of a preferred embodiment, with reference to the drawings in which like reference characters designate like or corresponding parts throughout several views, and in which:
1. The Construction of the Entire Circuit of an Electronic Musical Instrument FIG. 2 shows the construction of the entire circuit of an electronic musical instrument, wherein a keyboard 1 is partitioned into a lower part 1a and an upper part 1b. The lower part 1a of the keyboard 1 can be used to perform musical tones having a timbre different from that of musical tones performed by using the upper part 1b thereof, and thus data used to perform a part of a piece of music and data used to perform another part thereof are input from the lower and upper parts 1a and 1b, respectively. Each key of the keyboard 1 is scanned by a key scanning circuit 2, whereby turned-on keys (hereunder referred to as "key on" keys) and turned-off keys (hereunder referred to as "key off" keys) are detected, and then data representing the results of this detection is written by a central processing unit (CPU) 6 to the assignment memory 8. Data representing musical tones (hereunder referred to as musical-tone data) sent from external equipment connected to the electronic musical instrument through an MIDI interface 12 can be written to this assignment memory 8 by the CPU (i.e., an assigner) 6, and further, musical-tone data to be written to the assignment memory 8 may be generated on the basis of automatic performance data stored in a read-only memory (ROM) 10 or a random access memory (RAM) 11. This write operation is effected by the CPU 6 by a process described later with reference to FIGS. 1 and 5 to 7.
2. The Assignment Memory 8 FIG. 3 shows a storage area (hereunder referred to as a channel area) of the assignment memory 8, where, for example, key codes, timbre data, frequency number data, envelope data and velocity data in addition to on/off data ON, order-of-depressing-key data OLD, part data PRT, and priority reserving data RSV are stored. Note, the number of channel areas of the assignment memory 8 may be more or less than 4.
3. A Working Memory 13 FIG. 4 illustrates the contents of the working memory 13 in which a "key on" data register, a "key off" data register, and registers CHn, CHold, OLDmin, RSVass, in addition to a musical-tone part memory, are provided.
4. Key Process FIG. 1 is a flowchart of a program executed when performing a key process. This key process comprises an entire process to be performed by the system, together with an initializing process and a panel switch process. This entire process is started when power is turned on.
5. A "Key Off" Channel Searching Processing FIG. 5 is a flowchart of a program executed when performing a "key off" channel search process in step 03 of FIG. 1.
6. A "Key Off" Channel Assigning Process FIG. 6 is a flowchart of a program executed when performing the "key off" channel assigning process of step 04 of FIG. 1.
7. A Search Process of Channels other than the Number of Channels PACN to be Assigned This process is similar to the "key off" channel process of FIG. 5. Note, it is determined in step 13 whether or not the data RSV stored in the searched for channel area indicates 0, i.e., whether or not the searched channel assigned to a musical tone of a part is other than the number of channels PACN preferentially assigned to musical tones of the part.
8. An Assigning Process of Channels other than the Number of Channels PACN to be Assigned This process to be performed in step 06 is the same as the "key off" channel assigning process of FIG. 6. In this process, as the result of the process effected in step 23, two cases exist wherein the previous (or old) musical-tone part data PRT corresponding to the assigned channel matches the new musical-tone part data PRT and wherein the former data PRT does not match the latter data PRT. If a match is found, channels assigned to a part and other than the number of channels PACN assigned to the part are diverted to the production of sounds of musical tones of the part. If a match is not found, channels assigned to a part and other than the number of channels PACN assigned to the part are diverted to the production of sounds of musical tones of another part.
9. A Search Process of Channels Assigned to the Same Part This process to be performed in step 07 of FIG. 1 is similar to the "key off" channel search process of FIG. 5. Note, it is determined in step 13 whether or not the data PRT of the searched for channel area matches the PRT of the channel to be assigned to the part including the musical tone for which the "key on" operation is effected, i.e., whether the part corresponding to the searched for channel matches that including the musical tone for which the "key on" operation is effected.
10. Reassigning Process of Channels Assigned to the Same Part This process to be performed in step 08 is the same as the "key off" channel assigning process of FIG. 6.
11. "Key Off" Process FIG. 7 is a flowchart of a program executed for performing the "key off" process performed in step 10 of FIG. 1.
12. Practical Examples of the Assignment of Channels FIGS. 8(1) to 8(4) illustrates practical examples of the assignment of channels.
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