Patent ID: 7592531

Claim:
A tone generation system comprising: a plurality of processor devices connected to a star-type network, each processor device including one or more types of programs, each type of program corresponding to a function of a processing element of said tone generation system, the types of programs including a first type of program executable to cause the processor device to function as a performance-information-generating processing element that creates a frame including generated performance information and respective identification information of a source processing element and destination processing element and transmits the created frame to the network, a second type of program executable to cause the processor device to function as a tone-generator-providing processing element that receives a frame matching identification information of the processing element functioning in the processor device, synthesizes a tone signal on the basis of performance information taken out from the received frame, creates a frame including the synthesized tone signal and respective identification information of a source processing element and destination processing element and transmits to the network the frame created thereby, and a third type of program executable to cause the processor device to function as a sounding processing element that receives a frame matching identification information of the processing element functioning in the processor device and performs a sounding process on a tone signal taken out from the received frame, wherein two or more of the processor devices each possess a content file related to tone generation, and each of the processor devices has a table storing, for each of the processor devices, information indicating whether the content file possessed thereby can be supplied to another one of said processor devices, and wherein each of said processor devices is adapted to: receive a request for selecting a content file; determine whether or not a content file corresponding to the received request is possessed thereby; and if the content file corresponding to the received request is not possessed thereby, extract, from the table, any other processor device capable of supplying the content file corresponding to the received request, transmits an acquisition request of the content file to the extracted other processor device via the network, and receive, via the network, the content file transmitted by the other processor device in response to the acquisition request.