Patent ID: 8383924

Claim:
A musical tone signal generating apparatus comprising: a tone generator having a plurality of tone generation channels each of which generates a musical tone signal; and a controller which assigns, in response to an instruction to generate a musical tone signal, generation of the musical tone signal to one or more of the tone generation channels, the controller including a reserving portion for supplying, to the tone generator, musical tone information which defines the musical tone signal which is to be generated and channel designation information which designates the one or more tone generation channels to which the generation of the musical tone signal is to be assigned, to reserve the one or more tone generation channels which are to be used for the generation of the musical tone signal; and the tone generator including a reservation information memory for storing reservation information indicative of the reservation of the one or more tone generation channels designated by the channel designation information, and a musical tone signal generation starting portion for making, when a tone volume level of a musical tone signal currently generated in each tone generation channel whose reservation information stored in the reservation information memory indicates that the tone generation channel is reserved is equal to or below a certain tone volume level, the each tone generation channel indicating that the tone generation channel is reserved start generating the musical tone signal defined by the musical tone information.