Patent ID: 7105734

Claim:
An apparatus for composing a musical composition composed of tones or sounds played on and reproduced by virtual musical instruments, which correspond to tones or sounds played on real musical instruments, said apparatus comprising: an acoustic playback device, comprising at least one of a monitor speaker, a speaker unit, and a score printer, structured and arranged to playback the musical composition at least one of during and after completion of the musical composition; a composition computer comprising at least one processor unit and at least one sequencer unit data flow and data exchange linked with said at least one processor unit; at least one interface; a notation entry unit data flow and data exchange connected and networked to said composition computer through said at least one interface; at least one sound sampler unit, data flow and data exchange connected to said processor unit and to said sequencer unit, comprising at least one sound sample library memory unit and at least one bi-directional sound parameter memory unit data flow and data exchange connected to said at least one sound sample library memory unit; said at least one sound sample library memory unit being structured and arranged to store recorded sound samples of all individual sounds, sound sequences, and sound clusters for each individual virtual instrument or instrument group; said bi-directional sound parameter memory unit being structured and arranged to store all sound definition parameters associated with each stored sound sample in said at least one sound sample library memory unit in order to retrieve said stored sound samples and to transmit the retrieved stored sound samples to at least one of said at least one processor unit and said sequencer unit; and said at least one sequencer unit being structured and arranged to receive notes, note sequences, and note clusters along with either associated sound definition parameters of said notes, note sequences, and note clusters, or associated sounds, sound sequences and sound clusters of said notes, note sequences, and note clusters, and to store said notes, note sequences, and note clusters entered by said notation entry unit for playback on said acoustic playback device.