Patents by Inventor Eiichiro Aoki

Eiichiro Aoki has filed for patents to protect the following inventions. This listing includes patent applications that are pending as well as patents that have already been granted by the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO).

  • Patent number: 5290966
    Abstract: A control apparatus for an electronic musical instrument or other electronic apparatuses comprises a main body constituting an operation gripping section, a rotary member held in the main body to freely roll on an X-Y plane, a moving amount detector for detecting moving amounts of the rotary member in X- and Y-directions upon rolling of the rotary member, and a pressure detector for detecting a pressure effected on the main body. The control apparatus inputs control signals to a control object on the basis of detection values of the moving amount detector and pressure detector. An electronic musical instrument has the control apparatus as a performance operation member for controlling electronic tone generation parameters in correspondence with a performance function, and a sound source for generating an electronic tone on the basis of inputs from a keyboard and the performance operation member.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: November 20, 1990
    Date of Patent: March 1, 1994
    Assignee: Yamaha Corporation
    Inventor: Eiichiro Aoki
  • Patent number: 5290964
    Abstract: A musical tone control apparatus controls a musical tone corresponding to a movement itself of an object and the like which is detected by a detector Such detector detects also a moving speed, a moving force, a moving angle or an intensity of given impulse of the object. In the case where the detector is mounted in the vicinity of a player's joint, the detector detects a revolving or bending angle of the player's joint. Hence, the musical tone can be controlled based on such angle of the player's joint. Thus, through this musical tone control apparatus, the player can generate a musical tone having, for example, a desirable tone pitch, a desirable volume and a desirable tone color based on the movement of the object or the player's joint.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: September 10, 1992
    Date of Patent: March 1, 1994
    Assignee: Yamaha Corporation
    Inventors: Teruo Hiyoshi, Kinpara Mamoru, Suzuki Hideo, Akira Nakada, Eiichiro Aoki, Masao Sakama
  • Patent number: 5265516
    Abstract: An electronic musical instrument having a manipulator which includes a hand manipulator and manipulation region capable of setting a reference point and/or reference axis, adapted for generating the musical tones of a rubbed string instrument. The distance from the reference point to the position of performance manipulation and/or the angle between the line connecting the reference point with position of performance manipulation and the reference axis may be calculated to produce parameters for controlling the musical tone signal, such as the bow pressure and the direction of the bow movement.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: December 14, 1990
    Date of Patent: November 30, 1993
    Assignee: Yamaha Corporation
    Inventors: Satoshi Usa, Tetsuo Okamoto, Eiichiro Aoki
  • Patent number: 5247131
    Abstract: An electronic musical instrument capable of achieving a variety of performance mode. A manipulation region to be played with a hand manipulator is divided into regions of different performance modes. Tone signal parameters are generated differently depending on the selection of the performance region. Tone generator generates musical tone signals based on the tone signal parameters. The tone signal parameters are determined based on coordinate information on the manipulation region designated by the hand manipulator and pressure information applied on the coordinate position by the hand manipulator. The tone signal parameters comprise velocity information, pressure information and tone pitch information.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: December 14, 1990
    Date of Patent: September 21, 1993
    Assignee: Yamaha Corporation
    Inventors: Tetsuo Okamoto, Eiichiro Aoki, Satoshi Usa
  • Patent number: 5241126
    Abstract: An electronic musical instrument includes a performance operator such as a bar-like member, a position detection circuit for detecting a play position on the performance operator and generating position information corresponding to the play position, a circuit for selecting a desired one of a plurality of predetermined position-tone pitch conversion characteristics or establishing a desired position-tone pitch conversion characteristic with respect to the performance operator, a conversion circuit for converting the position information from the position detection circuit to tone pitch information in accordance with the position-tone pitch conversion characteristic having been selected or established and a tone generator for generating a tone signal of a tone pitch corresponding to the tone pitch information provided by the conversion circuit.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: June 11, 1990
    Date of Patent: August 31, 1993
    Assignee: Yamaha Corporation
    Inventors: Satoshi Usa, Eiichiro Aoki
  • Patent number: 5192826
    Abstract: An electronic musical instrument includes a tone generator, a manipulator for defining a manipulation region and for performing manipulation within the manipulation region. The manipulator has a first detector which detects serial position data on the basis of positions of performance manipulation within the manipulation region, and a second detector which generates changing-degree data of a locus which is constituted by the serial position data. The tone generator generates musical tone with effect in accordance with the changing-degree data to thereby impart various effect such as vibrato with ease.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: December 31, 1990
    Date of Patent: March 9, 1993
    Assignee: Yamaha Corporation
    Inventor: Eiichiro Aoki
  • Patent number: 5119713
    Abstract: A keyboard and a portamento bar are connected to a tone generator through a common channel assigner to use each tone generating channel either for generating a keyboard sound or for generating a portamento sound. Thus, a portamento sound can be generated without a need for providing a another tone generator. Further, such arrangement is provided that can shift the tone generation from a keyboard sound to a portamento sound and from a portamento sound to a keyboard sound, enabling initiation and termination of a portamento performance to have accurate pitches.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: May 25, 1990
    Date of Patent: June 9, 1992
    Assignee: Yamaha Corporation
    Inventors: Satoshi Usa, Eiichiro Aoki
  • Patent number: 5081896
    Abstract: The musical tone generating apparatus converts a movement of a man into a musical tone. Such movement of the man includes a walking or running movement, a jumping movement, a rubbing movement and a beating movement, a turning movement and the like. More specifically, a tone pitch, a tone color, a tone volume or other parameters of the musical tone to be generated is controlled based on a value of a moving speed, a value of a jumping height or a value of frictional heat produced by the rubbing movement of player's hands.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: March 7, 1990
    Date of Patent: January 21, 1992
    Assignee: Yamaha Corporation
    Inventors: Teruo Hiyoshi, Hideo Suzuki, Eiichiro Aoki, Akira Nakada, Shinji Kumano, Kunihiko Watanabe, Masao Sakama
  • Patent number: 4972753
    Abstract: An electronic musical instrument has plural keys each capable of designating different tone pitch and touch response. When any key is depressed by player, touch response information is generated in response to touch intensity or depressing pressure of the depressed key. Based on the touch response information, initial-touch response effect or after-touch response effect is applied to a musical tone of depressed key or musical tones of simultaneously depressed keys. The touch response information is corrected such that the generated musical tones will not be heard un-natural. In addition, by controlling the depressing pressure of key, an automatic performance pattern consisting of predetermined accompaniment pattern and rhythm pattern can be designated and changed.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: December 20, 1988
    Date of Patent: November 27, 1990
    Assignee: Yamaha Corporation
    Inventors: Takeshi Adachi, Eiichiro Aoki, Takaaki Muto
  • Patent number: 4539884
    Abstract: In an electronic musical instrument of waveshape memory type, a waveshape memory stores waveshape data which covers from start to end of a musical tone and which varies litle by little in shape, amplitude and/or cyclic period as the waveshape extends to the succeeding cycles. A start address from which the waveshape memory begins to be read is controlled by expression control such as a key touch response structure or expression pedal, so that the tone color, level and/or pitch of a produced tone is varied according to the expression control.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: September 7, 1983
    Date of Patent: September 10, 1985
    Assignee: Nippon Gakki Seizo Kabushiki Kaisha
    Inventor: Eiichiro Aoki
  • Patent number: 4499808
    Abstract: One or a plurality of tones having a predetermined interval relation in terms of degrees with reference to tones produced by depressed keys of a keyboard are automatically selected from among diatonic scale tones of a performed tonality and the selected tones are produced as musical tones concurrently with the depressed key tones. To this end there are provided a tonality designator for producing an information representing the performed tonality, a duet note data forming circuit for forming pitch data of an ensemble note to be automatically produced necessary to realize a duet performance effect based the designated tonality and the depressed key tone, and a duet musical tone signal generator for producing a duet musical tone signal in accordance with the pitch data thus formed.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: February 25, 1983
    Date of Patent: February 19, 1985
    Assignee: Nippon Gakki Seizo Kabushiki Kaisha
    Inventor: Eiichiro Aoki
  • Patent number: 4489636
    Abstract: An electronic musical instrument which produces counter melody automatically selects one from among chord constituting tones in a predetermined priority order and produces a tone of the same note as the selected tone as a counter melody tone. This electronic musical instrument further comprises a chord type detector for detecting a chord type of a performed chord besides a chord designation detector for detecting the fact that the chord has been designated, a counter melody tone determining circuit for selecting one from among the chord constituting tones and sound system for producing the counter melody tone. The predetermined priority order is determined in accordance with the detected chord type. This dependence on chord type make it possible to produce a counter melody tone which is more rich in music.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: May 11, 1983
    Date of Patent: December 25, 1984
    Assignee: Nippon Gakki Seizo Kabushiki Kaisha
    Inventors: Eiichiro Aoki, Iwao Higashi
  • Patent number: 4470332
    Abstract: The electronic musical instrument is provided, in addition to usual tone producing circuitries associated with playing keys, with a chord designating circuit designating, according to key depression, a plurality of notes of that constitute a chord, a change detecting circuit for detecting a change in designated chord, a note selection circuit for selecting a note from among the designated notes according to a predetermined condition related to the preceeding selected note when the chord change is detected, and a musical tone forming circuit for forming musical tones of the selected notes. Succession of the selected notes constitute a counter line melody automatically established to meet the music being played on the instrument.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: March 14, 1983
    Date of Patent: September 11, 1984
    Assignee: Nippon Gakki Seizo Kabushiki Kaisha
    Inventor: Eiichiro Aoki
  • Patent number: 4461199
    Abstract: In a keyboard musical instrument employing waveform memory, a user may program the number and order of waveforms to be sequentially read out from a waveform memory containing a plurality of different waveforms.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: December 9, 1982
    Date of Patent: July 24, 1984
    Assignee: Nippon Gakki Seizo Kabushiki Kaisha
    Inventors: Teruo Hiyoshi, Eisaku Okamoto, Eiichiro Aoki, Toshio Sugiura, Koichi Kozuki
  • Patent number: 4429606
    Abstract: A duet interval data memory includes tables each of which corresponds to a particular chord type and prestores a plurality of duet interval data. One of the tables is selected in accordance with the type of a chord being played in a lower keyboard. A note interval between a root note of this chord and a melody note being played in an upper keyboard constitutes a relative note. The duet interval data is read from the selected table in response to this relative note. A calculator alters the melody note by a note interval corresponding to the read out duet interval data thereby producing data representative of a duet note. The tone of this duet note is sounded with the tone of the melody note whereby an automatic ensemble performance is realized.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: June 22, 1982
    Date of Patent: February 7, 1984
    Assignee: Nippon Gakki Seizo Kabushiki Kaisha
    Inventor: Eiichiro Aoki
  • Patent number: 4419916
    Abstract: Tonality designation of an electronic keyboard instrument is realized by utilizing keys instead of conventional tonality designation switches provided on the panel of its.The tonality designation system comprises a tonality data forming circuit and a memory. The tonality data forming circuit generates tonality data consisting of keynote data and scale data representative of key note and type of scale respectively based on key depression and transfers it to the memory in advance before performance. The memory stores the tonality designation data during performance. A musical tone to be produced is formed or controlled based on the stored tonality data and a depressed key.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: February 16, 1982
    Date of Patent: December 13, 1983
    Assignee: Nippon Gakki Seizo Kabushiki Kaisha
    Inventor: Eiichiro Aoki
  • Patent number: 4399731
    Abstract: An apparatus for automatically composing a music piece is provided by comprising a memory preliminarily storing plural kinds of pitch data. From this memory, at-random extraction is made of those pitch data agreeing with predetermined music conditions, and they are timewisely successively delivered out to be imparted durations, respectively, to form a composition data consisting of plural sets of pitch data and duration data amounting two to four measures to make a music piece. This composition data may be used for generation of music sounds, and/or display of music score image on a screen of a CRT device, and/or printing-out of a score by a printer, to be utilized in the sound-dictation training and/or performance exercise in providing, for example, musical education.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: August 4, 1982
    Date of Patent: August 23, 1983
    Assignee: Nippon Gakki Seizo Kabushiki Kaisha
    Inventor: Eiichiro Aoki
  • Patent number: RE30982
    Abstract: In an electronic musical instrument, a tone source circuit provides tone signals of audio frequencies representing respective notes in a musical scale. A keyboard circuit provides a keying sequence pulses each existing at such a time slot of time sharing at an ultra-audible rate as is assigned to each of keys being depressed. The tone signals and the respectively corresponding keying sequence pulses are AND-gated respectively and then OR-gated commonly to produce a combined tone signal. The keying sequence pulses are obtained by sequentially scanning all the keys in the keyboard in one sequence, or may be equivalently obtained by scanning the same named keys in different octaves simultaneously and AND-gating with octave representing pulses. Or the octave representing pulses may be omitted by separately processing tone signals octave by octave. The system is suitable for digitalization and for production in IC configuration.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: January 28, 1980
    Date of Patent: June 29, 1982
    Assignee: Nippon Gakki Seizo Kabushiki Kaisha
    Inventor: Eiichiro Aoki
  • Patent number: RE31090
    Abstract: A tone production assignment circuit produces control information representing assigned key code, key-on etc. Such information has a large number of bits with respect to each channel. A multiplexing circuit has output lines the number of which is smaller than the bit number of the information and divides the information with a plurality of time slots with respect to one channel. The multiplexing circuit is controlled by a signal from a timing signal generation circuit. The multiplexing circuit is capable of rearranging information for transmitting information required for the respective individual channels and also capable of inserting a timing data in an available time slot. A multiple data analysis circuit decodes the information provided by the multiplexing circuit. Tone generators are provided for the respective channels and each one of them functions to latch only corresponding information among the decoded information by a latch circuit.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: December 31, 1980
    Date of Patent: November 30, 1982
    Assignee: Nippon Gakki Seizo Kabushiki Kaisha
    Inventors: Eiichi Yamaga, Akira Nakada, Takatoshi Okumura, Eiichiro Aoki, Akiyoshi Oya, Yasuji Uchiyama
  • Patent number: RE32726
    Abstract: An envelope generator is provided with a count circuit the count value of which is varied through addition or subtraction or combination thereof, and a conversion circuit which operates to convert the count value into amplitude data, so as to generate an envelope having a shape corresponding to variations with time of the count value. According to one aspect of the invention, the count circuit is a circuit which carries out computation for exponentially varying the count value through polygonal line approximation, so as to form an envelope of exponential characteristic. According to another aspect of the invention, the conversion circuit is a memory which has stored amplitude data corresponding to count values in advance so as to convert count values in the last linear region of the envelope obtained by the polygonal line approximation into amplitude data in exponential relation and to convert count values contained in the remaining polygonal line regions into amplitude data in linear relation.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: May 30, 1980
    Date of Patent: August 9, 1988
    Assignee: Nippon Gakki Seizo Kabushiki Kaisha
    Inventors: Teruo Hiyoshi, Akira Nakada, Shigeru Yamada, Eiichiro Aoki, Eiichi Yamaga