Patents by Inventor Masanobu Chihana

Masanobu Chihana 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: 5777251
    Abstract: An electronic musical instrument apparatus includes a pad and fret switches. When the pad is stricken while any one of the fret switches is depressed, at least a musical tone is generated. The apparatus has different modes of performance operation including a first melody mode, a second melody mode, a base mode, a first chord mode, a second chord mode, an ad-lib mode and the like. In the first melody mode, each time the pad is operated, a note event is read out from a memory, a previous tone that has been generated is muted and, at the same time, a next tone for the note event read out is immediately generated so that a legato-like performance can be performed. If desired, a mute switch is operated to mute a previous tone that is being generated so that a staccato like performance is performed. In the second melody mode, the base mode, the first chord mode and the second chord mode, performance data for note events is successively and continuously read out from a memory.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: December 3, 1996
    Date of Patent: July 7, 1998
    Assignee: Yamaha Corporation
    Inventors: Harumichi Hotta, Kazuhide Iwamoto, Hiroyuki Torimura, Masanobu Chihana
  • Patent number: 5739453
    Abstract: An electronic musical instrument including: a mode selecting unit for selecting a mode from a plurality of modes including an automatic performance mode and a manual performance mode; a musical style storage for storing performance atmosphere data of a plurality of musical styles; a performance data storage for storing performance data of a plurality of programs each matching one of the musical styles; a musical style selection member responsive to a manipulation by a performer for selecting a musical style from the performance atmosphere data stored in the musical style storage; a musical tone signal generator for generating a musical tone signal in accordance with a musical tone parameter; and a musical tone parameter generating unit for generating and outputting the musical tone parameter to the musical tone signal generator during the automatic performance mode, in accordance with the performance atmosphere data representing the musical style selected by the musical style selection member and the performa
    Type: Grant
    Filed: March 14, 1995
    Date of Patent: April 14, 1998
    Assignee: Yamaha Corporation
    Inventors: Masanobu Chihana, Hiroyuki Torimura
  • Patent number: 5656789
    Abstract: Indicators are provided in corresponding relations to individual keyboard keys. For each of plural phrases of a given music piece, information is supplied that represents at least the highest-pitch note to the lowest note in the phrase. During performance of the music piece and on the basis of the supplied information, the indicators, for each phrase, indicates all notes within a range from the highest-pitch note to the lowest note of the phrase. Thus, the player can easily position his hands over accurate keys and thereby can comfortably carry out performance operations for each phrase. Notes to be performed in each phrase after a first note corresponding to predetermined performance timing in the phrase may be indicated in different manners (for example, by varying degrees of brightness) depending on performance timing differences, from the first note performance timing, of the notes.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: April 13, 1995
    Date of Patent: August 12, 1997
    Assignee: Yamaha Corporation
    Inventors: Akira Nakada, Yasuo Nagahama, Takeo Shibukawa, Masanobu Chihana, Tatsuhiro Koike
  • Patent number: 5125314
    Abstract: An electronic musical instrument is disclosed in which the selection of timbre and rhythm contol functions is simplified, and the number of function switches and control panel surface area can be limited, even when the instrument has a large number of available timbre and rhythm control functions. The invention provides an electronic musical instrument employing various types of musical tone control data which are divided into groups. Additionally, the invention provides an input device which includes a plurality of switches, each switch corresponding to one of the above described groups of musical tone control data. The input device is capable of detecting the operation of the above mentioned switches.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: May 24, 1990
    Date of Patent: June 30, 1992
    Assignee: Yamaha Corporation
    Inventor: Masanobu Chihana
  • Patent number: 5074183
    Abstract: A musical-tone-signal-generating apparatus which determines the current tone-color-designation state on the basis of the operation of one or more tone-color-selection switches, reads from a memory tone-color-control information that specifies the tone colors corresponding to the current tone-color-designation state, and controls the generation of musical-tone signals on the basis of the tone-color-control information. The tone-color-control information includes various data necessary for generating one or more tone colors selected by the tone-color-selection switches. Thus, the apparatus can generate a plurality of tone colors simultaneously with a simple configuration.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: September 29, 1989
    Date of Patent: December 24, 1991
    Assignee: Yamaha Corporation
    Inventor: Masanobu Chihana
  • Patent number: 4539883
    Abstract: This electronic musical instrument comprises digital tone generation circuits having a plurality of tone generation channels each being capable of selecting a tone color independently from other channels. In each of the tone generation circuits, digital tone signals having the selected tone colors are produced in response to operation of a key or a switch. A specific number of analog channels are provided for processing analog tone signals channel by channel and a channel divider is also provided for distributing the digital tone signals generated by the digital tone generation circuits to these analog channels in specific combinations according to the selected tone colors. This channel divider further mixes the distributed digital tone signals together for each of the analog channels for time-division-multiplexing the mixed digital tone signals for each of the analog channels. The multiplexed digital tone signals are converted to analog signals by means of a single digital-to-analog converter.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: November 21, 1983
    Date of Patent: September 10, 1985
    Assignee: Nippon Gakki Seizo Kabushiki Kaisha
    Inventor: Masanobu Chihana
  • Patent number: 4528885
    Abstract: A touch responsive apparatus in an electronic musical instrument for controlling a musical tone of the instrument detects an after-touch of a key touch such as the depth or force of a key depression after the key has been depressed, and generates an after-touch control signal to perform an after-touch control which varies quickly toward a predetermined target value independently of an detected after-touch to such an extent as will not generate a click, and which thereafter follows the detected after-touch.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: December 6, 1983
    Date of Patent: July 16, 1985
    Assignee: Nippon Gakki Seizo Kabushiki Kaisha
    Inventor: Masanobu Chihana