Patents Examined by John G. Smith
  • Patent number: 4872385
    Abstract: In an automatic rhythm performing apparatus, pattern memory stores rhythm pattern data of respective rhythm patterns for respective rhythm instrument tones as identified by channel numbers. Selected rhythm pattern data are read out together with the channel numbers and are supplied to corresponding tone generation channels for respective instrument tones according to the selected rhythm kind. There is provided a rewritable data memory storing channel alteration data for altering the channel number included in the read-out pattern data to another channel number. The rhythm pattern data read out from the pattern memory are supplied, as modified by the channel alteration data read out from the rewritable data memory, to the tone generation channels of the alteredly designated channel number. The channel alteration data of the data memory are rewritten by the manipulation of keys in the performance keyboard, whereby the rhythm patterns of the instrument tones are easily altered.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: February 13, 1987
    Date of Patent: October 10, 1989
    Assignee: Yamaha Corporation
    Inventors: Shigenori Oguri, Kosei Terada
  • Patent number: 4869144
    Abstract: Slotted bobbins consisting of a plurality of wire coils, are secured within a pickup for a stringed instrument assembly having an upper plate with a plurality of slots running in the direction of the strings, the slots of the bobbins being aligned with those of the upper plate. A magnetic pole piece is slidably disposed within each slot, each pole piece being independently slidable along the length of its slot, to allow reading each string at a different spectrum. The pole pieces are releasably secured within the slots so that they can be set at a desired point prior to playing of the instrument.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: January 23, 1989
    Date of Patent: September 26, 1989
    Assignee: Thomas G. Lieber
    Inventor: Thomas G. Lieber
  • Patent number: 4864907
    Abstract: An electronic musical instrument having automatic bass chord accompaniment performance in which bass tones are generated in different manners depending on the state of the keyboards of the device. Chord and bass notes are selected using lower and pedal keyboards, respectively. The chord type and root note are identified from the depressed keys of the keyboards. The bass tone is generated with consideration of whether the identified root note coincides with the selected bass note. In the situation where the root note coincides with the bass note, a bass tone is generated based on a stored predetermined bass pattern corresponding to the particular chord type and root note identified. In the situation where the root note does not coincide with the bass note, or if a chord type has not been identified, a bass tone is generated based on the depressed bass note key.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: February 10, 1987
    Date of Patent: September 12, 1989
    Assignee: Yamaha Corporation
    Inventor: Shigenori Oguri
  • Patent number: 4864908
    Abstract: A system for selecting accompaniment patterns in accordance with which accompaniment musical tones are produced in an electronic musical instrument. The system includes a memory for storing a plurality of accompaniment patterns. A plurality of storage devices corresponding respectively to a plurality of operable members is provided. A select device is operable to select one of the accompaniment patterns to produce pattern identification data indicative of the selected accompaniment pattern. A writing device is responsive to an operation of any one of the operable members for writing the pattern identification data into one of the storage devices corresponding to the operated one operable member, thereby assigning the selected accompaniment pattern to the one operable member. A reading device is responsive to an operation of the one operable member for reading from the memory the selected accompaniment pattern.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: April 2, 1987
    Date of Patent: September 12, 1989
    Assignee: Yamaha Corporation
    Inventor: Masayoshi Kino
  • Patent number: 4856401
    Abstract: A device to produce sub-harmonic tone signals in response to a tone signal from a transducer having preferably maximum sensitivity in the plane of bowing of a bowed musical instrument by passing selected cycles of the transducer signal through signal gates which are controlled jointly by sub-harmonic control signals at sub-multiples of the fundamental frequency of the transducer signal and by a signal indicative of the detection of a fundamental frequency. Each sub-harmonic tone signal thus produced has a tone color which approximates that of the corresponding bowed musical instrument of the same frequency range and which is independent of the direction of bowing.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: September 2, 1987
    Date of Patent: August 15, 1989
    Inventor: Richard E. D. McClish
  • Patent number: 4854210
    Abstract: A detachable electric stringed instrument pickup system for an electrical stringed instrument of the type including a body, a neck having a head, a bridge assembly connected to the body, and a plurality of strings positioned between the head and the bridge assembly includes a mounting fixture having an opening attached to the front of the body of the electrical stringed instrument under the strings, a base plate attached by height adjustment screws to the mounting fixture, and a height adjustment spring biasing the base plate away from the mounting fixture and also includes a first connector for elecrical connection mounted on the base plate and a second connector for electrical connection mounted on an assembly mount and detachably plugged into the first connector through the opening in the mounting fixture and wherein an electromagnetic pickup is mounted on the assembly mount and electrically connected to the second connector.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: August 26, 1987
    Date of Patent: August 8, 1989
    Inventor: Nicholas P. Palazzolo
  • Patent number: 4843935
    Abstract: An improved dual-tone electronic music generator provides a phase difference between a melody and a chord such that the melody codes converted from the melody and the chord codes converted from the chord can be stored into a memory in series. This arrangement can increase the memory usage efficiency, and can reduce both the chip size and the production cost.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: August 24, 1987
    Date of Patent: July 4, 1989
    Inventor: Ma Car-Lai
  • Patent number: 4836075
    Abstract: The present invention relates to an improved musical cube. The cube includes circuitry mounted within its cubical housing with the circuitry including three two-axis switches with each such switch having a central open position and two positions, one to either side of the central position, each side position of which closes a particular unique sub-circuit. The three switches are mounted in the housing in mutually perpendicular relation and the switches combine to control the operation of six sub-circuits. In the operation of the improved musical cube, a read-only memory and synthesizer device are incorporated into a circuit with the read-only memory being pre-programmed with a distinct musical sequence for each of the six sub-circuits.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: October 14, 1987
    Date of Patent: June 6, 1989
    Assignee: Stone Rose Limited
    Inventor: Tchaun Armstrong
  • Patent number: 4835565
    Abstract: An electrophotographic image developing device includes a fixed rotatable member and a suspended rotatable member reciprocally movable toward and away from the fixed rotatable member. Rotative power from a drive source is transmitted to the suspended rotatable member through a power transmitting unit which includes a coupling capable of absorbing axial misalignment between driver and driven shafts.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: June 11, 1987
    Date of Patent: May 30, 1989
    Assignee: Ricoh Company, Ltd.
    Inventors: Shinzi Nagatsuna, Toshihiko Takaya, Kinzi Saito, Hiroyuki Matsushiro, Michihito Ohashi
  • Patent number: 4829869
    Abstract: A tone control apparatus for use in an electronic musical instrument is responsive to an easily accessible switch such as a foot-lever switch to control conditions of muscial tone which include, for example, a tone pitch, a tone color, a tone volume and a tone effect. The tone control apparatus has a keyboard for designating a frequency of a musical tone to be generated and a musical tone generating circuit for generating a musical tone having a frequency designated by the keyboard. The tone control apparatus further has a memory for storing a plurality of groups of tone control data. Each time the foot-lever switch is operated by the performer, one of the tone control data group is read and supplied to the musical tone generating circuit to control the conditions of the generating musical tone. In a first mode, the plurality of tone control data groups are sequentially read in synchronization with the operations of the foot-lever switch.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: January 27, 1987
    Date of Patent: May 16, 1989
    Assignee: Yamaha Corporation
    Inventors: Naota Katada, Kosei Terada
  • Patent number: 4827547
    Abstract: A keyboard operated electronic musical instrument has a number of tone generators each of which creates a plurality of musical tones each having its own independent frequency offset so that a multi-rank ensemble effect is produced. The tones are produced by computing, in real time, sequences of data points using stored sets of harmonic coefficients. Provision is incorporated for producing a musical celeste effect.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: April 20, 1987
    Date of Patent: May 9, 1989
    Assignee: Deutsch Research Laboratories, Ltd.
    Inventor: Ralph Deutsch
  • Patent number: 4827309
    Abstract: A developing head is provided under a latent image carrier in the form of a rotating drum or a horizontally moving plate. The developing head includes a plurality of fountain slits and discharge slits arranged alternately in parallel to each other and extending laterally. A liquid developer jets out of supply openings provided in a hollow pipe member inserted in each cylindrical developer guide provided under the fountain slits and connected with the slits. The liquid developer jets move upward to the latent image carrier through the fountain slits and are discharged through the discharge slits located on both sides of the fountain slits.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: March 10, 1987
    Date of Patent: May 2, 1989
    Assignee: Fuji Photo Film Co., Ltd.
    Inventor: Keishi Kato
  • Patent number: 4819022
    Abstract: In an automatic exposure device for a copying machine in which the density of an original is detected by irradiating an original by light from a lamp and detecting of the reflecting light with an optical sensor, and in accordance with the detected signal, the exposure amount of the lamp is adjusted by means of an automatic voltage adjusting circuit, and which is equipped with a heater control unit for controlling the energization of a fixing heater for fixing a toner sensible image which has been transferred on paper and a processing circuit for controlling the automatic voltage controlling circuit and heater control section, the processing circuit controlling the heater control section and being operable to maintain the energizing state of the fixing heater in a definite state, while the operation of detecting the original's density occurs with a lamp lit.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: March 5, 1987
    Date of Patent: April 4, 1989
    Assignee: Mita Industrial Co., Ltd.
    Inventor: Shigeo Kurando
  • Patent number: 4815724
    Abstract: A sheet feeding mechanism includes a receiving member, a feed member for feeding sheets from a stack thereof on the receiving member, and an overlapping feed preventing device including a roller to be rotated in a predetermined direction and a friction member cooperating with the roller. In relation to the friction member, a device is provided for substantially preventing the leading end of a fed sheet from contacting that part of the friction member which is upstream, in the sheet feeding direction, of the nipping site between the friction member and the roller.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: February 18, 1987
    Date of Patent: March 28, 1989
    Assignee: Mita Industrial Co., Ltd.
    Inventors: Yasuji Sumida, Hiroshi Kajita, Koji Ujino, Atsushi Kano, Takashi Maekawa, Kiyotaka Shibata
  • Patent number: 4809578
    Abstract: An electromagnetic pickup for use in sensing the mechanical motion of strings includes a ferromagnetic housing of elongate, longitudinally recessed form in which a ferromagnetic core is received. The core includes a plurality of coplanar, spaced, finger-like projections directed at the walls of the recess. Both the walls of the recess and the finger-like projections of the core are permanently magnetized to a common magnetic polarity and thus will concentrate by magnetic repulsion the flux into the gap between the projections. A coil wound around the core then senses the flux changes of these concentrated flux fields due to string motion.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: July 14, 1987
    Date of Patent: March 7, 1989
    Inventor: Donald A. Lace, Jr.
  • Patent number: 4806985
    Abstract: A sheet stripping device for electrostatographic systems includes a frame, a member having movable surface for conveying a receiving sheet, and a sheet stripping element for separating the receiving sheet from the movable surface, the sheet stripping element including a stripping element having a leading edge adapted to contact the movable surface and strip the sheet from the movable surface, the leading edge coated with a material including an electrically conductive material comprising a film forming polymer and an electrically conductive additive. The leading edge may include a thermally resistant polymer of cross-linked siloxane-silica hybrid material, a polyimide or a poly(amide-imide). The sheet stripping means may be prepared by coating the leading edges of preformed stripping elements.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: April 2, 1987
    Date of Patent: February 21, 1989
    Assignee: Xerox Corporation
    Inventors: Geoffrey M. T. Foley, Richard L. Schank, Kenneth A. Kemp
  • Patent number: 4796503
    Abstract: A shaped waveform tone generator circuit is contained entirely in an integrated circuit and has a pair of push-pull amplifiers for driving a piezo-buzzer. The output from an RC network controls current flow in a first follower transistor connected to one voltage source and in a second follower transistor connected to a second voltage source. A pair of CMOS switches alternately connect the inputs of the amplifiers to the first and second transistors. A tone signal controls operation of the two CMOS switches.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: June 15, 1987
    Date of Patent: January 10, 1989
    Assignee: Industrial Technology Research Institute
    Inventor: Shyuh-Der Lin
  • Patent number: 4796056
    Abstract: A main body 1 of an electrophotographic copying machine has feed openings to which a plurality of cassettes 20 and 21 for containing paper of different sizes are attached. The sizes of paper and setting directions of paper are detected by microswitches 410 to 413 and 414 to 417. A document feeding unit 300 is placed on the main body 1 and while a document is fed to an exposure position by means of the document feeding unit 300, the size of the document is detected by a sensor 310. In an automatic paper selection mode, even if paper does not exist in a selected feed opening, it is determined whether paper suited to be used, taking into account the size of the document and the magnification, exists in any other feed openings. If it exists in any one of the feed openings, this opening is selected. If it does not exist in any of the feed openings, copy operation is forbidden and a microprocessor 201 of the main body 1 is programmed to display the forbidden state.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: March 6, 1987
    Date of Patent: January 3, 1989
    Assignee: Minolta Camera Kabushiki Kaisha
    Inventor: Masazumi Ito
  • Patent number: 4775874
    Abstract: A magnetic mechanism is provided for a non-mechanical printer or copier device comprising a conveying channel through which a developer mix including magnetic components contained therein flows, so that a plug of developer mix is generated via the magnetic mechanism for closing the conveying channel. The conveying channel contains a rotatable drum containing a magnetic strip and the drum is arranged in the conveying channel such that the one wall of the conveying channel forms a narrow retaining gap together with the drum and the other wall of the conveying channel forms a significantly broader conveying gap together with the drum.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: May 6, 1987
    Date of Patent: October 4, 1988
    Assignee: Siemens Aktiegesellschaft
    Inventor: Mehmet A. Buyukguclu
  • Patent number: 4774545
    Abstract: Cut paper electrophotographic printers with continuous paper feed mechanisms including a pickup roll, a photosensitive drum, a charging unit, an optical unit, a host controller, a developing unit, a transfer unit and fixing rolls. Further included are first and second branch passages for providing alternate feeding paths to continuously feed cut paper sheets to the photosensitive drum.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: May 26, 1987
    Date of Patent: September 27, 1988
    Assignee: Hitachi Koki Company, Limited
    Inventors: Yasuyuki Tsuji, Akira Terakado