Patents by Inventor Kotaro Mizuno

Kotaro Mizuno 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: 5179240
    Abstract: An electronic musical instrument provides a keyboard providing plural keys, memories for storing necessary programs and data, a musical tone signal generating circuit providing plural channels and a control unit such as a micro computer. A melody tone is designated by depressing a melody key within the keyboard. Then, an additional tone is automatically generated in relation to the melody tone by executing the programs, wherein its pitch, volume and tone color are controlled by the control unit. The melody tone and additional tone are assigned to desirable channels, from which the melody tone and additional tone are generated at different phonic positions. By varying the number of forming pattern of additional tones, it is possible to carry out the performance full of variety. Preferably, the additional tone is selected identical to a chord constituent note within a chord designated by performing the keyboard.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: December 22, 1989
    Date of Patent: January 12, 1993
    Assignee: Yamaha Corporation
    Inventors: Kotaro Mizuno, Fumio Iwase
  • Patent number: 5160799
    Abstract: There is provided an electronic musical instrument capable of sounding plural musical tones, e.g., first and second musical tones, having different tone colors, to each of which the performer can impart a different pitch-bend-effect independently. As a means for imparting the pitch-bend-effect, there is provided a wheel-type control. In addition, this system also provides first and second modes. In the first mode, different variation widths of pitch-bend-effects are respectively imparted to the first and second musical tones on the basis of the control input given by operating the wheel-type control. In the second mode, the same variation width of pitch-bend-effect is imparted to the first and second musical tones on the basis of the control input given by operating the wheel-type control.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: January 16, 1992
    Date of Patent: November 3, 1992
    Assignee: Yamaha Corporation
    Inventors: Akira Tozuka, Yasushi Kurakake, Kotaro Mizuno
  • Patent number: 5142960
    Abstract: An electronic musical instrument is provided with tone color specifying switch, musical style specifying switch and device for deciding the joint of melody tones based on the tone color and musical style specified by these switches. A new-timing melody tone is decided to be jointed with a preceding timing melody tone, based on the specified tone color and musical style, in the state of melody tone joint, for example legato state or nonlegato state, during the preceding timing melody tone is being generated.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: June 14, 1990
    Date of Patent: September 1, 1992
    Assignee: Yamaha Corporation
    Inventors: Fumio Iwase, Kotaro Mizuno
  • Patent number: 5070756
    Abstract: An electronic musical instrument having a key-depression-detecting circuit for detecting a depressed key on a keyboard and for generating tone-pitch data corresponding to the depressed key, a tone-color-designating circuit for sequentially designating a desired tone color among a plurality of tone colors, a tone-color-data-storing circuit for storing tone-color data associated with the tone colors sequentially designated by the tone-color-designating circuit, an ensemble-tone-designating circuit for designating a predetermined number of tone colors among the most recently designated tone-color data stored in the tone-color-data-storing circuit; and a musical-tone-signal-generating circuit for generating a plurality of musical-tone signals in a parallel fashion, each of the musical-tone signals having a tone color corresponding to one of the tone colors designated by the ensemble-tone-designating circuit, and having a tone-pitch corresponding to the tone-pitch data generated by the key-depression-detecting cir
    Type: Grant
    Filed: December 21, 1989
    Date of Patent: December 10, 1991
    Assignee: Yamaha Corporation
    Inventors: Yasunao Abe, Shoji Tokunaga, Kotaro Mizuno
  • Patent number: 5048390
    Abstract: A tone visualizing apparatus for visualizing an inputted audio signal to thereby display an image corresponding to this audio signal includes at least a detector, image display (such as a CRT display unit) and display controller. The detector detects characteristics of the audio signal such as envelope, chord, spectrum signal components, number of zero-cross points and energy of the audio signal. The image display displays an image based on given image information which can be generated from a video tape recorder (VTR), a video disk unit or an image memory constituted by a semiconductor memory. The display controller controls the image display so that a display parameter of the image will be controlled based on the detected characteristics of the audio signal. For example, the display parameter can be set as size, brightness or colors of the image. Thus, the image is controlled so that the impression of the image will be matched with that of the audio tone.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: September 1, 1988
    Date of Patent: September 17, 1991
    Assignee: Yamaha Corporation
    Inventors: Takeshi Adachi, Yasushi Kurakake, Hideo Suzuki, Kotaro Mizuno
  • Patent number: 5005459
    Abstract: A musical tone visualizing apparatus includes at least an image memory for storing plural images relating to players and/or musical instruments of an orchestra, a display unit for displaying the images on a display screen thereof and a display control circuit for controlling the display unit so that displayed images can be varied in response to an inputted musical tone signal or inputted performance information outputted from an electronic musical instrument, for example. Hence, it is possible to move the players and musical instruments in response to performance of the electronic musical instrument, and it is also possible to selectively enlarge one display image of the player and musical instrument whose tone volume is the largest. Thus, the displayed images can be automatically varied in response to the performance of the electronic musical instrument.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: June 22, 1990
    Date of Patent: April 9, 1991
    Assignee: Yamaha Corporation
    Inventors: Takeshi Adachi, Kotaro Mizuno, Shigeru Yamada, Hideo Suzuki, Mamoru Kimpara
  • Patent number: 4961363
    Abstract: An electronic musical instrument can be provided with a control unit capable of arbitrarily shifting a tone pitch of a key within a keyboard from its reference tone pitch. This control unit includes a plurality of pitch-bend switches to which predetermined pitch values are respectively assigned. Each of these pitch-bend switches has a shape which can be easily operated by a player with high speed. The tone pitch of each key can be incremented or decremented by the predetermined pitch value from its reference tone pitch when the switches are operated by the player.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: March 8, 1989
    Date of Patent: October 9, 1990
    Assignee: Yamaha Corporation
    Inventors: Kotaro Mizuno, Yasuhiko Asahi
  • Patent number: 4920849
    Abstract: An automatic performance apparatus which records a performance state in the form of performance data in a storage means, and plays back a performance based on the performance data read out from the storage means In a record mode, a chord detection means discriminates whether or not a chord has been established. If a chord has been established, then chord information is written in memory. If a chord has not been established, then tone information including key-on information or a note portion of key-on information, excluding octave information, is written in memory. The automatic performance apparatus enables the use of a storage means having a greatly reduced storage capacity as compared to a prior art one, and pitch or note information designated at a keyboard or the like are recorded/played back as performance data without modification.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: January 5, 1989
    Date of Patent: May 1, 1990
    Assignee: Yamaha Corporation
    Inventor: Kotaro Mizuno
  • Patent number: 4905561
    Abstract: A new automatic accompaniment apparatus for sequentially reading out at a predetermined tempo accompaniment pattern information, including interval shift information, stored in a pattern memory and then generating tones of a designated chord, designated by a chord designatin means such as a keyboard, based on the accompaniment pattern information, thereby performing an accompaniment performance. The new automatic accompaniment apparatus, when the interval shift information is read out, will play a chord which is constituted by shifting intervals of part or all of the constituting tones of the designated chord in place of the designated chord, thus enabling an accompaniment performance rich in variety to be played as compared with a conventional apparatus having a memory capacity equivalent to that of the present accompaniment apparatus.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: January 5, 1989
    Date of Patent: March 6, 1990
    Assignee: Yamaha Corporation
    Inventor: Kotaro Mizuno
  • Patent number: 4587878
    Abstract: An automatic performing apparatus for use in an electronic musical instrument stores chord name data and chord generation timing data to carry out an automatic chord performance. In spite of frequent variations of a chord during the progression of a music piece, repetitive storage of a same chord name data is not required so that the amount of stored data can be reduced, allowing utilization of a memory of a small capacity.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: July 6, 1984
    Date of Patent: May 13, 1986
    Assignee: Nippon Gakki Seizo Kabushiki Kaisha
    Inventors: Akira Nakada, Takatoshi Okumura, Kotaro Mizuno
  • Patent number: 4466324
    Abstract: An automatic performing apparatus of an electronic musical instrument arranged to produce musical tones in response to musical performance data read out of an external storage such as a musical sheet. The external storage stores the musical performance data and control data to control generation mode of musical tone signals to be produced. In the apparatus, musical performance data and control data are stored in separate memories. In order for a player to change the generation mode of musical tone signals intentionally, a plurality of panel switches are associated with a control data memory so that the control data for tone generation mode can be rewritten by operation of any one of panel switches.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: November 24, 1981
    Date of Patent: August 21, 1984
    Assignee: Nippon Gakki Seizo Kabushiki Kaisha
    Inventors: Eisaku Okamoto, Kotaro Mizuno
  • Patent number: 4387620
    Abstract: In an automatic performing apparatus in which musical performance data are sequentially read out of a memory at time intervals corresponding to the durations of musical notes to thereby execute an automatic performance, a repeatedly played part is stored as subroutine data in the memory, together with main routine data, thereby to store much data in the memory having a limited capacity. The main routine data contains instruction data for calling the subroutine data and the subroutine data contains instruction data for the return to the main routine data. In response to a signal from a subroutine control circuit, the count of an address counter for designating an address in the memory jumps to an address of the subroutine data when the subroutine calling instruction data is read out, and jumps back to an address of the main routine data when the instruction data for the return to the main routine is read out.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: November 13, 1981
    Date of Patent: June 14, 1983
    Assignee: Nippon Gakki Seizo Kabushiki Kaisha
    Inventors: Eisaku Okamoto, Kotaro Mizuno