according to_tags

Sound effects control system for musical instruments
2010-03-10
this problem has been addressed, in part, by the use of foot pedals which allow the guitarist to continue performing the musical piece without interruption while making adjustments in sound effects with the foot pedals. However, this arrangement has the disadvantage of requiring the musician to be tied to the particular location of the foot pedals, thus inhibiting a range of motion on the stage or other performing area. Other devices which have attempted to address this problem have not adequately met the needs of the musician by failing to provide an adequate range of sensitivity for adjustment. That is, such devices have not proven to be sufficiently sensitive in that they do not provide a fine range of adjustment in the volume and other sound effects which can be easily and accurately assessed by the artist.

Thus, there is a need for a device which allows a guitarist or other musician to dynamically control sound effects without interrupting play.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

The sound effects control system of the present invention solves the problems associated with prior devices by providing a tactile controller with enhanced sensitivity performance, thus giving the musician accurate and sensitive adjustment capabilities without interrupting play. The controller may be used with an electrical guitar or other musical instrument, and can be adjustably applied to the instrument according to the style and needs of the artist. The controller can be easily accessed by the artist, thus avoiding the need to remove his or her hands from the instrument in order to adjust the sound effects. The controller is preferably manually manipulated, but can also be operated by other parts of the body, such as the feet, etc., compressed by bodily manipulation, or even blown into by the mouth. Thus, a wide range of possible uses in applications of the control system of the present invention are possible.

The tactile controller of the present invention preferably interfaces with a control box which receives a control signal generated by the controller. The control box uses this control signal to process, in any suitable manner well within the abilities of one of ordinary skill in the art, the signal generated by the electrical guitar or other musical instrument. The control box thus produces a resultant output signal which is relayed, either by direct wire or a wireless mechanism, to a typical amplifier containing a speaker for musical output. Thus, the control signal generated by the tactile controller of the present invention can be used to modify the typical sound of an electrical guitar or other musical instrument to produce a wide variety of sound effects, such a volume variations, reverberations, tremolo, and the like. These variations in sound effects, and the switching from one effect to another, can be achieved without musical interruption.

In one embodiment, the controller of the present invention comprises a compressible tube having an inner lumen filled with suitable fluid, such as air, liquid, gel, etc. The tube fluid, when its static pressure is increased or decreased, provides a control signal which is relayed to the control box for modifying the output of the instrument. Thus, the tactile controller of the present invention, in t...

Assessment Tool For Storing and Sharing Music Therapy Patient Records
2010-03-04
audio recordings of sounds, speech and music, recordings of video, and photographs.

[0014]Any known scale of clinical evaluation can be used with the assessment tool. It is also expected that future scales can be adapted for use with the invention. Non-limiting examples of such scales that can be used with the invention include the Western Aphasia Battery and the Test of Adolescent/Adult Word Finding (both available from Pro-Ed, Austin Tex.).

[0015]The Western Aphasia Battery is a scale that identifies and measures the severity of aphasia syndromes in adolescents and adults. The scale evaluates a patient's responses for information content, fluency, auditory comprehension, repetition, and naming. The Western Aphasia Battery yields an Aphasia Quotient that can be used to categorize patients according to various aphasia taxonomic classifications and determine the degree of severity. Known characteristics of behavior and recovery can be associated with each classification.

[0016]The Test of Adolescent/Adult Word Finding is an individually administered scale that assesses an important expressive vocabulary skill: word finding. Therapists use this test to diagnose word-finding disorders quickly and reliably. The test has five core sections: Picture Naming: Nouns; Picture Naming: Verbs; Sentence Completion Naming; Description Naming; and Category Naming. Optionally, the test can be used with a special sixth comprehension section that allows the examiner to determine if errors are a result of word-finding problems or are due to poor comprehension. The test provides formal and informal analyses of two dimensions of word finding: speed and accuracy. The formal analysis yields standard scores, percentile ranks, and grade standards for item response time. The informal analysis yields secondary ...

Electronic musical instrument
2009-10-12
(7-8), and pitch processor (9);including pitch-processor system schematic diagrams of hardware arrangement and multi-bit structure for a pitch value (8a, 8b, respectively).

FIG. 5 is a sine-wave graph form showing normalized sine values-phase angle correlation utilized in connection with the FIG. 4/6 components.

FIGS. 10-14 show a TTL hardware-simplified embodiment, incorporating complex system approaches to enable hardware simplification consistent with performance values.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS

FIG. 1 shows in block diagram form, the apparatus of a preferred embodiment of the invention. Such apparatus comprises a the host processor 10 which handles input signals representing one or more selected parameters (such as notes being played)from a keyboard port 16, front panel port 18, and/or the musical instrument digital interface (MIDI) link 20, and creates a list of notes. The apparatus then processes these notes using information contained in an internal sound modelling ROM 12 (whichmay be supplemented by one or more external complementary ROM(s) 30 of the same type), to produce the list of partials required to produce the sounds requested by the player. These partials are then allocated from an available pool of 240. Amplitudeenvelopes are also produced by the host processor 10 according to the list of envelope segments also contained in ROM 22 (or 30). Durations for each segment are timed by an event timer module 24 and attack/decay rates are handled automatically by theengine 14, for the duration of each note. By judicious use of this automatic envelope generation feature, host processor 10 overhead can be minimized. At the end of the note, all partials are returned to the pool.

The host processor 10 directly controls three memory arrays. These are the program ROM 26, the sound modelling ROM 22, and scratchpad RAM 28 which provide for multiply, typically 7-8 basic voices (e.g., a grand piano, Rhodes, B3, and otherinstruments). The additional sound modelling ROM(s) 30 can be added in interchangeable modules, allowing additional voices for the instrument.

Scratchpad RAM 28 is divided up into two parts: a nonvolatile RAM (battery backup) for storing keyboard and panel setups, and a scratchpad RAM which may also have battery backup.

Resident ROM 26 typically comprises sixty four kbytes of stored data for sound modelling use, to support the installed voices, and thirty two K-bytes for program use. All peripherals are memory mapped.

Functionally, the operating software of the apparatus has five basic tasks to address. First, it must service requests for notes to be played, whether received from the keyboard 16 or the MIDI link 20. Secondly, it must assemble (from thecurrently selected sound model resident in the host processor's sound moddeling ROM) a list of partials and their associated amplitude envelopes necessary to create that note. Third, it must allocate these partials from the engine's 14 free pool of 240,diverting partials from other notes whose decays have nearly finished if need be. This is accomplished by writing the appropriate data in the partial descriptors maintained in the engine parameter store. Fourth, it must then maintain the envelopes forall current partials by updating the attack/decay values in real time, as required by the currently selected notes. It is aided in this task by the event timer 14, allowing it to set up an interrupt for the host processor 10 for some future time. Finally, it provides for self-test functions.

Data f...

Electronic musical instrument with semi-automatic playing function
2009-09-22
The sound data may be corrected according to sound correcting data before being used to generate musical tones.Claims

What is claimed is:

1. An electronic musical instrument comprising:

playing data generating means for production of playing data in response to an action on a playing controller;

musical piece data memory means for storing music...

20: The Younger Generation Enjoys The Rich Sound Of Vinyl On The New Audio Turntables
2009-08-29
as well, according to James Patterson, age 17, who doesn't even remember when they LPs were popular in the past. He found some old LPs up in the attic at his grandparents home by the Beatles and the Rolling Stones, then his uncle grabbed him a player on eBay and he know displays it in his room.

Replica turntable systems are available from various manufacturers. They look like the past machines but ha...