JP3139446B2 - Karaoke equipment - Google Patents

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a so-called karaoke apparatus, and more particularly to a karaoke apparatus suitable for a system for playing a karaoke accompaniment by driving a tone synthesizer as a sound source apparatus based on performance information.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art In recent years, accompaniment music excluding singing parts of singing songs such as popular songs has been used. Karaoke devices are widely used. In many karaoke apparatuses, the singing voice is mixed with karaoke through a microphone (hereinafter, referred to as a “microphone”) by adding a reverberation effect or the like, so that the singing can be enjoyed as being richer. For example, many karaoke apparatuses using an optical disk or the like display not only the replay performance of the accompaniment music, but also the display apparatus to display the lyric information and the appropriate video information. The karaoke apparatus used to enjoy such karaoke also has various types of accompaniment music sound sources, how to provide lyrics information, how to set an environment according to the music, etc., as the environment and conditions for enjoying karaoke diversify. Is also diversifying.

In recent years, a musical sound synthesizer used for electronic musical instruments, computer music, and the like, that is, a synthesizer is used as a sound source device, and such a sound source device is driven by performance information of accompaniment music, and the accompaniment music is reproduced. A karaoke apparatus of a type in which a display corresponding to the accompaniment music is displayed in characters by driving a display with the lyrics information together with the performance information is being developed. Unlike the conventional karaoke apparatus, the karaoke apparatus of this type has a relatively small data amount of information because the performance information is not audio information based on analog voice but information similar to a musical score (score). It is also easy to handle performance information transmission and copying.

[0004]

In the conventional karaoke apparatus which displays the lyrics in characters, the display color of the lyrics superimposed on the background image is changed so that the singer can easily sing the song in accordance with the accompaniment sound. Is gradually changed from left to right as the game progresses. For example, a technique disclosed in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No.
By appropriately embedding the color change instruction information of the lyrics in the middle of the performance information composed of data, the color change display of the lyrics synchronized with the main melody is performed.

However, in such a conventional system, there is a problem that the performance information itself must be recreated in order to change the display pattern of the lyrics. In particular, when the same accompaniment is used to display lyrics in various languages such as Japanese, Korean, and English, the lyrics display patterns are different for each language. In the conventional method,
Different performance information must be prepared for each language. Also, if control information for character display is mixed in the performance information, when generating the accompaniment music, processing for identifying the two and image display control are additionally required in addition to the performance control. However, there is also a problem that the processing by the music generating means becomes complicated.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION The present invention has been made in view of the above-mentioned circumstances, and has no effect on performance information and lyrics information. Performance control and display control are separated to facilitate karaoke processing. It is intended to provide a device.

[0007]

A karaoke apparatus according to the present invention includes first track information including performance information and time information defining its execution timing, and lyrics information and time information defining its display timing. Storage means for storing music data having second track information; and performance information sequentially read from the first track information of the music data stored in the storage means in accordance with time information contained therein, and the storage means Control means for sequentially reading the lyrics information from the second track information of the music data stored in the memory data independently of the performance information in accordance with the time information contained therein, and the performance read from the storage means. Accompaniment music generating means for generating accompaniment music for a singing song based on the information; and lyric information read from the storage means. A karaoke apparatus comprising: an image creating means for generating an image of a character string of a singing song; and a display device for displaying an image created by the image creating means. Information, coloring position information indicating a color changing position of the lyrics character string information, and coloring time information giving a coloring timing. The image creating means includes the lyrics character string information, the coloring position information, and the coloring time from the lyrics information. Lyric information analyzing means for discriminating information and controlling color change timing based on coloring position information according to coloring time information, and storing predetermined character font data, and based on lyrics character string information discriminated by the lyrics information analyzing means. A font generating means for generating a character font constituting the character string of the lyrics, and a character font generated by the character font generating means are designated. Character display means for displaying a displayed character font in a first predetermined color at a predetermined character display position, and one predetermined character in accordance with coloring position information given at a timing based on coloring time information from the lyrics information analyzing means for the displayed character font. Color control means for changing the color from the color to the second predetermined color.

In the karaoke apparatus according to the present invention, the lyric information provided together with the performance information alone includes the lyric character string information, the lyric display time information for providing a timing for displaying the lyric character string information, and the color of the lyric character string. It includes coloring position information indicating a changing position and coloring time information giving a coloring timing. Therefore, it is not necessary to recreate the performance information each time for a song having the same accompaniment music but a different lyrics display pattern, and only the lyrics information needs to be recreated. Further, according to the present invention, the lyric information analyzing means discriminates the lyric information from the lyric information and manages the lyric character string information and the coloring position information according to the lyric display time information and the coloring time information. The display of the lyrics and the control of the color change can be independently performed. This makes it possible to control the display of the lyrics in an arbitrary display pattern independent of the performance information by the way of setting the lyrics display time information, and to change the color of the character with the performance information by the way of setting the coloring time information. It is possible to control with an independent arbitrary color changing pattern. Further, according to the present invention, since the character string of the lyrics is generated from the character font generating means,
The information amount of music data including performance information and lyrics information can be reduced.

[0009]

Embodiments of the present invention will be described below with reference to the drawings. FIG. 1 schematically shows a configuration of a karaoke apparatus according to one embodiment of the present invention. In this embodiment, a trimming font is formed in real time from a normal character font, and a character string of lyrics is displayed on a display.

The karaoke apparatus shown in FIG. 1 has a CPU (central processing unit) 11, a ROM (read only memory) 12,
AM (read / write memory) 13, operation panel 14, tone synthesizer 15, microphone 16, mixer 17, speaker 1
8, a computer graphics device (hereinafter, referred to as an "image creation device") 19, and an optical disc reproducing device (hereinafter, referred to as "image creation device").
20, referred to as an “LD reproducing device”), an image synthesizing device 21,
Display device (CRT) 22, hard disk device (HDD) 23, CD-ROM playback device (CD-RO)
M) 24, a floppy disk drive (FDD) 25, and a modem 26. Here, a modem 26 is used as a network interface. The CPU 11, the ROM 12, the RAM 13, the operation panel 14, the tone synthesizer 15, the image creating device 19, the LD reproducing device 20, the hard disk device 23, the floppy disk device 25, and the modem 26 are connected to a common bus BL.

The CPU 11 controls and manages the operation of the entire karaoke apparatus. The ROM 12 stores an operation program including a performance control program and the like. The performance control program is a program for performing karaoke. The RAM 13 is a memory used when the CPU 11 controls and manages the operation of the karaoke apparatus. The operation program in the ROM 12 is loaded into the RAM 13 under the control of the CPU 11 when the power of the karaoke apparatus is turned on. The operation panel 14 includes various operation units including switches, knobs, and the like for operating the karaoke apparatus. The tone synthesizer 15 is a so-called music synthesizer that is driven by accompaniment performance information to generate a tone signal of accompaniment music, and includes a sound source unit such as a MIDI sound source and a control unit that controls the sound source unit.

The microphone 16 is used to input a voice of a singer who sings using the karaoke apparatus. The mixer 17 is connected to the output of the tone synthesizer 15 and the microphone 1.
6 and the output of FIG. An echo device or a reverb device for adding a reverberation component to the output of the microphone 16 is attached to the mixer 17 as necessary. The speaker 18 is driven by the output of the mixer 17 in which the accompaniment music from the musical sound synthesizer 15 and the sound from the microphone 16 are mixed, and emits accompaniment music and singing voice.

The image creating device 19 processes the character information such as lyrics supplied with the accompaniment performance information and the drawing information such as a still image and a moving image to generate an image signal for display. The process of converting the character string of the lyrics into a trimming character is also performed by the image creating device 19. The LD playback device 20 functions when playing a karaoke tune designated to use the video information recorded on the optical disk, and synchronizes with the accompaniment performance information by drawing information to synchronize a predetermined frame of a predetermined disk. , Or video information composed of a moving image starting from a predetermined frame. Therefore, the LD playback device 20
Preferably has an optical disc autochanger function. The image synthesizing device 21 includes the image creating device 19
And the output of the LD playback device 20 are combined to generate a combined video signal. The display device 22 displays the combined video signal combined by the image combining device 21.

The hard disk device 23 stores song data of the karaoke song including song title, singer name, release date, keyword, performance information, drawing information, bar line information, lyrics information and the like. In accordance with the music selection operation via the operation panel 14, the CPU 11 loads music data on the selected music to the RAM 13 by the CPU 11. Then, C
Sequentially read from the RAM 13 under the control of the PU 11,
The music data including the accompaniment music data and the lyric data is transmitted to the above-described musical sound synthesizing device 15 and the image creating device 19, and is used for karaoke performance. The CD-ROM playback device 24 is used to read music data from a CD-ROM, which is a music data recording medium, and download it to the hard disk device 23.

The floppy disk device 25 is provided for recording and reproducing music data. The floppy disk device 25 writes music data in the hard disk device 23 to a floppy disk and reads music data from the floppy disk. To the hard disk drive 23. This floppy disk is used for exchanging music data between devices. The modem 26 is connected to another device or a host system via a communication line, and is used for transmitting / receiving data such as music data or performance data via the communication line.

In the karaoke apparatus shown in FIG. 1, a CD-RO
While the music data is downloaded from the CD-ROM to the hard disk drive 23 by the M playback device 24,
The necessary optical disk is set in the LD playback device 20. The music data to be downloaded to the hard disk device 23 can be provided from a floppy disk by the floppy disk device 25 or provided from a communication line by the modem 26. When the power of the karaoke apparatus shown in FIG. 1 is turned on, the operation program written in the ROM 12 is loaded into the RAM 13 and the operation is started. By operating the operation panel 14, the CPU 1
1 operates in accordance with the operation program of the RAM 13 to execute various functions, for example, the above-mentioned function of playing music data. The above-mentioned download to the hard disk drive 23 is also executed under the control of the CPU 11 by operating the operation panel 14 while the power is on.

When a music piece is designated by operating the operation panel 14, music data of the designated music piece is read out from the hard disk device 23, loaded into the RAM 13, and
Karaoke performance is started according to the music data. At the time of performing a karaoke, musical sound information is sequentially generated in the musical sound synthesizer 15 in accordance with the music data, reproduced from the speaker 18 via the mixer 17, and also in accordance with the lyrics information included in the music data. The character image information of the character string of the lyrics is generated from the creating device 19 by a predetermined amount according to the progress of the music, and is displayed on the display device 22 via the image synthesizing device 21.

At this time, the character string of the lyrics is sequentially colored in another color in accordance with the progress of the singing according to the coloring position designation information in the lyrics information, and an instruction is given so that the singer can easily grasp the place to be sung. You. When a character string is generated based on the character information of the lyrics, the character string is sequentially changed to a trimming character. Further, in accordance with the drawing information included in the song data, image information is generated from the image creating device 19 in accordance with the progress of the song, is superimposed on the character image information of the lyrics, and is displayed on the display device via the image synthesizing device 21. 22
Will be displayed. In the case of a karaoke song using an optical disk, at the start of a performance, a predetermined optical disk is selected, and the designated portion of the optical disk is reproduced according to the drawing information in the song data, and is displayed on the display device 22 via the image synthesizing device 21. Is displayed. Therefore, the singer may sing while watching the display on the display device 22.

In this embodiment, the performance data, which is the main part of the music data of each music piece which is transferred from the hard disk device 23 to the RAM 13 in accordance with the selection of the music piece and which is sequentially read out and used for the performance, is constituted as follows. ing. As shown in FIG. 2, the performance data includes a plurality of tracks TK1, TK.
2, TK3... Are provided. First track TK1
Contains performance information, and the tone synthesizer 15 generates a tone signal of accompaniment music based on the performance information. The second track TK2 stores drawing information of an image created by the image creating device 19, drawing information for instructing the LD reproducing device 20 to read video data to be read from the optical disk, or both image information. I have.

The third track TK3 stores bar line information indicating the bar line number (bar line No.) of the accompaniment music. This bar line information is used when performing a special performance or the like, but may be omitted when the system does not particularly need it. The fourth track TK4 has an image creation device 19
To generate character image information of the lyrics and store the lyrics information for forming the display image signal. When the drawing information includes drawing information for causing the image forming device 19 to generate an image signal, the display image signal generated by the image forming device 19 includes the image signal based on the drawing information and the lyrics. Both the information and the character image information are included. The display image signal including at least the character image information of the lyrics generated by the image creating device 19 and the video signal read by the LD playback device 20 are combined into a combined video signal by the image combining device 21 and displayed on the display 22. .

These pieces of information are set for each event such as one sound and one image, and time information Δt indicating the elapsed time between adjacent events is inserted between adjacent events. For example, taking the performance information as an example, the first performance information is used to start a certain sound, and after the lapse of Δt, give the performance information to end the next sound. Perform the performance. Therefore, in FIG. 2, the performance information is shown as a series of information on the first track TK1, but more specifically, is constituted by performance information for each sound of each musical instrument. Also, information such as the tone color of each musical instrument is appropriately included. In this case, the time information Δt may be time information that changes at any time, but as shown in FIG. 2, the basic unit is Δt set in advance based on the minimum time unit of the performance, and the time of 2Δt is Δt = 2. It may be expressed by successive insertions.

The above-mentioned lyrics information has a data structure in which, as shown in detail in FIG. 3, a plurality of coloring position information CPs are interposed with time information ΔT between them, following the lyrics character string information WS. Have. The coloring position information CP is specified by a coordinate position on the display screen in relation to the character arrangement. In the lyrics character string information WS, for example, a character code indicating a character string of lyrics for one line displayed at a time is arranged.

[0023] Such a lyric character string information WS in lyric information displays the string of words, in order to generate a character font trimming from the normal character font, image generation apparatus 19, as shown in FIG. 4 In addition, a lyric information analysis unit 31, a font generation unit 32, a first display control unit 33, a second display control unit 34 for displaying a trimmed font of a lyric character string according to the lyric character string information WS, Arrangement unit 35
And a color control unit 36. Lyrics information analyzer 31
Is obtained from the lyrics information W shown in FIG.
S, coloring position information CP and time information ΔT
To manage the wearing color position information CP in accordance with the time information ΔT.

The font generation unit 32 stores character font data in advance, and generates a character font according to the character code of the lyrics character string information WS provided from the lyrics information analysis unit 31. First display control unit 33, in accordance with the lyric character string information W S given from lyric information analyzing unit 31 controls the character positioning unit 35, the character font to be generated from the font generating unit 32, for example, upper and lower Left and right diagonal 8
The color is deflected in the direction by, for example, one dot at a time, and the color control unit 36 is controlled to invert the display color, for example, to make it a complementary color, for example, which is clearly different from a predetermined character display color, and to perform multiplex display.

The second display control unit 34, in accordance with the lyric character string information W S given from lyric information analyzing unit 31 waits for the end of processing the first display control unit 33 described above, the character arrangement part 35 By controlling, the character font generated from the font generating unit 32 is arranged at a regular position, and the color control unit 36 is controlled to set the display color as the original, that is, the predetermined character display color, to the first character display color. The display control unit 33 superimposes and displays the multiplexed display image. The predetermined character display color is gradually changed from one predetermined color to another second predetermined color in accordance with the progress of the singing according to the coloring position information CP provided from the lyrics information analysis unit 31. .

The character placement unit 35 determines the position of the character font generated by the font generation unit 32 and displayed on the screen of the display 22 by the first and second display control units 33.
And 34 in accordance with the control. The color control unit 36
The display color of the character displayed on the screen of the display 22 is controlled by the first and second display control units 33 and 34, and the color position information C obtained by the lyrics information analysis unit 31 is used.
According to P, it changes sequentially according to the progress of the singing.

Next, the process of locating the character font for displaying lyrics in this embodiment will be described with reference to the flowchart shown in FIG. First, the font generator 32 in accordance with the lyric character string information W S obtained by lyric information analyzing unit 31, the character font data is read (step S
11). This character font data is, for example, one character,
A character string of one line, a character string of two lines, or the like is read in units of a predetermined amount of one or more characters, and is provided for processing. Then, the first display control unit 33 controls the color control unit 3.
6 is controlled to invert the display color of the character (step S12), and the first display control unit 33 controls the character arrangement unit 35, so that the character position is shifted in multiple directions and multiplexed and displayed ( Steps S13 to S20).

In step S13, the display character font is displayed shifted vertically by +1 dot. Step S1
4, the display character font is +1 dot vertically and +
It is displayed shifted by one dot. In step S15, the display character font is displayed shifted horizontally by +1 dot. In step S16, the display character font is
The display is shifted by one dot and +1 dot horizontally.

In step S17, the display character font is displayed shifted vertically by -1 dot. Step S1
8, the display character font is -1 dot vertically and-
It is displayed shifted by one dot. In step S19, the display character font is displayed shifted horizontally by -1 dot. In step S20, the display character font is
It is displayed shifted by one dot and -1 dot horizontally.

After the multiple display is performed in this manner,
The second display control unit 34 controls the color control unit 36 to return the display color of the character to the original color, and controls the character arrangement unit 35 to return the character position to the normal position.
Characters are displayed so as to be superimposed on the multiple display by the first display control unit 33 (step S21). For example, if the display characters are white and “up” as shown in FIG. 6, the characters displayed by the multiplex display by the first display control unit 33 are the original characters as shown in FIG. It is a black character with a thicker color and inverted color. Then, the second display control unit 3 is superimposed on the character as shown in FIG.
When a character having a predetermined display color is displayed at a regular position by the step 4, a character having a character portion with a frame portion of a different color is displayed as shown in FIG.

Instead of performing such processing one character at a time, for example, as shown in FIG. 9 (a), a character string “from when a night train departs from Ueno” is replaced with a character string font pattern As described above, after the character color is inverted and shifted in multiple directions by a small amount in multiple directions to be multiplexed and displayed, a character of a predetermined display color is displayed at a regular position by being superimposed on the color, as shown in FIG. ), The entire character string can be trimmed at once. As described above, a trimming font can be easily generated from a normal character font by simple processing without preparing a special character font for the trimming font.

It should be noted that the display color at the time of generating the trimming font only needs to be a color in which the original character portion and the trimming portion are different. For example, the trimming portion is set as the original display color, and the internal original character portion is set as the display color. A different display color may be used. Also, the number of characters when generating the border font may be appropriately set according to system conditions and the like. This trimming font generation method can be carried out in exactly the same manner even if the character font is not a dot pattern font but a so-called outline font based on an outline vector, and can be applied to character display other than the karaoke apparatus. .

[0033]

As described above, according to the present invention,
The lyrics information provided together with the performance information alone includes lyrics character string information, lyrics display time information giving timing for displaying the lyrics strings, coloring position information designating a color change position of the lyrics strings, and coloring information. Because it includes the coloring time information that gives the timing, even for songs that have the same accompaniment but different lyrics display patterns, there is no need to recreate the performance information each time, and only the lyrics information needs to be recreated.
Also, the lyrics information analysis means distinguishes the information from the lyrics information and manages the lyrics character string information and the coloring position information according to the lyrics display time information and the coloring time information. Change control is possible. This makes it possible to control the display of the lyrics in an arbitrary display pattern independent of the performance information by the way of setting the lyrics display time information, and to change the color of the character with the performance information by the way of setting the coloring time information. It is possible to control with an independent arbitrary color changing pattern.

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 is a block diagram schematically showing a configuration of an embodiment of a karaoke apparatus according to the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a diagram showing a data structure of performance data of music data in the embodiment of FIG. 1;

FIG. 3 is a diagram showing a data structure of lyrics information of performance data in the embodiment of FIG. 1;

FIG. 4 is a block diagram showing a detailed functional configuration of a part of the computer graphics device (image creating device) in the embodiment of FIG.

FIG. 5 is a flowchart illustrating a method of generating a border font in the embodiment of FIG. 1;

FIG. 6 is a schematic diagram for explaining a method of generating a border font in the embodiment of FIG. 1;

FIG. 7 is a schematic diagram for explaining a method of generating a border font in the embodiment of FIG. 1;

FIG. 8 is a schematic diagram for explaining a method of generating a border font in the embodiment of FIG. 1;

FIG. 9 is a schematic diagram for explaining another example of generation of a trimmed font in the embodiment of FIG. 1;

[Explanation of symbols]

11 CPU (central processing unit), 12 ROM (read only memory), 13 RAM (read / write memory),
14 operation panel, 15 musical tone synthesizer, 16 microphone, 17 mixer, 18 speaker, 19 computer graphic device (image creation device), 20 optical disk playback device (LD playback device), 21 image synthesis apparatus,
22: display device (CRT), 23: hard disk device (HDD), 24: CD-ROM playback device (C
D-ROM), 25: Floppy disk drive (FD)
D), 26 modem, 31 lyrics information analyzing unit, 32 font generating unit, 33 first display control unit, 34 second display control unit, 35 character arrangement unit, 36 color control unit.

Continuation of the front page (51) Int.Cl. ⁷ Identification code FI G11B 27/34 G11B 27/34 P H04N 5/278 H04N 5/278 G11B 27/34 P (56) References JP-A-3-290694 (JP) JP-A-4-76595 (JP, A) JP-A-4-1411691 (JP, A) JP-A-4-59687 (JP, U) JP-A-4-9972 (JP, U) JP, B2) Patent 2989206 (JP, B2) Patent 3085615 (JP, B2) Utility model registration 2584658 (JP, Y2) (58) Fields investigated (Int. Cl. ⁷ , DB name) G10K 15/04 302

Claims (1)

(57) [Claims] 1. Music data having first track information including performance information and time information defining its execution timing, and second track information including lyrics information and time information defining its display timing are stored. Means for sequentially reading performance information from the first track information of the music data stored in the storage means in accordance with time information included therein, and reading the second track information of the music data stored in the storage means. Control means for sequentially reading lyrics information independently of the performance information in accordance with the time information contained therein, and generating accompaniment music for a singing song based on the performance information read from the storage means. An accompaniment music generating unit, and an image for generating an image of a character string of a lyric of the song based on the lyric information read from the storage unit A karaoke apparatus comprising: a karaoke apparatus; and a display device for displaying an image created by the image creating means, wherein the lyric information indicates lyric character string information and a color change position of the lyric character string information. The image creating means includes: a coloring character string information, a coloring position information, and a coloring time information that are distinguished from the lyrics information and a color based on the coloring position information according to the coloring time information. Lyric information analysis means for controlling change timing, and font generation for storing predetermined character font data and generating a character font constituting a character string of lyrics based on the lyrics character string information discriminated by the lyrics information analysis means Means for displaying a character font generated by the character font generating means at a designated character display position in a first predetermined color. Character display means, and color control means for sequentially changing the displayed character font from one predetermined color to a second predetermined color in accordance with coloring position information given at a timing based on the coloring time information from the lyrics information analyzing means A karaoke apparatus characterized by comprising: