JP3259367B2 - 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 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]

By the way, the conventional karaoke apparatus basically approximates the arrangement (arrangement) of a commercially available and well-known CD (compact disk) or record (analog record). The accompaniment music is to be performed in a form of arrangement, and only the accompaniment music of a single fixed arrangement is played. However, the performance of the fixed accompaniment music that has not been changed as described above has little change, and the user may become tired of frequently singing karaoke. It is considered that such a problem of monotony increases as the karaoke apparatus becomes more popular.

[0005] Therefore, if the singer can change the arrangement of the accompaniment music as desired, he / she can enjoy karaoke more flexibly, and it is considered that this will contribute to the expansion of the karaoke user base. Performing by changing the accompaniment of singing songs is frequently performed by ordinary musicians in order to change the performance, and if such a change in performance is possible with a karaoke apparatus, the enjoyment of karaoke Should also increase. The present invention has been made in view of the above-described circumstances, and provides a karaoke apparatus that enables a variation in the performance of a karaoke song and that can perform a variety of performances according to a singer's intention. It is an object.

[0006]

A karaoke apparatus according to the present invention is performance data for generating a musical tone signal of accompaniment music composed of a plurality of performance parts, and includes a plurality of identifications of the plurality of performance parts. Storage means for storing performance data including a plurality of part data of different variations for each of the performance parts; variation selection means for selecting one of the plurality of part data for each specific performance part; One part data selected for each specific performance part by the selection means is selectively read out from the storage means, and a musical tone signal of accompaniment music is generated using the read out part data, and the variation selection is performed. Means for realizing the part data to be selected for each of the specific performance parts based on the selecting operation by the means. It is characterized by comprising in the tone generating means for generating a musical tone signal of the accompaniment music switch.

[0007]

In the karaoke apparatus according to the present invention, at least a part of the performance data of the accompaniment is supplied with performance information including a plurality of performance patterns for the same performance part, and the plurality of performance patterns are switched and selected. By generating musical information of accompaniment music using performance data of a desired performance pattern from among a plurality of types of performance patterns for the same part, variations in the performance of karaoke songs are possible, and This makes it possible to perform a variety of performances.

[0008]

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, when the variation switch attached to the microphone is operated, the performance pattern is switched and selected in accordance with the operation of the variation switch at a place where a plurality of types of performance patterns are prepared in advance, and the performance form of the karaoke song is changed. I am trying to change it.

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,
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, a modem 26 and a variation switch 27. Here, a modem 26 is used as a network interface. CPU11, ROM1
2, RAM 13, operation panel 14, musical sound synthesizer 15,
The image creation device 19, the LD playback device 20, the hard disk device 23, the floppy disk device 25, the modem 26, and the variation switch 27 are connected to a common bus BL.

[0010] 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 karaoke performance, and in this case, includes a program for variation switching operation. The RAM 13 is controlled by the CPU 11
This is a memory used when controlling and managing the operation of the karaoke apparatus. The operation program in the ROM 12 is
When the power of the karaoke apparatus is turned on, it is loaded into the RAM 13 under the control of the CPU 11. 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 which is driven by accompaniment performance information to generate a tone signal of accompaniment music, for example, a MIDI (Musica).
l Instrument Digital Interface) A sound source unit such as a sound source and a control unit for controlling the sound source unit are provided. The microphone 16 is used to input a voice of a singer who sings using the karaoke apparatus. The mixer 17 mixes the output of the tone synthesizer 15 and the output of the microphone 16. 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. LD
The playback device 20 functions when playing a karaoke tune designated to use the video information recorded on the optical disk. Video information including a still image or a moving image starting from a predetermined frame is reproduced.
For this reason, it is desirable that the LD reproducing device 20 has an autochanger function of the optical disk. The image synthesizing device 21 includes the output of the image creating device 19 and the LD reproducing device 20.
To generate a composite video signal. The display device 22 displays the combined video signal combined by the image combining device 21.

The hard disk drive 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 this case, the performance data in the music data includes
At least in part, for one or more specific parts, a normal performance pattern and one or more variation performance patterns different from the performance pattern are included. According to the music selection operation via the operation panel 14, the CP
By U11, the music data of the selected music is loaded into the RAM 13. Thereafter, under the control of the CPU 11, the music data including the accompaniment music data and the lyric data is sequentially read out from the RAM 13 to the above-mentioned 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.

The variation switch 27 is a switch for instructing selection of a variation of a karaoke performance. In order to enable the singer to easily operate the singer while singing, for example, as shown in FIG. It is provided on 16 grip portions. The variation switch 27 is, for example, as shown in FIG.
Power switch 16a so that it is not mistakenly operated or unintentionally erroneously operated with the power switch 16a.
The microphone 16 is provided with a plurality of push button switches provided at the base end of the microphone 16 remote from the microphone 16. By selectively operating these switches, variations can be easily selected.

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 tone information is sequentially generated in the musical tone synthesizer 15 in accordance with the musical piece data, reproduced from the speaker 18 via the mixer 17, and the lyric information and the bar lines also included in the musical piece data. In accordance with the information, the character image information of the lyrics is generated from the image creating device 19 in accordance with the progress of the music, for example, in measures, and displayed on the display device 22 via the image synthesizing device 21.

At this time, the character image information of the lyrics is sequentially colored in another color in accordance with the progress of the singing by the coloring information in the song data through the image creating device 19, and the singer can easily find the place to sing. You will be instructed to understand.
Further, according to 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 is 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 a 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 is the display device 2
What is necessary is just to sing to the microphone 16 while watching the display of 2.
The variation performance operation in this embodiment is performed as follows. In this case, 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 music selection and sequentially read out and used for the music, has the following configuration. As shown in FIG. 3, a plurality of tracks TK1, TK2, T
K3... Are provided. Performance information is stored in the first track TK1. The performance information is data for driving the tone synthesizer 15 to generate a tone signal of accompaniment music. The second track TK2 stores at least one of drawing information for causing the image creating device 19 to generate an image signal and drawing information for instructing the LD reproducing device 20 of video data to be read from the optical disk. In the third track TK3, bar line information indicating the bar line number (bar line No.) of the accompaniment music is stored. The fourth track TK4 stores lyrics information for causing the image creating device 19 to generate character image information of lyrics and forming a display image signal.

When the drawing information includes drawing information for generating an image signal by the image forming apparatus 19, the display image signal generated by the image forming apparatus 19 includes an image based on the drawing information. Both a signal and character image information based on lyric information are included. The fifth track TK5 has a display 22 based on the lyrics information.
And coloring information for coloring the character image information of the lyrics displayed in. 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 performance information as an example, a predetermined performance is performed by giving performance information for starting a certain sound with the first performance information and terminating the next sound after a lapse of Δt. FIG.
Although the performance information is shown as a series of information on the first track TK1, the performance information is composed of 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 as needed, but as shown in FIG. 3, the basic unit is Δt set in advance based on the minimum time unit of performance, and the time of 2Δt is Δt = 2. It may be expressed by successive insertions. In this case, as shown in FIG. 4, the performance information includes the guitar part G1 in addition to the normal performance part data including the piano part P1, the guitar part G1, the bass part B1, the drum part D1, and the like.
A guitar part G2 different from the guitar part G1, a bass part B2 corresponding to the bass part B1, a drum part D2 also corresponding to the drum part D1, and a bass part B3 different from the bass parts B1 and B2, etc. Each part data of the variation consisting of Each of these part data forms a different data track, for example. Guitar, bass and drums parts with variation parts are first, second and third, respectively.
A desired part is alternatively selected by the pointers PT1, PT2, and PT3 of FIG. The first, second, and third pointers PT1, PT2, and PT3 are operated by the variation switch 27 via the CPU 11, and selectively designate variations to be used for performance.

For example, when the variation switch 27 is operated and the first pointer PT1 is switched while each part of a normal performance is being played, for example,
The guitar playing part is switched from the guitar part G1 to the guitar part G2, and the guitar playing part is changed to a variation part. Similarly, the variation switch 27 is operated, and for example, the second pointer PT2
Is switched, the bass performance part is switched from the bass part B1 to the bass part B2 or B3, the bass performance part is changed to a variation part, and when the third pointer PT3 is switched, the drums performance part is switched. The drum part D1 is switched to the drum part D2, and the performance part of the drums is changed to a variation part.

Further, during the performance of a variation part, for example, the guitar part G2, the first pointer PT1 is switched by operating the variation switch 27, for example, so that the performance part of the guitar is returned to the guitar part G1 of the normal performance. it can. Therefore, in order to facilitate selection of a variation by the variation switch 27, the configuration of the variation may be systematized, and the variation switch 27 may be configured by a number of switches according to the system, or one switch operation may be performed. The guitar part may be switched from G1 to G2, the bass part may be switched from B1 to B2, and the plurality of parts may be switched to a variation pattern. Each of the above-mentioned parts does not necessarily have to constitute an independent track, and it is sufficient if the data has a data structure that can be used selectively.

As described above, during the singing operation, the performance part can be arbitrarily selected and switched by operating the variation switch 27, so that the user can enjoy a varied karaoke performance. The variation switch 27 may be configured by a single switch, and the pointer of the variation and each part data may be distinguished by the number of times of operation. Further, as shown in FIG. 5, an angle detector 31 which is attached to the joint of the arm and detects the bending angle of the arm is used for selecting a variation, and at least one of the bending angle of the arm and the number of bending operations is used. The pointer of the variation and each part data may be switched. Alternatively, as shown in FIG. 6, a glove 42 provided with an acceleration sensor 41 at the tip of each finger.
May be used to select a variation, and by detecting the movement of the finger, the pointer of the variation and each part data may be distinguished. Alternatively, a configuration may be adopted in which a part is selected based on the angle detected by the angle detection and determined by the variation switch 27 of the microphone.

Further, based on image information obtained by photographing the singer using the camera, a specific operation such as the movement of the singer's hand is detected by image processing technology, and a pointer of the variation and each part data are accordingly detected. May be distinguished. Alternatively, a variation part may be prepared not for the entire song but for only a part of the song, and the variation may be selected only for that portion. In this case, the presence of the variation may be displayed in some form together with the lyrics information in the portion where the variation is prepared.

[0026]

As described above, according to the present invention,
Supplying performance information including a plurality of different performance patterns for the same performance part to at least a part of the performance data of the accompaniment music, switching and selecting the plurality of types of performance patterns,
By generating musical information of accompaniment music using performance data of a desired performance pattern for a plurality of types of performance patterns for the same part, variations in the performance of karaoke songs are possible, and the It is possible to provide a karaoke apparatus capable of performing a sharp performance.

[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 side view schematically showing a configuration of a microphone provided with a variation switch in the embodiment of FIG.

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

4 is a diagram showing a data structure of each part of a normal performance part and a variation part of performance data in the embodiment of FIG. 1;

FIG. 5 is a schematic diagram for explaining an angle detector that can be used for variation selection according to the present invention.

FIG. 6 is a schematic diagram for explaining an acceleration sensor that can be used for selecting a variation according to the present invention.

[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, 27 ... Variation switch,
31: angle detector, 41: acceleration sensor, 42: gloves.

Continuation of the front page (58) Field surveyed (Int.Cl. ⁷ , DB name) G09B 15/00 G10H 1/00 G10H 1/18 G10K 15/04

Claims (1)

(57) [Claims] 1. Performance data for generating a musical tone signal of accompaniment music composed of a plurality of performance parts, wherein a plurality of part data of different variations are provided for each of a plurality of specific performance parts among the plurality of performance parts. Storage means for storing performance data including the following: one of a plurality of part data for each specific performance part
A variation selecting means for selecting one part data, and one part data selected for each specific performance part by the variation selecting means is selectively read from the storage means, and each of the read part data is used. Music generation means for generating a musical sound signal of the accompaniment music and generating a musical sound signal of the accompaniment music by switching in real time the part data to be selected for each of the specific performance parts based on the selection operation by the variation selecting means. A karaoke apparatus comprising: