JP6730665B2 - headphone - Google Patents

Description

The present invention relates to headphones that are used by being connected to an electronic musical instrument or the like.

There is a musical instrument that can output music to only a small number of people, including the performer, with headphones, without emitting music to the space. Typically, there are electronic pianos and electronic keyboards, and electric guitars and electric basses can be used in such a manner by going from the line out to the headphone amplifier. Further, the applicant provides an acoustic musical instrument (Silent Series (trademark): hereinafter, silent musical instrument) that enables to listen to a musical sound through headphones.

On the other hand, there are users who feel uncomfortable with the musical sound heard when using the above musical instrument, for example, an electronic piano with headphones. The main reason for this is that the musical sound heard from the headphones is localized in the head, and the sense of localization is significantly different from the case where the musical sound is output from the speaker installed in the instrument housing.

A technique has been proposed in which the in-head localization of headphones is canceled and the sound image is localized arbitrarily (for example, Patent Document 1). By using this technique, an appropriate head related transfer function can be given to the sound source to arbitrarily control the auditory localization position of the sound source. Further, when a change in the user's posture (head movement) occurs, the relative position between the user's ear and the position at which the sound source should be localized fluctuates. It is known that the sense of localization can be maintained by changing the function every moment (see Non-Patent Document 1). Therefore, it is considered that excellent out-of-head localization can be performed by combining the head-related transfer function processing headphones capable of tracking the head movement with the silent musical instrument.

JP, 08-009489, A

September 2015, Proceedings of Autumn Meeting of Acoustical Society of Japan, pp. 691-692 "Development of 3D auditory display with real-time convolution function of reflected sound and head rotation tracking function"

However, many types of electronic musical instruments and silent musical instruments are sold, but the position and the number of channels for localizing the sound image of a musical sound are different for each musical instrument. The user (performer) may not always be able to properly set the localization position that differs for each musical instrument. Therefore, even if headphones having an out-of-head localization function are used, it may not be possible to properly localize the musical sound.

An object of the present invention is to provide a headphone that can obtain a good sound image localization feeling according to a connected musical instrument.

The present invention is a headphone that receives a musical sound of a silent musical instrument or the like and outputs the musical sound from a speaker provided in the ear part, and detects the posture (ear position) of a user who is a musical instrument player. Section and the sounding positions of a plurality of musical instruments to the user are stored, and the sounding positions of the respective musical instruments are fixed so that they do not move regardless of changes in the posture of the user, or are driven to follow the changes in the posture of the user. And a selection unit for reading out from the storage unit information about the pronunciation position of the musical instrument to which the musical sound is input and the driven or fixed information from the storage unit, and if the pronunciation position of the musical instrument is fixed, the user's basic The sound position of the musical instrument is determined based on the posture and the pronunciation position of the user read by the selection unit, and the transfer function is determined based on the posture of the user detected by the posture detection unit and the sound position of the musical instrument previously determined. and, by using this transfer function is localized tone output from the speaker, if the sound producing position of the instrument is driven to determine a transfer function based on the sound producing position to the user read by the selection unit, the A localization processing unit that localizes a musical sound output from the speaker using a transfer function .
In the above invention, the posture of the user detected by the posture detection unit when the input of the musical tone of the musical instrument is started may be the basic posture of the user. Further, the basic posture of the user may be reset when a certain period of time elapses after the musical tone of the musical instrument is not input.

The storage unit may store the pronunciation position (model-specific pronunciation position) associated with the identification information (eg, model number) representing the model of the musical instrument, and also associated with the type of instrument (eg, general name of instrument). The generated sounding position (general-purpose sounding position) may be stored. Furthermore, the identification information of the musical instrument to which the musical sound is input or the type of the musical instrument is acquired, and based on the obtained identification information or the type of the musical instrument, the pronunciation position for the user and the driven or fixed information are read from the storage unit. May be.

The storage unit may be a storage element built in the headphones, or may include an external database connected by communication.

A user interface capable of arbitrarily inputting or adjusting the sound generation position set in the localization processing unit may be provided.

According to the present invention, it is possible to store the characteristic of the change in the sounding position of the musical instrument with respect to the change in the posture of the player for each musical instrument, and perform the localization control of the musical sound according to the musical instrument to be played.

It is a figure which shows the structure and connection form of the headphones which are embodiment of this invention. It is a figure which shows the performance form by the user of various musical instruments. It is a figure which shows the example of the pronunciation position information table provided in memory. It is a flow chart which shows processing operation of headphones. It is a flow chart which shows processing operation of headphones.

A headphone according to an embodiment of the present invention will be described with reference to the drawings. FIG. 1 is a diagram showing a configuration and a connection form of headphones 1. FIG. 2 is a diagram showing playing modes of various musical instruments 2.

The headphone 1 is in the shape of a general headband-type binaural headphone, and is equipped with earpieces 23L and 23R that are worn so as to cover the left and right ears of the user P, and these earpieces 23L. It has a headband 24 for connecting 23R. A motion sensor 21 for detecting the posture of the user P wearing the headphones 1 is provided near the apex of the headband 24.

The motion sensor 21 is a 9-axis gyro sensor, and can detect movement of the head of the user P up and down, front and back, left and right, tilt, and rotation, respectively. The orientation information 41 detected by the motion sensor 41 is input to the localization processing unit 11. In this embodiment, the posture of the head of the user P, that is, the position, inclination, and rotation angle of the head are referred to as the posture of the user P. It should be noted that the posture of the head preferably includes all information about the position, inclination, and rotation angle of the head, but it does not need to include it, and may include at least information about the rotation angle. Therefore, the motion sensor 21 does not necessarily have to be a 9-axis sensor, and may be any sensor that can detect at least the horizontal rotation angle of the head.

The headphones 1 are mainly used in musical instruments 2 (mainly electronic musical instruments and silent musical instruments). The headphone 1 inputs the musical sound generated by the musical instrument 2, performs localization processing using the head-related transfer function for the musical sound, and emits the sound from the binaural speakers 22 (22L, 22R). Here, the silent musical instrument is a musical instrument having an acoustic sounding function, but the generated musical sound (natural sound or physical vibration) is electrically picked up and the musical sound is muted, and the picked up musical sound (electronic signal ) Is amplified and output from the headphones 1. Examples of silent musical instruments include a silent piano (trademark), a silent violin (trademark), and a silent brass (trademark) that is a mute attached to a general brass musical instrument. Note that silent brass is the name of mute, but in the following description, a brass instrument to which this mute (silent brass) is attached is called a silent brass.

When the headphones 1 are connected to the musical instrument 2, the musical sound is not emitted directly to the outside but is output exclusively from the headphone terminal 2A to the headphones 1. The headphones 1 perform localization processing of the input musical sound as if it came from the normal sounding position G of the musical instrument 2, and emit the sound from the speaker 22 to the user P (the player of the musical instrument 2). The above-mentioned "normal sound generation position G" is a position at which a musical sound is emitted when the headphones 1 are not connected. In the following description, the "normal sound generation position G" is simply referred to as the "sound generation position G".

In the musical instrument as described above, the sounding position G is the position of the speaker provided in the musical instrument housing in the case of an electronic musical instrument such as an electronic piano. In the case of a silent piano, the position of each string is the sounding position G, as in a general piano. In the case of silent brass, the sounding position G is the position of the musical instrument bell (the position where the mute is connected). The electric guitar is also a silent musical instrument in a broad sense, and in the case of the electric guitar, the guitar amplifier 231 installed behind the user P becomes the sound generation position G.

The input unit 31 of the headphone 1 has a connector such as a stereo mini plug. The input unit 31 is connected to the headphone terminal 2A of the electronic musical instrument 2. The musical sound input via the input unit 31 is input to the localization processing unit 11. The localization processing unit 11 is composed of, for example, a DSP. When the user P wears the headphones 1 and plays the musical instrument 2, the localization processing unit 11 localizes the musical sound to the user P so that the musical sound comes from the sound generation position G. The left and right two-channel musical tones processed by the localization processing unit 11 are amplified by the amplifier 30 (30L, 30R), and are output to both the user P from the speakers 22 (22L, 22R) provided in the left and right earing units 23L, 23R. Sound is emitted toward the ears. Although FIG. 1 illustrates that only the speaker 22 is housed inside the earpiece 23, in the case of implementation, all components of the headphones 1 are inside the earpiece 23 or the headband 24. It is preferable to be configured to be accommodated in the.

The sound generation position G is a position where a musical sound is generated from the musical instrument 2 when the user P is playing the musical instrument 2 in a normal posture, and is specified by the direction and distance from the headphones 1 worn by the user P. It Although the direction and distance from the headphones 1 to the actual musical instrument 2 are slightly different for each user P depending on the physique and the habit of the playing posture, the standard physique and the standard playing posture are defined for all the users P. You can use the value. Further, the sound generation position G of each individual user P may be measured and used.

As shown in FIG. 2, the sounding position G differs depending on the musical instrument 2, and therefore sounding position information for each musical instrument is stored in the memory 33 and the server 5. The user P may select the sounding position information 40 of the musical instrument (played by the user P) connected to the headphones 1 and set it in the localization processing unit 11.

The localization processing unit 11 has an FIR filter. A coefficient based on the head related transfer function is set in the FIR filter. The head-related transfer function is a transfer function that represents a change in frequency characteristics until sound propagates in the vicinity of the head of the user P and reaches the ear of the user P, and the FIR filter includes a Fourier transform of the head-related transfer function. Then, the one expanded in the time domain (head impulse response) is set as the filter coefficient. The localization processing unit 11 stores the filter coefficient (head impulse response) for each predetermined angle, and sets the filter coefficient in the arrival direction of the musical sound in the FIR filter to perform the localization processing of the musical sound. When the arrival direction of the musical sound is not an angle that matches any of the filter coefficients, the filter coefficient of the closest angle may be used, and two or more adjacent filter coefficients are interpolated to match the arrival direction. The filter coefficient may be calculated. It should be noted that the FIR filters are provided by "the number of sound generation positions G (the number of channels) x 2 (both ears)".

In FIG. 2, FIG. 2A shows the case where the musical instrument 2 is the electronic piano 200. In the case of the electronic piano 200, the sound generation position G is the two speakers 201L and 201R on the left and right sides of the keyboard. The electronic piano 200 distributes the level of inputting the tone signal to the left and right speakers 201L and 201R according to the pitch of the left and right speakers 201L and 201R, thereby giving a feeling of expanse like a tone of a piano. FIG. 2B shows a case where the musical instrument 2 is a silent piano 210. The silent piano 210 is generally played by using the headphones 1. However, regardless of whether the headphones 1 are connected or not, a natural musical sound with a small volume is produced by the performance. The natural musical sound is the sound of the string 211 vibrating in the body of the piano reflected by the top plate 212 and heard by the player. Therefore, the sound generation position G in the silent piano is a wide range near the center of the top plate 212.

In the case of a stationary instrument such as the electronic piano 200 or the silent piano 210, the user P sits in front of it and plays, and even if the user P changes the posture or face direction during the performance, the instrument does not follow it, and the same position is maintained. Stay in. The mode of this sounding position G is called "fixed". In the case of the fixed sound generation position G, if the user P changes the posture during the performance, the relative position of the sound generation position G with respect to the user P changes.

FIG. 2C shows the case where the musical instrument 2 is a silent brass (trumpet in this figure) 220. As described above, the silent brass 220 is a bell of an acoustic brass instrument with a dedicated mute inserted. The sound generation position G is a bell position in all the sound range, and the musical instrument 220 is held by the user P. Therefore, even if the posture of the user P changes, the sound generation position G and the user P (both ears) are changed. The positional relationship does not change. The mode of this sounding position G is called "following".

2D shows the case where the musical instrument 2 is the electric guitar 230. In the case of the electric guitar 230, almost no musical sound is heard from the musical instrument itself, and the musical sound is emitted from the separately installed guitar amplifier 231. Therefore, the position of the guitar amplifier 231 becomes the sound output position G. The guitar amplifier 231 is “fixed” because it stays in the same position even when the user P moves.

FIG. 3 is a diagram showing sounding position information stored in the sounding position information table of the memory 33. It is arbitrary how much sound generation position information is stored in the memory 33, but in this figure, five sound generation position information are stored. The sounding position information includes musical instrument identification information, sounding position coordinates, the number of channels, and fixed/following information.

The identification information includes a model number or a general instrument name. The model number is information for individually identifying the model of the musical instrument 2. For example, even with the same electronic piano, the position of the speaker may differ depending on the model. Therefore, by providing sounding position information (model-specific sounding position information) for each model (model number), it is possible to localize a musical sound at a sounding position that is suitable for the model. The memory 33 shown in the figure stores five sounding position information, but the server 5 connected to the Internet 4 stores sounding position information of a large number of models, and the user P can use these as necessary. Can be downloaded. The pronunciation position information may be downloaded using a multifunction telephone (smartphone) 3 connected to the headphones 1 via BLUETOOTH (registered trademark).

Further, the sounding position information identified by the general-purpose instrument name (general-purpose sounding position information) is the sounding position information applied to the musical instrument 2 that is not registered in the model number (for example, old model). This sound generation position information has sound generation position coordinates and the number of channels which are considered to be general for the musical instrument. This general-purpose sounding position information is also selected when the headphones 1 are used offline and the model-specific sounding position information cannot be acquired from the server 5.

The sound generation position coordinates are coordinate values of the sound generation position when the center of the headphones 1, that is, the center of the head of the user P is the origin. When there are a plurality of sound generation positions (channels), the number of sound generation position coordinates is stored. In the case of a silent piano, the sound generation position G is at the center of the top plate, but since it is desired to have a wide sense of localization, the filter coefficient is adjusted so that localization is not strongly applied.

In the case of an electric guitar, as shown in FIG. 2D, the sound generation position G is the position of the guitar amplifier 231. In the case of an electric guitar, the installation position of the standard guitar amplifier 231 may be stored as the sounding position coordinate, and the user P may set the sounding position coordinate according to his/her preference. May be. When the user P is set, the headphones 1 may be held at a position where the guitar amplifier 231 is installed (a position where the guitar amplifier 231 is supposed to be installed) and a predetermined operation may be performed. After that, when the user P returns to the playing position and wears the headphones 1, since the motion sensor 21 of the headphones 1 traces the movement, the movement vector can be used as the sound generation position coordinates. Alternatively, the smartphone 3 connected via the BLUETOOTH communication unit 32 may activate an application for designating the position of the guitar amplifier 231, and the smartphone 3 may designate the position of the guitar amplifier 231.

In FIG. 1, the localization processing section 11 is supplied with sounding position information 40 corresponding to the connected musical instrument 2 via the selecting section 34. The memory 33 and the BLUETOOTH communication unit 32 described above are connected to the selection unit 34. When the musical instrument 2 to be connected is designated, the selection unit 34 first searches the memory 33 for sounding position information corresponding to the musical instrument 2. If the pronunciation position information is not stored in the memory 33, the corresponding pronunciation position information is acquired from the server 5 via the BLUETOOTH communication unit 32, the multifunctional telephone (smartphone) 3, and the Internet 4. The sound generation position information acquired from the server 5 is supplied to the localization processing unit 11 and stored in the memory 33. When the storage area of the memory 33 is full, old information may be overwritten and stored.

The connected musical instrument 2 may be selected by a user operation by providing a user interface in the headphones 1 (selection unit 34 ), but some information issued from the connected musical instrument 2 using BLE or the like. (Signal) may be received and selected based on this information. In addition, the smartphone 3 connected via the BLUETOOTH communication unit 32 may activate the musical instrument selection application and select the musical instrument 2 to be connected from the smartphone 3.

The processing operation of the headphones 1 will be described with reference to the flowcharts of FIGS. 4 and 5. FIG. 4 is a flowchart showing the operation when the musical instrument 2 is selected. The musical instrument 2 to be connected is selected in S10. When the musical instrument 2 is selected, it is determined whether the musical instrument 2 is the electric guitar 230 (S11). If it is the electric guitar 230 (YES in S11), the input of the position of the guitar amplifier 231 is accepted (S12), and the input position is set in the localization processing unit 11 as sound generation position coordinates (S17). At this time, the number of channels and fixed/driven information are also set at the same time.

When the selected musical instrument 2 is other than the electric guitar 230 (NO in S11), the memory 33 is searched using the model number or general name of the selected musical instrument 2 (S13). If the corresponding sounding position information is stored in the memory 33 (YES in S14), the sounding position information is read from the memory 33 and set in the localization processing unit 11 (S17). On the other hand, when the pronunciation position information is not stored in the memory 33 (NO in S14), the BLUETOOTH communication unit 32 acquires the corresponding pronunciation position information from the server 5 (S15). The acquired pronunciation position information is stored in the memory 33 (S16), and this pronunciation position information is set in the localization processing section 11 (S17).

After the sound generation position information 40 is set in the localization processing unit 11, it is determined whether the sound generation position is fixed or driven (S20). In the case of being driven, the filter coefficient of the path reaching the ears of the user P from the sound generation position coordinates is fixedly set in the FIR filter (S22), and the processing of the input musical tone signal is started. On the other hand, when the sounding position of the musical instrument 2 is fixed, the relative position between the sounding position G and the user P changes due to the change in the posture of the user P, so the posture control process shown in FIG. 5 is executed ( S21).

In this flowchart, the user is allowed to set the sounding position coordinates only for the electric guitar 230, but the user may be allowed to set the sounding position coordinates for other musical instruments. Further, in some or all of the musical instruments, the user's adjustment of the sound generation position coordinates set in the localization processing unit 11 may be permitted. For example, in the case of the electric guitar 230, the installation location (sound generation position G) of a general guitar amplifier 231 may be preset, and the preset position may be moved by the user P according to his or her preference.

FIG. 5 is a flowchart showing the attitude control process. In this posture control process, the posture of the user P at the start of the performance is set as a basic posture, and the sounding position coordinates are applied with this posture as the origin to determine the sounding position G. Then, when the posture of the user P changes during the performance thereafter, the relative position between the user P (headphones 1) and the sound generation position G changes, and therefore the filter coefficient corresponding to the change in the relative position is sequentially localized by the localization processing unit 11 Set to. The tone generation position G is set with the performance starting when the first tone is input, and this tone generation position G is maintained while the tone is input. Then, when a predetermined time (for example, 5 seconds) elapses in the state where no musical sound is input, the sounding position G is canceled because the performance is paused. When the input of the musical sound is started again, the processing is started from the setting of the tone generation position G.

In S31, the performance is started, that is, it waits until the first musical tone is input. When the performance is started (YES in S31), the head position of the user P detected by the motion sensor 21 of the headphones 1 at that time is set as the origin and a position separated by the sounding position coordinates is set as the sounding position G (S32). .. Then, the filter coefficient of the path reaching from the sounding position G to both ears of the user P is set in the FIR filter (S33), and the localization processing of the input musical sound is started (S34).

After that, while the musical sound is input (YES in S35), the timer for determining the pause of the performance is reset (S36), and the posture of the user P is detected based on the detection value of the motion sensor 21 (S37). Then, based on this posture, the relative position between the head of the user P and the sounding position G set in S32 is calculated, and the filter coefficient corresponding to this relative position is set in the FIR filter (S38).

On the other hand, when no musical sound is input (NO in S35), the timer is counted up (S40) and it is determined whether the time is up (for example, 5 seconds) (S41). The routine waits in the routine of S35-S40-S41 until the time is up (S41), and when a musical sound is input, the process proceeds from S35 to S36. When the time is up without inputting any musical sound (YES in S41), the control is stopped because the performance is paused (S42), and the process waits in S31 until the performance is restarted.

With the above configuration and processing, even when the user P plays the musical instrument 2 using the headphones 1, from the normal sounding position G, that is, in the case of the electronic piano 200, from the positions of the speakers 201L and R, the silent piano is performed. In the case of 210, the musical sound can be heard from a wide range near the center of the top plate 212.

In addition, since the pronunciation position information is prepared for each model, optimal localization control for each model is possible. On the other hand, since general-purpose sounding position information is also prepared, even a musical instrument having no sounding position information for each model can localize a musical sound to a general (non-inconvenient) sounding position G.

In addition to the musical sound localization processing, processing such as sound quality matching the connected musical instrument 2 may be added. For example, when the connected musical instrument 2 is the electric guitar 230, the distortion of the guitar amplifier 231 may be reproduced by headphone reproduction. In the case of an instrument in which a musical sound is subjected to a special stereo localization correction process, the musical sound may be reprocessed for optimum re-stereo conversion. In addition, when the musical sound output from the headphone terminal 2A is equalized in accordance with the headphones attached to the musical instrument 2, optimum re-timing correction may be performed in accordance with the headphone 1.

Further, the sounding position information may be provided with the characteristic information of the musical instrument 2 or the recording information of the sound source. For example, monaural/stereo/binaural stereo/downmix stereo. The localization processing unit 11 may simulate appropriate sound source processing and characteristics of the audio amplifier of the musical instrument 2 in addition to localization based on the provided information.

1 Headphones 2 Musical instrument 21 Motion sensor G Sound generation position

Claims (7)

A headphone which receives a musical sound of a musical instrument and outputs the musical sound from a speaker provided in an ear part,
A posture detection unit that detects the posture of the user who is the player of the musical instrument;
The pronunciation positions of a plurality of musical instruments with respect to the user are stored, and the pronunciation positions of each musical instrument are fixed so that they do not move regardless of changes in the posture of the user, or they are driven to follow the changes in the posture of the user. A storage unit that stores
From the storage unit, a pronunciation position of the musical instrument to which the musical sound is input to the user, and a selection unit that reads the driven or fixed information,
If pronunciation position of the instrument is fixed, basic posture of the user, and to determine the pronunciation position of the instrument on the basis of the sound producing position with respect to the user which is read by the selection unit, detected by the orientation detection unit A transfer function is determined based on the determined user's posture and the determined sounding position of the musical instrument, and the musical sound output from the speaker is localized using the transfer function ,
When the sounding position of the musical instrument is driven, a transfer function is determined based on the sounding position read out by the selection unit for the user, and localization is performed to localize the musical sound output from the speaker using the transfer function. A processing unit,
Headphones equipped with. The headphones according to claim 1, wherein the posture of the user detected by the posture detection unit when the input of the musical sound of the musical instrument is started is the basic posture of the user. The headphones according to claim 2, wherein the basic posture of the user is reset when a certain period of time elapses after the musical sound of the musical instrument is not input. The storage unit stores a pronunciation position for the user in association with identification information indicating a model of the musical instrument ,
The selection unit acquires identification information of an instrument to which the musical sound is input, and based on the identification information, a sounding position of the musical instrument to which the musical sound is input to the user, and the driven or The headphones according to claim 1, wherein fixed information is read out . The storage unit stores a pronunciation position for the user in association with the type of the musical instrument ,
The selection unit obtains a type of an instrument to which the musical sound is input, and based on the type of the musical instrument, a sound generation position of the musical instrument to which the musical sound is input from the storage unit, and the driven or The headphones according to claim 1, wherein fixed information is read out . The headphones according to any one of claims 1 to 5 , wherein the storage unit includes an external database connected by communication. Headphones according to any one of the pronunciation position of the instrument to be set to the localization processing unit, according to claim 1 to claim 6 comprising a user interface that can be entered or adjusted arbitrarily.

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