JPH04246692A - Electronic xylophone - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To offer an electronic xylophone which provides an interest continuously since various timbre can be generated and is suitable for a nighttime practice since the sound volume is controllable as to the electronic xylophone which generates an electronic sound by beating. CONSTITUTION:This electronic xylophone consists of a sound plate part 10 having pressure sensing elements 161-16n which turn on and off according to applied pressure, a memory 11 stored with waveform data on musical sounds to be generated, a control part 12 which reads the musical sound waveform data out of the memory 11 and generates sounds when the sound plate part 10 is pressed to turn on the pressure sensing elements 161-16n, and a console panel 13 which alters the sounds generated by the control part 12.

Description

[Detailed description of the invention]

0001

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to an electronic xylophone that generates electronic sounds when struck, and more particularly to an electronic xylophone that allows changes in tone color, volume, etc.

[0002] In recent years, the digitization of musical instruments has progressed, and electronic pianos,
Electronic keyboard instruments such as electronic organs have been developed and put into practical use.

[0003] However, electronically controlled keyboard instruments have a wide variety of functions and are complicated to operate, making them difficult for children, for example, to play musical instruments for the first time. Ta.

[0004]Therefore, there is a need for a musical instrument that is easy to play even for those who are playing musical instruments for the first time, and that can generate a wide variety of tones and control the volume to maintain interest.

[0005]

2. Description of the Related Art Conventionally, an acoustic xylophone has been known as one of the percussion instruments.

[0006] As is well known, such a xylophone is made by arranging hard pieces of wood on a stand, creating a scale by the length and thickness of the pieces, and hitting or rubbing them with a wooden stick (mallet) with a ball attached to the tip. It has become.

FIG. 4 is an external view of such a conventional xylophone viewed from above. In the figure, 50 is a xylophone main body, and this main body 50 includes a plurality of (5 in the illustrated example)
Tone plates 511 to 515 made of pieces of wood are arranged to form a predetermined scale. These sound plates 511 to 515
These are the parts that the performer hits with, for example, a mallet, and when these tone plates 511 to 515 are hit, sound is generated.

However, such conventional acoustic xylophones can only generate one type of tone, and have the disadvantage of being monotonous and easily boring.

[0009] Furthermore, since it is played by hitting it with a mallet, it generates a loud sound, making it unsuitable for nighttime practice.

0010

[Problems to be Solved by the Invention] This invention addresses the disadvantages of conventional acoustic xylophones, as described above, that they can only generate one type of tone and are monotonous and easily boring, and that they are played by hitting them with a mallet. This was done to eliminate the disadvantage that it generates a loud sound and is not suitable for night practice etc. It can generate a variety of tones, so it can sustain interest, and the volume can be controlled, so it is suitable for night practice. The purpose is to provide an electronic xylophone suitable for practicing.

[0011]

[Means for Solving the Problems] In order to achieve the above object, the electronic xylophone of the present invention includes a sound plate section 10 having pressure-sensitive elements 161 to 16n that turn on or off according to applied pressure, A storage means 11 for storing exponent musical sound waveform information, and a sound generator for reading out musical sound waveform information from the storage means 11 and producing sound when the tone plate section 10 is pressurized and the pressure sensitive elements 161 to 16n are turned on. Means 1
2, and a changing means 13 for changing the sound generated by the sound generating means 12.

0012

[Operation] According to the present invention, when the tone plate section 10 is pressurized by, for example, tapping, the pressure sensitive elements 161 to 16n are turned on, and when this fact is transmitted to the sounding means 12, the sounding means 12 is turned on. 12 reads musical sound waveform information from the storage means 11 and produces sound. In this case, by using the changing means 13 to change the musical waveform information to be read from the storage means 11, it is possible to generate sounds with different tones, for example. Furthermore, by controlling the sounding means 12 using the changing means 13, the volume can be changed, for example.

[0013]

DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS FIG. 1 is an external view of an embodiment of an electronic xylophone according to the present invention, viewed from above. In the figure, 14 is a xylophone main body, and in this main body 14, tone plates 101 to 10n made of a plurality of (n in the illustrated example) pieces of wood are arranged to form a predetermined scale, and the tone plate part 10 is arranged. It is formed.

Each tone plate 101 to 10n has a pressure sensitive element 1
61 to 16n and rubber stretched thereon. And the pressure sensitive elements 161 to 16n
A signal from the control unit 12 is supplied to a control unit 12, which will be described later.

Here, the pressure sensitive elements 161 to 16n are as follows:
When pressed, a voltage corresponding to the pressing force is generated. The voltage signals generated from the pressure sensitive elements 161 to 16n are sliced at a predetermined slice level and used as an on or off signal.

In such a configuration, each tone plate 101 to 1
When the rubber portion 0n is hit with a mallet, a voltage is generated in the pressure sensitive elements 161 to 16n, and the voltage is transmitted to the control section 12. As a result, which tone plate 101
It is now possible to detect whether ~10n has been hit.

Note that since the surface of each tone plate 101 to 10n is covered with rubber, the tone plates 101 to 10n
Even if you hit it with a mallet, no sound will be emitted from the tone plate itself. Therefore, the material constituting the tone plates 101 to 10n does not need to be a high-quality piece of wood that produces clear sound, and may be made of an inexpensive material such as plastic, for example. Further, the number of tone plates is an arbitrary number n depending on the required range of sound.

Further, a part of the main body 14 is provided with an operation panel 13 as a changing means and a speaker 26.

The operation panel 13 is provided with a volume switch 17 for turning on the power and adjusting the volume, and a tone selection switch 18 for selecting a tone. For example, when the volume switch is positioned at the lowest position in the figure, the power is turned off, and when moved upward, the power is turned on and the volume increases. Furthermore, the tone color switch 18 allows the player to select one of a plurality of tone colors.

The speaker 26 generates sound and is provided on the top surface of the main body 14. This allows the performer to hear the music even when playing at a low volume.

FIG. 2 is a schematic block diagram showing the overall configuration of an embodiment of the electronic xylophone according to the present invention.

In the figure, reference numeral 10 denotes the above-mentioned tone plate section, and pressure sensitive elements 161 corresponding to each tone plate 101 to 10n are provided.
~16n is provided. These pressure sensitive elements 161
The outputs of ˜16n are supplied to the switching circuit 20.

The control section 12 as a sounding means includes a switching circuit 20, an A/D converter 21, a sound source system 22, a D/A converter 24, an amplifier 25, a speaker 26, and a storage means 1.
1 and a memory 11.

The switching circuit 20 includes pressure sensitive elements 161 to 16
n output signals are selected according to the control signal SG1 from the CPU of the sound source system 22 and are output in a time-division manner. The pressure sensitive element 1 is time-divided by this switching circuit 20.
The outputs of 61 to 16n are supplied to the A/D converter 21.

The A/D converter 21 converts the input analog signal from the switching circuit 20 into a digital signal and outputs the digital signal. The output of this A/D converter 21 is supplied to a sound source system 22.

The sound source system 22 includes a CPU (Central Processing Unit), and not only generates digital musical tone signals to be generated, but also controls the entire electronic xylophone device. For example, the CPU receives signals from the pressure sensitive elements 161 to 16n that are selected by the switching circuit 20 according to the control signal SG1, digitized by the A/D converter 21, and input in a time-sharing manner, and combines the signals with the above-mentioned time Software processing such as matching with division is performed to determine whether the tone plate was struck or not.
Determine which tone plate was struck. Then, depending on the result of this determination, sound generation processing and muting processing are performed.

[0027] The sound source system 22 also has an operation panel 1.
3, it is determined which switch has changed, and tone color change processing, volume change processing, etc. are performed based on the result of the determination. The digital musical tone signal output from this sound source system 22 is supplied to a D/A converter 24.

The memory 11 is composed of a ROM (read-only memory) and a RAM (writable/readable memory). The ROM of the memory 11 stores programs for operating the CPU included in the tone generator system 22, tone waveform data corresponding to tones, and other various fixed data.

Furthermore, the RAM of the memory 11 is
It is used to temporarily store musical tone data, device status information, or as a work area for the CPU.

The D/A converter 24 converts the input digital musical tone signal into an analog musical tone signal. The analog musical tone signal converted by this D/A converter 24 is
The signal is supplied to an amplifier 25.

The amplifier 25 amplifies the input analog musical tone signal with a predetermined gain. This amplifier 25
The output is supplied to a speaker 26.

The speaker 26 converts an input analog musical tone signal as an electric signal into an acoustic signal. This speaker 26 is designed to produce electronically synthesized xylophone sounds.

Next, the operation of the above configuration will be explained with reference to the flowchart shown in FIG. 3, focusing mainly on the sound generation/mute processing.

When the power is turned on by the volume switch 17, the CPU of the sound source system 22 first executes initial processing (not shown). This initial processing is processing for initializing data such as tone color and volume. Thereby, when the tone plates 101 to 10n are struck, a predetermined tone is emitted at a predetermined volume.

[0035] When the above initial processing is completed, first,
Operator scanning processing is performed (step S10). That is, the control signal SG1 from the sound source system 22 is transmitted to the switching circuit 20.
The switching circuit 20 sequentially switches and selects the output of each pressure sensitive element 161 to 16n, and
/D converter 21 to the sound source system 22. This captured data is temporarily stored in RAM within the memory 11.

Next, it is checked whether the data acquired in the operator scanning process is an on-event of the tone plates 101 to 10n (step S11). This is done by comparing the data taken in by the previous operator scanning process and the data acquired by the current operator scanning process.

[0037] When it is determined that it is an on-event, a sound generation process is performed (step S12). That is, the sound source system 22 reads the musical sound waveform data stored in the ROM of the memory 11, performs predetermined processing such as adding an envelope, and outputs it as digital musical sound data. This digital musical tone data is converted into analog musical tone data by a D/A converter 24, and then is converted to analog musical tone data by an amplifier 25.
A predetermined amplification is performed at , and the xylophone sound is emitted from the speaker 26. When this sound generation process is completed, the process returns to step S10 and the same process is repeated again.

Further, if it is determined in step S11 that the event is not an on event, it is checked whether or not it is an off event (step S13). This is also done by comparing the data taken in by the previous manipulator scanning process and the data taken in by the current manipulator scanning process. Then, when it is determined that it is an off event, a muting process is performed (step S14). In other words, the sound source system 22 stops outputting the musical tone data currently being output due to the sound generation process performed in step S12. As a result, the xylophone sound being output from the speaker 26 is muted. When this muting process is completed, the process returns to step S10 and the same process is repeated again. This makes it possible to perform according to the player's handling of the mallets.

If it is determined in step S13 that it is not an off event, the process returns to step S10 to repeat the same process as above.

In the above explanation of the operation, only the sound generation or mute processing has been explained, but substantially the same processing is performed for events of the switches 17 and 18 on the operation panel 13.

That is, it is checked from the data taken in by the operator scanning process whether or not there is an on event of the volume switch 17 of the operation panel 13, and if there is an on event, the volume change process is performed. It is also checked whether there is an on event of the tone color selection switch 18, and if there is an on event, tone color change processing is performed. By incorporating such a processing routine into the loop shown in FIG. 3, the volume and tone can be changed arbitrarily from the operation panel 13.

As described above, according to this embodiment, the tone plate section 1
When each of the sound plates 101 to 10n of 0 is pressurized by, for example, hitting, the pressure sensitive elements 161 to 16n are turned on, and when this is transmitted to the control unit 12, the control unit 12 Tone waveform data is read out from the memory 11 and produced. In this case, by changing the musical waveform data to be read from the memory 11 using the operation panel 13, it is possible to generate various sounds with different tones, for example. Therefore, you can maintain your interest and never get bored. Furthermore, by controlling the control unit 12 using the operation panel 13, the volume can be changed, for example. This makes it possible to play at any volume, allowing you to practice even at night, for example.

Note that in the above embodiment, the pressure sensitive element 161
16n was used as an on/off switch by slicing the voltage signal from the pressure sensitive elements 161 to 16n at a predetermined slice level, but the voltage value generated according to the pressing force (hitting force) By using this as an envelope and adding it to the generated musical tone signal, it is possible to generate a musical tone whose strength corresponds to the pressing force (strike force).

[0044]

[Effects of the Invention] As described in detail above, the present invention provides an electronic xylophone that can generate various tones to maintain interest and is suitable for night practice as the volume can be controlled. be able to.

[Brief explanation of the drawing]

FIG. 1 is an external view of the configuration of an embodiment of the present invention viewed from above.

FIG. 2 is a block diagram showing the overall configuration of an electric circuit according to an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 3 is a flowchart showing the operation of the block diagram shown in FIG. 2;

FIG. 4 is a diagram for explaining an example of a conventional electronic xylophone.

[Explanation of symbols]

10 Tone plate part 101 ~ 10n tone plate 11 Storage means (memory) 12 Sound generation means (control unit) 13. Changing means (operation panel) 14 Main body 161 ~ 16n pressure sensitive element 17 Volume switch 18 Tone selection switch 20 Switching circuit 21 A/D converter 22 Sound source system 24 D/A converter 25 Amplifier 26 Speaker

Claims (1)

[Claims] Claim 1: A tone plate section (161 to 16n) having pressure sensitive elements (161 to 16n) that turn on or off according to applied pressure.
10), a storage means (11) for storing musical sound waveform information to be generated, and a storage means (11) for storing musical sound waveform information to be generated; An electronic xylophone characterized by comprising a sounding means (12) for reading musical sound waveform information from the means (11) and producing sound, and a changing means (13) for changing the sound generated by the sounding means (12). .