JPH0627952A - Electronic musical instrument - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To expand the range of actual sound generation to both the high-frequency and low-frequency ranges and to enable a musical performance with a wider range by providing a control means which shifts the respective keys on the low frequency side from a division point to the low-frequency side by a specific pitch and the respective keys on the high frequency side to the high frequency side by a specific pitch. CONSTITUTION:When the expansion of the range is indicated on a keyboard device 10, a CPU 11 shifts the respective keys on the low frequency side from the predetermined division point to the low frequency side by, for example, one octave and also shifts the respective keys on the high frequency side from the division point to the high frequency side by one octave, and a sound is generated. Consequently, free key areas of one octave are formed before and after the division point, but the range is expanded to the low frequency side and high frequency side each by one octave, i.e., two octaves in total. Further, such a player's request that a lower sound is used for a base part and high frequency sounds are used for a chord and a melody part at the time of a performance of solo music can be complied with.

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to an electronic musical instrument, and more particularly to a technique for generating a musical tone having a wide range with a small number of keys.

In recent years, electronic musical instruments equipped with keyboard devices such as electronic pianos, electronic organs, electronic keyboards, etc. have been developed and have become widespread.

The number of keys of the keyboard device of such an electronic musical instrument differs depending on its scale and purpose of use. For example, an electronic musical instrument called an electronic mini piano, which is created for the purpose of accustoming infants to musical instruments, often has a key for about three octaves.

However, even with such an electronic musical instrument having a small number of keys, it is desired that a musical tone having a wider range can be generated.

[0005]

2. Description of the Related Art Conventionally, in electronic musical instruments, a function called "octave shift" has been known as a means for extending a sounding range. This function is a function to move the pitch of the entire keyboard up or down one octave by operating a predetermined operator. With this function, the range can be expanded within one octave.

However, although the octave shift function can extend to either the treble range or the low range, it has a drawback that the range can be extended only within one octave at the same time.

Although not intended to extend the sounding range, it is possible to extend the sounding range by using the transpose function. The transpose function is a function that shifts the pitch to be pronounced in semitone steps by a predetermined pitch, thereby reducing the frequency of playing the black key and enabling playing mainly on the white key.

The transpose function is originally a function for facilitating playing, and as a result, only the sound range is expanded. Therefore, the transpose function is used for the purpose of expanding the sound range. It is not possible.

By the way, in a solo piece by a keyboard instrument, there is a tendency to use a lower tone as a bass part and a higher tone as a chord and a melody part. Therefore,
There is a demand to expand the range to both the low tone side and the high tone side. However, since the conventional octave shift function simply shifts one octave to the high tone side or the low tone side, it cannot meet the above request and cannot be said to be sufficient as a range expanding function.

In a simple electronic musical instrument such as the above-mentioned electronic mini piano, it is necessary to reduce the number of operators to simplify the operation and to reduce the cost by reducing the operators as much as possible.

[0011]

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION The present invention has been made in view of the above circumstances, and extends the range of sounds actually produced to both the low tone side and the high tone side even if the number of keys of the keyboard device is small. It is an object of the present invention to provide an electronic musical instrument which is inexpensive and has excellent operability, which enables performance in a wider range and reduces the number of special operators for instructing expansion of the sound range.

[0012]

In order to achieve the above object, an electronic musical instrument according to the first aspect of the invention has an instruction means for instructing that a range should be expanded, and an instruction by the instruction means. , Between two consecutive keys of the keyboard device as a division point, each key on the bass side of the division point is shifted to the bass side by a predetermined pitch, and each key on the treble side of the division point is moved by a predetermined pitch. And a control means for shifting to the high tone side.

For the same purpose, an electronic musical instrument according to a second aspect of the invention is characterized in that a plurality of specific keys of a keyboard device are used as the indicating means according to the first aspect.

[0014]

According to the invention of claim 1, when the instruction means indicates that the range should be expanded, each key on the low tone side from the predetermined division point is shifted to, for example, one octave low tone side, and Similarly, for each key on the treble side of the above division point, 1
The octave is shifted to the treble side so that it is pronounced.

As a result, each one octave before and after the division point becomes an empty key range, but one octave is expanded to the low tone side and the high tone side, that is, a total tone range of 2 octaves is extended. Moreover, when a solo piece is played, it is possible to meet the demand of a player who wants to use a lower tone as a bass part and a higher tone as a chord and a melody part.

The invention described in claim 2 uses a plurality of specific keys of the keyboard device as the indicating means in the invention described in claim 1.

Thus, it is not necessary to provide a special operator for instructing that the sound range should be expanded. Therefore, the range expansion function can be realized at low cost and the operation is simple. .

[0018]

Embodiments of the present invention will now be described in detail with reference to the drawings.

FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing a schematic configuration of an electronic musical instrument according to the present invention. In the figure, 10 is a keyboard device. The keyboard device 10 is used to instruct the pitch of a musical tone when performing a normal performance (hereinafter, referred to as "normal performance mode").

The keyboard device 10 is also used as an instructing means for instructing a transition to a mode for performing a performance in octave shift (hereinafter referred to as "octave shift mode") which is directly related to the features of the present invention (details). Will be described later).

In the following description, the keyboard device 10 has three note names C1 to C4 as shown in FIGS. 5 and 6, for example.
It shall consist of 7 keys (3 octaves + 1 note).
The number of keys of the keyboard device 10 used in the present invention is not limited to the above-mentioned 37 keys and may be any number of keys.

A signal from the keyboard device 10 indicating the on / off state of each key is a 37-bit bit string corresponding to each key, and a bus under the control of a central processing unit (hereinafter referred to as "CPU") 11. The data is stored in a random access memory (hereinafter, referred to as “RAM”) 13 via 20.

The CPU 11 controls the entire electronic musical instrument according to a control program stored in a read-only memory (hereinafter referred to as "ROM") 12. The octave shift control according to the present invention is also based on this C
It is realized by the processing of the PU 11 (details will be described later). The CPU 11 is configured to access each component via the bus 20.

The ROM 12 stores not only the control program for controlling the CPU 11 described above, but also waveform data of musical tones to be generated, tone color data, and various other fixed data. The contents stored in the ROM 12 are stored in the CPU 1
1 is accessed via the bus 20.

The RAM 13 temporarily stores various data necessary for executing the control program, and defines areas such as a data buffer, a register, and a flag. The octave shift flag used in this embodiment is also defined in the RAM 13.

In the figure, 14 is a tone generation circuit,
The digital tone signal is generated according to the tone information indicating the pitch and volume sent from the CPU 11 via the bus 20. The digital tone signal generated by the tone generator 14 is supplied to the D / A converter 15.

The D / A converter 15 is a well-known one which converts an input digital signal into an analog signal and outputs it. The tone signal converted into an analog signal by the D / A converter 15 is supplied to the amplifier 16.

The amplifier 16 is a well-known amplifier which amplifies the input analog tone signal by a predetermined amplification factor and outputs it. The analog tone signal that has been amplified by the amplifier 16 is supplied to the speaker 17.

The speaker 17 is a well-known one which converts an analog musical tone signal as an electric signal into an acoustic signal. The speaker 17 emits a musical sound corresponding to the pressing of the key of the keyboard device 10.

The keyboard device 10, CPU 11, R
The OM 12, the RAM 13, and the musical sound generator 14 are connected to the bus 2
They are connected to each other through 0.

Next, the operation of the electronic musical instrument according to the present invention having the above structure will be described in detail with reference to the flow charts shown in FIGS. In the following description, only the parts related to the present invention are shown in the drawings and will be described.

FIG. 2 is a main flowchart of the electronic musical instrument according to the present invention, which is activated by turning on the power. That is, when the power is turned on, first, the octave shift flag is initialized to "0" (step S10). The initialization of the octave shift flag is performed as part of the initialization process.

In the initialization processing, in addition to initializing the octave shift flag, initial values are set in various buffers, registers, flags, etc. provided in the RAM 13. Further, predetermined data is given to the musical tone generating device 14 to prevent unnecessary sounds from being produced.

When this initialization process is completed, it is checked whether or not there is a keyboard event (step S11). This is done as follows. That is, the keyboard device 10 is scanned and the information indicating the pressed state of each key is fetched. As a result, 37-bit key depression information corresponding to ON / OFF of each key is fetched.

Next, the 37-bit key depression information fetched the previous time is compared with the 37-bit key depression information fetched this time to check whether or not there is a different bit. Then, if there are different bits, it is determined that there is a keyboard event.

If it is determined that there is no keyboard event, step 11 is repeated until the keyboard event occurs. When it is determined that there is a keyboard event in the waiting state, it is checked whether or not the event is a key depression event (step S1).
2). This is performed by checking whether the key depression information has changed from "0" to "1".

A key-depression event (key-depression information is "0")
When it is determined that the value is "1", the key depression process is performed (step S13). As a result, a musical tone with a pitch corresponding to the depressed key is produced.

At this time, the keyboard device 10 will be described in detail later.
If only the two specific keys (keys with pitch names C1 and C # 1) are pressed, the sound generation is suppressed and the shift to the octave shift mode is performed.

Further, in the octave shift mode, that is, when the octave shift flag is "1", the sound is sounded by one octave shift. After that, the process returns to step S11, and the same processing is repeatedly executed.

On the other hand, when it is determined that the event is not the key depression event, it is determined that the key depression event (the key depression information changes from "1" to "0"), and the key release process is performed (step S1).
4). That is, the pronunciation corresponding to the released key is stopped. The details of this key release processing will also be described later.

FIG. 3 is a flow chart showing details of the key pressing process. In the key depression process, first, it is checked whether or not the depressed key is the key having the note name C1 or C # 1 (step S20). This is done by checking the key depression information described above.

When it is determined that the key of the note name C1 or C # 1 is not pressed, it is recognized that it is a normal sounding instruction, and the octave shift processing and sounding processing in and after step S26 are performed. On the other hand, when it is determined that the key of the note name C1 or C # 1 is pressed, it is checked whether or not only the two keys of the note names C1 and C # 1 are pressed (step S21).

If it is determined that only the keys of the note names C1 and C # 1 are not pressed, the process branches to step S26, and the octave shift process and the tone generation process are performed in the same manner as above.

On the other hand, when it is determined that only the keys of the note names C1 and C # 1 are pressed, it is recognized that the instruction is to change the performance mode, and the current octave shift flag is "1".
Is checked (step S22).

Here, the octave shift flag is "1".
If not, the octave shift flag is set to "1" (step S23), and if it is determined that the octave shift flag is "1", the octave shift flag is set to "0" ( Step S2
4). That is, the octave flag toggle operation is realized by the steps S22 to S24.

In other words, as shown in FIG. 6, the note name C1
By simultaneously pressing only the two keys C1 and C # 1, the performance mode of the electronic musical instrument is alternately changed to the octave shift mode or the normal performance mode.

In the above, a switch for changing the performance mode is realized by simultaneously pressing only the two keys of the note names C1 and C # 1. There are cases where only the C1 and C # 1 keys are pressed simultaneously.

However, for example, when pronouncing different tones such as note names C and C # at the same time, a dissonant sound is produced. Therefore, in the performance of a musical composition, the probability that C and C # are simultaneously pressed is low. Low. In addition, the bass side is usually played as a single note because it is played as a bass part. Therefore, the probability that only the lowest tones C and C # are pressed simultaneously is further reduced.

That is, in the performance of a musical piece, the lowest notes C and C # are hardly pressed at the same time. Therefore, when only the lowest tones C and C # are pressed at the same time, it is practically acceptable to give a special meaning, that is, a meaning as a performance mode change switch.

When the octave flag setting or resetting process, that is, the performance mode changing process is completed in this manner, all sounds being sounded are muted (step S2).
5). This is performed by the CPU 11 sending predetermined data to the musical sound generating device 14. When the performance mode is changed, there is a case in which there is a contradiction in pitch between the musical sound that is already being sounded and the musical sound in the changed performance mode. Therefore, the sound is muted.

When the above processing is completed, the key-depression processing routine returns and returns to the main routine.

On the other hand, the octave shift processing is performed as follows. That is, first, it is checked whether or not the octave shift flag is "1" (step S26).
If it is determined that the octave shift flag is not "1", the tone generation processing is performed without performing the octave shift (step S30).

Therefore, in this case, the sound is produced at the defined pitch of the keyboard. Since the tone generation process itself is well known, its description is omitted here.

When it is determined in step S26 that the octave shift flag is "1", it is checked whether or not the depressed key is on the lower tone side than the division point in order to perform the octave shift process (step S26). S27). This is done by checking the keyboard number of the key that had the key depression event.

The division point is the position of the keyboard number that determines whether the key is shifted to the low tone side or the high tone side, and is fixedly set inside the electronic musical instrument. FIG. 5 shows an example in which a division point is defined between the key with the note name B1 and the key with the note name C2.

If it is determined that the sound is on the lower tone side than the division point, "1" is obtained from the keyboard number corresponding to the depressed key.
2 "is subtracted (step S28). On the other hand, when it is determined that the pitch is higher than the division point, "12" is added to the keyboard number corresponding to the pressed key (step S2).
9).

Next, a tone generation process is performed (step S
30). At this time, in step S28 or S29, the keyboard number obtained by subtracting or adding "12" to the keyboard number of the pressed key is sent to the tone generating device 14 as tone information. As a result, a one-octave bass or treble sound is generated from the pressed key.

That is, as shown in FIG. 5, one octave (note name C1 to B1) on the bass side from the division point is shifted to the bass side to become a new one octave (note name C0 to B0). Also, two octaves higher than the division point (note name C2
.About.C4) are shifted to the high pitch side to become a new one octave (note name C3 to C5).

That is, the key range shown by the solid line in the figure becomes the actual sound range, and the range expansion of one octave above and below is realized. The part shown by the broken line in the figure is an empty key range.

Upon completion of the above processing, the key-depression processing routine returns and returns to the main routine.

FIG. 4 is a flowchart showing details of the key release processing. In the key release processing, it is first checked whether or not the octave shift flag is "1" (step S4).
0). If it is determined that the octave shift flag is not "1", the mute processing is performed without performing the octave shift (step S44).

Therefore, in this case, normal muffling is performed. Since the muffling process itself is well known,
The description here is omitted.

When it is determined in step S40 that the octave shift flag is "1", it is checked whether or not the separated key is on the lower tone side than the division point in order to perform the octave shift process (step S40). S41). This is done by looking up the keyboard number of the key that had the key release event.

Here, if it is determined that the sound is on the lower tone side than the division point, "1" is obtained from the keyboard number corresponding to the pressed key.
2 "is subtracted (step S42). On the other hand, when it is determined that the pitch is higher than the division point, "12" is added to the keyboard number corresponding to the pressed key (step S4).
3).

Next, a muffling process is performed (step S
44). At this time, in step S42 or S43, the keyboard number obtained by subtracting or adding "12" to the keyboard number of the pressed key is sent to the musical tone generating device 14 as musical tone information, so that 1 is released from the released key. Octave bass or treble will be muted. In other words, the sound that has been shifted by one octave and has been sounded is muted.

When the above processing is completed, the key pressing processing routine is returned to the main routine.

As described above, in the above embodiment, when it is instructed that the sounding range should be expanded, each key on the low-pitched side from the predetermined division point is shifted to the octave low-pitched side and divided. Since each key on the treble side from the point is similarly shifted by one octave to the treble side, it is possible to extend the sound range of one octave on each of the bass and treble sides, that is, a total of two octaves. .

In addition, when a solo piece is played, it is possible to meet the demands of the player who wants to use a lower tone as a bass part and a higher tone as a chord and melody part.

Also, note names C1 and C # 1 of the keyboard device 2
By pressing the keys at the same time, the performance mode is switched to the octave shift mode.Therefore, it is not necessary to provide a special switch to indicate that the range should be expanded. The range expansion function can be realized with, and the effect of being able to easily switch to the octave shift mode is also achieved.

In the above embodiment, the case where each octave is shifted up and down with the dividing point as a boundary has been described. However, only the low tone side from the dividing point is shifted one octave in the low tone direction or the high tone is higher than the dividing point. It is also possible to configure that only one side is shifted in the treble direction by one octave. By configuring each of these shift modes by, for example, a switch or the like, it is possible to perform the performance in the musical range that the player likes.

Further, in the above-described embodiment, the case of performing the shift of one octave has been described, but the shift is not limited to one octave. It may be any octave or any semitone, and in this case also, the same operational effect as that of the above-described embodiment is obtained.

Furthermore, in the above embodiment, the division point is the note name B.
Although fixedly set between the key of 1 and the key of C2, the dividing point may be changed to an arbitrary position by a predetermined operation. With this configuration, it is possible to realize an electronic musical instrument in which the degree of freedom in selecting a range is increased and the player can play in a range of his or her preference.

[0073]

As described above in detail, according to the present invention, even when the number of keys of the keyboard device is small, the range of sounds actually produced is expanded to both the low-pitched sound side and the high-pitched sound side, and the performance in a wider sound range is performed. In addition, it is possible to provide an electronic musical instrument which is inexpensive and has excellent operability, in which special operators for instructing expansion of the sounding range are reduced.

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing a schematic configuration of an embodiment of an electronic musical instrument according to the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a flowchart (main routine) showing the operation of the embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 3 is a flowchart (key depression processing routine) showing the operation of the embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 4 is a flowchart (key release processing routine) showing the operation of the embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 5 is a diagram for explaining an example of range extension according to the embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 6 is a diagram for explaining switching of octave shift according to the embodiment of this invention.

[Explanation of symbols]

 10 keyboard device (instructing means) 11 CPU (control means) 12 ROM 13 RAM 14 tone generator 15 D / A converter 16 amplifier 17 speaker

Claims (3)

[Claims] 1. An instructing means for instructing that a range is to be expanded, and when there is an instruction by the instructing means, a division point is defined between two consecutive keys of a keyboard device, and a low tone side of the division point is set. An electronic musical instrument comprising: a control unit that shifts each key to a low pitch side by a predetermined pitch and shifts each key on a high pitch side from the division point to a high pitch side by a predetermined pitch. 2. The electronic musical instrument according to claim 1, wherein the pitch indicating means is a plurality of specific keys of a keyboard device. 3. The electronic musical instrument according to claim 1, wherein the pitch shifted to the low tone side and the high tone side is one octave.