JPH0643868A - Electronic keyboard instrument - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To change characteristics (especially, the tone color) of musical sound based on fingers (playing operation) just before turning-on of a keyboard. CONSTITUTION:A conductive thin film 31 is formed on the surface of a key 30 and is connected to an amplifier 32, and the output of the amplifier 32 is inputted to a discriminating circuit 33. When player's finger touches the conductive thin film 31, ham noise is inputted to the amplifier 32 and is amplified. This ham noise is detected by a discriminating circuit 33 to detect the finger touch. The time from the detection of this finger touch to turning-on of the key 30 is measured, and characteristics of musical sounds to be generated are controlled based on this time. For example, when this time is long, it is judged that a player turns on the key after putting his finger on the key, and heavy sounds are generated; and when this time is short, it is judged that he hammers on the key from above, and sharp sounds are generated.

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to an electronic keyboard instrument such as an electronic piano or a keyboard synthesizer, and more particularly to improvement of its expressive power.

[0002]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION Music performance is not limited to simply generating musical tones at pitches as instructed by the score,
Not only the tone of each note, but also the delicate level (volume), pitch (pitch) fluctuations, and the processing of the decay of the disappearing musical sound, the beautiful performance can be achieved only by paying attention to the details of the musical sound. Therefore, the musical instrument must be capable of accepting such an intention of the performer and generating a musical sound reflecting it.

[0003]

2. Description of the Related Art At present, electronic keyboard musical instruments represented by electronic pianos and keyboard-type synthesizers are widely used. The keyboard of this kind of electronic keyboard musical instrument is generally provided with a switch for detecting ON / OFF of each key and a sensor for detecting a keying strength (initial strength). By detecting the key that is turned on, the pitch is determined, and by detecting the initial intensity, the tone generation level, the level displacement characteristic (envelope), etc. are determined. Also,
Some electronic keyboard musical instruments detect the pressure strength (aftertouch) during key-on to control the effects such as level and vibrato (Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 62-62).
(See Japanese Patent No. 187393). Further, there is one in which a sensor for detecting a contact area or a contact position is provided on the surface of the key, and the characteristic of the musical tone signal is controlled according to the contact area or the contact position detected by the sensor.

Further, some electronic keyboard musical instruments include pedals and wheels (see FIG. 11 of Japanese Patent Publication No. 61-47433) as additional operating elements for performance. Effects such as vibrato and control functions such as pitch displacement can be assigned to these pedals and wheels. The wheel is generally operated with the left hand.

[0005]

As described above, in the conventional keyboard, it is possible to detect ON / OFF of the key, initial strength at the time of key-on, and after-touch during key-on and reflect them in the musical sound. The contact state between the finger and the keyboard during key-off could not be detected.

Further, in an actual piano (acoustic piano), the timbre when a key is struck is not determined solely by the keystroke strength or the keystroke speed, but is subtle depending on how the key is struck and how the finger is released from the key. Changes to. For example, when you tap a finger with your finger on it,
The tone color (especially the thickness of the tone) is different even when the keystroke strength is the same as when the finger is dropped from above the key and the key is tapped. In addition, the afterglow of turning off the key that was on differs from turning off so that it flips up. This has not been fully clarified acoustically, but facts have been empirically proven by actual performance. However, conventional electronic keyboard instruments could not reproduce such characteristics of acoustic pianos.

Further, the pedals and wheels are not operators for giving a delicate expression to each tone of a musical tone, but an operation for totally controlling the level, vibrato, etc. of all the musical tones produced at that time. Is a child. Furthermore, since the wheel must be operated by hand separately from the keyboard operation, there is a drawback that the expression on the keyboard is insufficient. For this reason, there is a drawback that the conventional keyboard alone does not sufficiently express one note and one note, and even if a pedal or a wheel is used, the expressiveness is not sufficiently improved.

An object of the present invention is to provide an electronic keyboard instrument which solves the above problems by detecting the contact state of a finger at the moment of key-on or immediately before the key-on to control a musical sound.

[0009]

According to the present invention, there is provided a keyboard comprising a plurality of keys, a first detecting means provided for each key of the keyboard and detecting ON of each key, and the first detecting means. In the electronic keyboard musical instrument provided with a musical tone generating means for generating a musical tone signal in response to turning on of each key detected by, the second key is provided on the surface of each key of the keyboard and detects the contact of a finger with each key. Generated by the musical tone generating means in accordance with the time from when the contact of the finger to the key is detected by the second detecting means and after the key is turned on by the first detecting means. And a tone control means for controlling the characteristics of the tone signal to be reproduced.

[0010]

In the electronic keyboard instrument of the present invention, the first detecting means detects the ON state of each key, and the second detecting means detects the contact of the finger with each key. When the first detecting means detects that the key is turned on, the musical sound generating means generates a predetermined musical sound signal. Further, at this time, the characteristic of the generated musical tone signal is controlled in accordance with the time from when the second detecting means detects the contact of the finger with the key to when the first detecting means detects that the key is turned on. Yes (tone control means).

[0011]

2 is a block diagram of an electronic keyboard instrument according to an embodiment of the present invention. The keyboard 1 has a tone range of about 4 to 5 octaves, and the sound source 15 is provided with eight channels capable of producing sounds independently. In addition to the keyboard 1, a switch group 2 including a tone color selection switch 2 and a sound system 4 such as a speaker are provided on the outer surface of the musical instrument. The operation of the musical instrument is controlled by the CPU 10, and the memory and each operating unit are connected to the CPU 10 via the bus 11. Bus 1
1, a touch strength detection circuit 12 and a key-on detection circuit 1
3, a switch interface 14, a sound source circuit 15, a key touch detection circuit 16, a ROM 17, a RAM 18, and a timer 19 are connected. The touch strength detection circuit 12 and the key-on detection circuit 13 detect ON / OFF of each key (key) of the keyboard 1 and touch strength (initial strength, after-touch strength). Further, the key touch detection circuit 16 detects whether or not a finger is touching the key by the conductive thin film 31 (see FIG. 1) provided on the key surface. The switch interface 14 detects ON / OFF of each switch of the switch group 2. The sound source circuit 15 is provided with an independent 8-channel sound source, and can generate up to eight tones simultaneously based on the waveform signal received from the CPU 10.

FIG. 1 shows a block diagram of one key and the key touch detection circuit 16 which constitute the keyboard 1. A conductive thin film 31 is formed on the surface of the key 30. This conductive thin film 3
1 is formed by a conductive paint or chemical plating. This conductive thin film 31 is connected to a high gain amplifier 32,
The hum noise picked up by the conductive thin film 31 is amplified. This output is input to the determination circuit 33. The determination circuit 33 is a circuit that determines the level of the amplified hum noise and determines and outputs that there is a key touch if it is above a certain level. That is, when the player's finger touches the key, the hum noise picked up by the human body is input from the conductive thin film 31, and the noise gain increases. This is utilized to determine the key touch / key release. The conductive thin film is formed so that the white key is white and the black key is black. See also key 3
A key-on detection switch 34 is provided below 0. The key-on detection switch 34 is composed of two switch bodies, and is turned back and forth when the key is pressed. When the previous switch body turns on, it is determined to be a key on,
The initial strength is determined from the shift in the on-timing of the two switch bodies.

Memory areas shown in FIG. 3 are set in the ROM 17 and the RAM 18.

First, the ROM 17 stores a system program (M1) and tone color data (M2).
A storage area of a tone color data register M3, a key code register M4, an initial intensity register M5, a portamento flag M6, a key touch flag M7 and a timer M8 is set in M18. The timbre data register M3 is a memory area for reading the selected timbre data from the ROM 17 (M2) and making it ready for immediate transmission to the tone generator circuit 15. The key code register M4 and the initial strength register M5 are registers for storing the key code and initial strength detected at the time of key-on. The portamento flag M6 is a flag for storing that portamento is applied at the time of sound generation. The contents of these registers and flags are transmitted to the tone generator circuit 15 together with the tone color data. The key touch flag M7 is a flag for storing whether or not a key is touched. The key touch timer M8 is a timer that measures the time of key touch. The tone is controlled by the length of this timer. Of the above registers, M4 to M8 are set in the same number as the keys to be keyed on and touched.

4 to 10 are flowcharts showing the operation of the CPU 10. Figure 4 is the main routine, Figure 5
10 is a subroutine.

First, in FIG. 4, when the power of this electronic keyboard instrument is turned on, initial processing such as resetting each register is executed (n1). By this processing, the performance becomes possible, and the tone color switch processing operation (n2), the key processing operation (n3), and the key touch sensor processing operation (n4) are repeatedly executed. In each operation (subroutine), a corresponding operation is performed when an on / off event of a key or a switch is detected.

FIG. 5 is a flow chart showing the tone color switch processing operation. This operation starts when the tone color switch is pressed, and the tone color data corresponding to the pressed tone color switch is read from the tone color data storage area M2 of the ROM 17 (n5) and set in the tone color data register M3 (n6). After this operation, it returns.

FIG. 6 shows a key-on event processing routine. This operation is executed when there is a key-on event.
First, the key code of the key turned on in n7 and its initial strength are detected and stored in the key code register M4 and the initial strength register M5. The tone color and envelope waveform are set from these data and the contents of the key touch timer M8 (n8, n9). Next, it is determined whether or not there is a key touch of another key (n10), and if there is a key touch of another key, the portamento from the pitch of the key currently on to another key is set ( n11). These data are transmitted to the tone generator circuit 15 (n12) and the process returns.

FIG. 7 shows a key-off event processing routine. When the key-off event is detected, the key-off data is transmitted to the tone generator circuit 15 (n13) and the process returns.

FIG. 8 shows a key touch event processing routine. When a key touch event occurs, a key touch flag M7 is set (n14), pre-processing for producing a musical sound of this key is performed (n15), and then it is detected whether another key is key-on (n15a). If the key is on, the portamento processing is performed (n15b) in the same manner as in the above n11, and then the process returns. The pre-processing is an operation for preparing, for example, storing in the register data that can be prepared before key-on among the data to be transmitted to the tone generator circuit 15 in order to generate a musical sound. This has the effect of eliminating the pronunciation delay.

FIG. 9 shows a key release event processing routine. When a key release event occurs, the key touch flag M7 is reset (n16) and the process returns.

FIG. 10 shows the timer interrupt operation. When a timer interrupt occurs, various processes are performed according to the tempo such as beat count (n17), and the on / off state of the key touch sensor is referred to (n18). Key touch timer M8 if the key touch sensor is on
Is counted up (n19), and if it is off, the key touch timer M8 is cleared and stopped (n20) and the process returns.

As described above, in this embodiment, the presence / absence of a key touch on a key other than the key-on key is detected, and when there is this key touch, portamento from the pitch of that key is applied. It is also possible to apply portamento if the key is touched immediately before, even if no other key is touched when the key is turned on. Further, the content controlled based on the key touch of another key is not limited to portamento.

It is also possible to control the musical sound based on the key touch state of the key which is turned on. That is,
If a key has been touched for a long time before key-on, it is considered that the finger was placed on the key and then the key was pressed, and if the key-on was performed immediately after the key was touched, it is considered that the finger was dropped from above and the key was pressed. Therefore, it is possible to perform musical tone control in accordance with this.

[0025]

As described above, according to the present invention, the characteristic of the musical tone is controlled based on the time until the key is turned on after the key is touched by the finger, so that the musical instrument can be controlled like an acoustic piano. You will be able to control the tone with the touch of a key. In addition, musical tone control, which is not possible with conventional electronic keyboard musical instruments, is also possible.

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a diagram showing a configuration of keys and a key touch detection circuit of an electronic keyboard instrument according to an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a block diagram of a control unit of the electronic keyboard instrument,

FIG. 3 is a partial configuration diagram of a memory of the electronic keyboard instrument,

FIG. 4 is a flowchart showing the operation of the CPU of the electronic keyboard instrument.

FIG. 5 is a flowchart showing the operation of the CPU of the electronic keyboard instrument.

FIG. 6 is a flowchart showing the operation of the CPU of the electronic keyboard instrument.

FIG. 7 is a flowchart showing the operation of the CPU of the electronic keyboard instrument.

FIG. 8 is a flowchart showing the operation of the CPU of the electronic keyboard instrument.

FIG. 9 is a flowchart showing the operation of the CPU of the electronic keyboard instrument.

FIG. 10 is a flowchart showing the operation of the CPU of the electronic keyboard instrument.

[Explanation of symbols]

 16-key touch detection circuit 30-key 31-conductive thin film 32-high gain amplifier 33-judgment circuit

Claims (1)

[Claims] 1. A keyboard comprising a plurality of keys, first detecting means provided for each key of the keyboard to detect ON of each key, and ON of each key detected by the first detecting means. In the electronic keyboard musical instrument provided with a musical tone generating means for generating a musical tone signal according to the above, and a second detecting means provided on the surface of each key of the keyboard for detecting a finger contact with each key, The characteristic of the musical tone signal generated by the musical tone generating means in accordance with the time until the key is detected by the first detecting means after the contact of the finger with the key is detected by the second detecting means. An electronic keyboard instrument characterized by being provided with a musical tone control means for controlling.