JPH0659673A - Expression device - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To provide an expression device capable of facilitating delicate sound volume adjustment and quickly changing sound volume by detecting moving speed of a pedal and converting a sound volume data accordingly. CONSTITUTION:An expression pedal 22 is mechanically connected to a movable part (sliding element) of a variable resistor 23, and it is devised to move the sliding element of the variable resistor 23 in accordance with depressing amount of the expression pedal 22. Additionally, a signal is introduced outside from the sliding element and it is employed as output of the variable resistor 23. The output of this variable resistor 23 is supplied to an A/D converter 24. Consequently, from this variable resistor 23, voltage corresponding to a position of the sliding element, that is, the depressing amount of the expression pedal 22 is output. The A/D converter 24 converts a voltage signal from the variable resistor 23 into a digital value, and delivers it to a CPU as the depressing amount of the expression pedal 22.

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to an expression device for adjusting the volume according to the amount of depression of a pedal in an electronic musical instrument or the like.

In recent years, electronic musical instruments having a large number of operators for realizing various functions have been developed and put into practical use. As one of the operators of such an electronic musical instrument, there is an expression pedal that adjusts the volume according to the amount of depression.

Such an expression pedal is
It is used to increase or decrease the volume of sound produced by the performer by changing the amount of depression according to the excitement of the music, etc., and to enhance the expression of the music. Therefore, there is a demand for an expression device capable of finely controlling the volume according to the sensitivity of the performer.

[0004]

2. Description of the Related Art Generally, the volume of conventional expression pedals is changed according to the amount of depression. That is, there is only a one-to-one relationship between the amount of depression of the expression pedal and the change in volume, and if the depression position is the same whether slowly or quickly,
It only changed to the same volume, and the volume was determined only by the amount of depression.

Therefore, even if the volume of a small sound is finely adjusted, it is difficult to adjust the depression amount of the expression pedal, and there is a drawback that a fine volume change cannot be realized.

In addition, there is a drawback that a large stepping amount is required when shifting from a low volume to a high volume, and it is difficult to change the volume quickly.

[0007]

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION The present invention has been made in order to solve the above drawbacks, and provides an expression device which enables easy delicate volume adjustment and quick volume change. The purpose is to do.

[0008]

In order to achieve the above-mentioned object, an expression device of the present invention comprises an operator for instructing volume change, and output means for outputting volume data according to an operation position of the operator. A speed detecting means for detecting the moving speed of the operator, a converting means for converting the volume data output from the output means according to the moving speed detected by the speed detecting means, and a converting means for converting the volume data. And a control means for controlling the volume using the generated volume data.

[0009]

According to the present invention, as the conversion means, for example, a conversion table storing a volume characteristic curve showing the relationship between the operation position of the operator and the volume corresponding to the operation speed of the operator is provided, and the conversion table is obtained by operating the operator. The converted volume data is converted using the volume characteristic curve corresponding to the operation speed of the operator, and the volume is controlled by the converted volume data.

By appropriately determining the volume characteristic curve used in the converting means, it is possible to make a fine adjustment when the volume is low, and to quickly transition from the low volume to the high volume.

[0011]

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 to which the expression device of the present invention is applied.

In the figure, 30 is a system bus,
The system bus 30 includes a CPU 10, a ROM 11, a RAM 12, a keyboard scan circuit 13, a panel scan circuit 15, a panel display unit 17, a tone generator 18, and an amplifier 19 as main components of the electronic musical instrument.
And the expression device 21 is connected.

The CPU 10 has a timer 10a.
However, the keyboard scan circuit 13 has a keyboard 1
4 is a panel switch group 1 in the panel scan circuit 15.
6 is connected to the amplifier 19, and the speaker 20 is connected to the amplifier 19.

The central processing unit (CPU) 10 is a ROM 1
1 controls each part of the electronic musical instrument in accordance with the control program stored in 1. Also, the CPU 10
The present invention realizes a part of the function as the expression device according to the present invention.

The timer 10a is for generating an interrupt to the CPU 10 at a predetermined cycle. The interrupt generated by the timer 10a is used as a trigger for calling an expression processing routine, as will be described later.

The read only memory (ROM) 11 includes
The control program is stored as described above, and the CPU
Various fixed data used by 10 are stored. Also,
The conversion table (details will be described later) storing the volume characteristic curve directly related to the features of the present invention is also the ROM 11
Remembered in. The ROM 11 is accessed by the CPU 10 via the system bus 30.

Random access memory (RAM) 12
Defines a work area of the CPU 10, various registers for controlling the electronic musical instrument, counters, flags, and the like. The RAM 12 is accessed by the CPU 10 via the system bus 30.

The keyboard 14 is composed of a plurality of keys and a key switch that opens and closes in association with key pressing / key releasing operations of these keys. The keyboard scan circuit 13
The open / closed state of the key switch of the keyboard 14 is scanned.

That is, the keyboard scan circuit 13 sends a scan signal to the keyboard 14. In response to the scan signal, the keyboard 14 returns a signal indicating the open / closed state of the key switch to the keyboard scan circuit 13. The keyboard scanning circuit 13 is the keyboard 1
The signal indicating the open / closed state of the key switch received from the CPU 4 is sent to the CPU 10 via the system bus 30.

The panel switch group 16 is composed of a plurality of switches. The plurality of switches include a tone color selection switch, a rhythm selection switch, a volume control switch, a sound effect selection switch, etc. (none of which are shown). The panel scan circuit 15 scans the open / closed state of each switch of the panel switch group 16.

That is, the panel scan circuit 15 sends a scan signal to the panel switch group 16. In response to the scan signal, the panel switch group 16 returns a signal indicating the open / closed state of each switch to the panel scan circuit 15. The panel scan circuit 15 sends a signal indicating the open / closed state of each switch received from the panel switch group 16 to the CPU 10 via the system bus 30.

The panel display unit 17 displays various data sent by the CPU 10 via the system bus 30. The panel display unit 17 is composed of an LED indicating various states of the electronic musical instrument, an LCD displaying various messages, and the like. On this LCD, for example, a volume value determined by operating the expression device 21 is displayed.

The tone generator 18 reads out musical tone waveform data and envelope data corresponding to the musical tone data sent from the CPU 10 from a musical tone waveform memory (not shown), adds an envelope to the read musical tone waveform data and outputs it as a musical tone signal. Is. The tone signal output by the tone generator 18 is supplied to the amplifier 19.

The amplifier 19 amplifies the musical tone signal given from the tone generator 18 according to the volume data given from the CPU 10. This amplifier 19
Output is given to the speaker 20.

The speaker 20 is a well-known speaker that converts an electric signal into an acoustic signal.

The expression device 21 is, for example,
It is configured as shown in FIG. In FIG. 2, reference numeral 22 is an expression pedal as an operator. The expression pedal 22 is operated by the player with his / her foot, and the volume is controlled according to the amount of depression. It should be noted that the present invention can be applied to a slider or volume operated by hand instead of a pedal pedaled by a foot as an operator.

The expression pedal 22 is mechanically connected to the movable portion (slider) of the variable resistor 23, and moves the slider of the variable resistor 23 according to the depression amount of the expression pedal 22. It is like this.

The variable resistor 23 is a well-known one which is composed of a fixed resistance portion and a slider which slides on the fixed resistance portion. Both ends of the fixed resistance portion of the variable resistor 23 are connected to a power source (+
5V) and ground (GND). In addition, the signal from the slider is guided to the outside and the variable resistor 2
The output is 3. The output of this variable resistor 23 is
It is supplied to the A / D converter 24.

Therefore, the variable resistor 23 outputs a voltage corresponding to the position of the slider, that is, the depression amount of the expression pedal 22.

The A / D converter 24 is a well-known one that converts an analog signal into a digital signal. This A / D
The converter 24 converts the voltage signal from the variable resistor 23 into a digital value, and sends it to the CPU 10 as the depression amount of the expression pedal 22.

Next, the operation of the electronic musical instrument having the above-described structure will be described mainly with respect to the operation of the expression device.

FIG. 3 is a main flowchart of an electronic musical instrument to which the present expression device is applied. When the power is turned on, first, initialization processing is performed (step S10). This initialization processing sets the internal state of the tone generator 18 to the initial state to prevent unnecessary sounds from being generated when the power is turned on, clears the work area of the RAM 12, initializes registers and flags. This is the process of setting the state.

Next, keyboard scanning and event processing are performed (step S11). That is, the CPU 10
The keyboard scan circuit 13 driven by inputs the data indicating the open / closed state of the key switch from the keyboard 14 and sends the data to the CPU 10. CPU10
Determines whether or not there is an event based on the data, creates key on / off information based on this determination result, and
Store in M12.

Next, panel switch group scanning and event processing are performed (step S12). That is, CP
The panel scan circuit 15 driven by U10 inputs data indicating the open / closed state of the panel switches from the panel switch group 16 and sends the data to the CPU 10.

The CPU 10 determines the presence or absence of an event based on the data, creates on / off information for each switch based on the result of this determination, and stores it in the RAM 12. Also, an operation corresponding to ON / OFF information of each switch, for example, a process such as mode change is performed. Since the processing relating to the panel switch is well known and has no direct relation to the gist of the present invention, detailed description thereof will be omitted.

Next, the display processing of the panel display section is performed (step S13). This is performed by the CPU 10 sending predetermined data to the panel display unit 17. As a result, for example, the LED corresponding to the pressed switch is turned on, and the tone color number of the selected tone color and the rhythm number of the selected rhythm are displayed on the LCD.

Next, a data setting process for the tone generator is performed (step S14). That is, tone data is created based on the key on / off information obtained by the keyboard scan and event processing in step S11 and the switch on / off information obtained by the panel switch group scan and event processing in step S12. And is supplied to the tone generator 18.

As a result, the musical tone corresponding to the depressed or released key is sounded or muted according to the designation of each switch such as the tone color, rhythm and volume of the panel switch group 16. Since this sounding or mute processing is well known, detailed description thereof will be omitted here.

When the data setting process for the tone generator 18 is completed, the process returns to step S11, and the same operation as described above is repeated. By repeating the steps of the main routine, a desired performance is performed by the electronic musical instrument in response to the operation of the keyboard 14 and the panel switch group 16.

Next, the operation of the expression device, which is a feature of the present invention, will be described with reference to the flow chart shown in FIG.

This expression processing routine is
It is activated at a constant cycle by an interrupt signal from the timer 10a.

In the expression processing, the CPU 10
First, data is input from the A / D converter 24 of the expression device 21 (step S20). The data fetched here is stored in a predetermined register (hereinafter referred to as “new data register”) provided in the RAM 12. This new data register is data corresponding to the depression position of the expression pedal 22 at that time.

Next, the previously acquired data is changed to RA
The data is read from a predetermined register (hereinafter referred to as "old data register") provided in M12 and compared with the current data stored in the new data register (step S2).
1).

When it is determined that the previous data and the current data are the same, that is, there is no event, it is recognized that the expression pedal 22 has not moved, and this processing is performed without any processing. Return from the processing routine.

On the other hand, if it is determined that the previous data and the current data are different, that is, that there is an event, speed detection processing is performed (step S22). In this speed detection process, the difference value between the previous data value stored in the old data register and the current data value stored in the new data register is calculated. If the difference value is large, the speed is large, and if it is small, the speed is large. Judge that it is small. That is, a large amount of change over a certain period of time means that the speed was high.

Next, using the volume characteristic curve corresponding to the speed, the volume data corresponding to the current value of the expression pedal 22 is corrected (step S23). That is,
When the difference value obtained by the speed detection process is equal to or more than a predetermined value, correction is performed to obtain the volume characteristic shown in FIG. 5A, and when the difference value is equal to or less than the predetermined value, For example, correction is performed so that the volume characteristic shown in FIG.

The correction of the volume data is performed in advance with reference to FIG.
A conversion table capable of obtaining the volume characteristic shown in (A) and a conversion table capable of obtaining the volume characteristic shown in FIG. 5 (B) are prepared, and one of the conversion tables is selected according to the difference value. It is realized by converting the volume data.

As another method of correcting the volume data, a conversion formula that obtains the volume characteristic shown in FIG. 5A or the volume characteristic shown in FIG. 5B is obtained according to the difference value. It can also be realized by using a conversion formula and performing a predetermined calculation on the input volume data.

Next, the amplifier 19 is controlled to control the volume (step S24). That is, the CPU 10
The corrected volume data is sent to the amplifier 19, and the gain of the amplifier 19 is set to a predetermined value. This allows
The musical tone signal sent from the tone generator 18 is amplified with a predetermined gain and supplied to the speaker 20. As a result, a musical tone is generated at a volume in which the operation amount of the expression pedal 22 is corrected by a predetermined amount.

In the example shown in FIG. 5A, when the depression speed of the expression pedal 22 is high, the volume does not increase linearly as the depression amount increases, but the volume suddenly increases as the depression amount increases. Increase. Therefore,
By depressing the expression pedal 22 quickly instead of depressing it greatly as in the conventional case, a change from a low volume to a high volume can be realized, and a quick volume change is possible.

Further, in the example shown in FIG. 5B, if the depression speed of the expression pedal 22 is slow, the volume does not increase linearly as the depression amount increases, but the volume suddenly increases in a small depression amount range. Increase to
When the amount of depression exceeds a predetermined amount, the amount increases gently.
Therefore, when the volume of a small sound is to be finely adjusted, the depression amount of the expression pedal can be increased to a certain extent, and a slight volume change can be easily realized.

In the above embodiment, the differential data is used as the speed information, and two volume characteristic curves are provided for the fast speed and the slow speed depending on whether the differential data is larger than a predetermined value or not. However, the difference data may be classified into a plurality of levels and each level may have a volume characteristic curve. In this case, there is an effect that finer volume control is possible.

In the above embodiment, the speed is detected by using the difference value, but the speed may be detected by counting the time from event to event with a counter.

Further, although the expression processing is configured to be started at a constant interval by the timer 10a, it may be configured to be a subroutine called at a predetermined location of the main routine.

[0056]

As described in detail above, according to the present invention,
It is possible to provide an expression device that makes it possible to easily adjust the volume subtly and to change the volume quickly.

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing a configuration of an embodiment of an electronic musical instrument to which an expression device of the present invention is applied.

FIG. 2 is a diagram showing a configuration of an embodiment of an expression device of the present invention.

FIG. 3 is a flowchart (main flowchart) showing an operation of the embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 4 is a flowchart (expression processing) showing the operation of the exemplary embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 5 is a diagram showing an example of a volume characteristic curve according to the embodiment of the present invention.

[Explanation of symbols]

 10 CPU 10a Timer 11 ROM 12 RAM 13 Keyboard Scan Circuit 14 Keyboard 15 Panel Scan Circuit 16 Panel Switch Group 17 Panel Display 18 Tone Generator 19 Amplifier 20 Speaker 21 Expression Device 22 Expression Pedal 23 Variable Resistor 24 A / D Converter

Claims (1)

[Claims] 1. An operator for instructing volume change, output means for outputting volume data according to an operation position of the operator, speed detecting means for detecting a moving speed of the operator, and the speed detecting means. A conversion means for converting the volume data output from the output means according to the moving speed detected by the control means; and a control means for controlling the volume using the volume data converted by the conversion means. A unique expression device.