JPH0744165A - Musical performance information controller - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To easily recognize in what state sound volume information and pan information supplied to a sound source are and how they are modified. CONSTITUTION:While one control information display wherein plural pieces of control information for timbres are represented as distances from a reference position is made on one screen by detected timbres, selected control information display on the screen is changed in display position (steps S20, S22, S24, S28, S32, and S34) and control information is generated according to the position change of the control information display and outputted (steps S38 and S40).

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a device for controlling performance control information supplied to a sound source, and more particularly to a device for visually confirming and controlling a control state.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art In a multimedia personal computer or computer music, it is necessary to visually display the value of performance information supplied by a human or a sequencer.

For example, in an ensemble composed of various musical instrument sounds, the volume and localization information as performance information is important not only for the balance of the musical instrument sounds but also for changing the impression of the entire song. Yes, it is necessary to display what the value of these information is now. Further, in a multimedia personal computer or the like, the correction of these performance information is performed by operating a numerical value representing the performance information displayed on the display with a keyboard or an image representing an input device such as a volume fader or a knob. It was performed by operating with a user interface such as a mouse.

[0004]

However, it is difficult to intuitively understand how the performance information is changed by manipulating the numerical value itself, and even when manipulating the image of the volume fader or the knob, it is not possible to operate like a mixer desk. In terms of appearance, there is a problem that it is difficult to intuitively understand which instrument sound performance information is being operated, and control is difficult.

[0005]

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION In order to solve the above problems, the present invention provides a detecting means for detecting a tone color from input performance information and a plurality of control information for the tone color detected by the detecting means. Is expressed as the distance from the reference position 1
Display means for displaying individual control information displays on one screen for each of the detected tones, and display position changing means for changing the display position of a selected one of the control information displays displayed on the screen, And a control information changing unit for generating and outputting control information according to the position change of the control information display by the display position changing unit.

[0006]

According to the present invention, the control information display for each of the plurality of timbres detected by the detection means is displayed on one screen of the display means. These control information displays represent a plurality of control information depending on the distance from the reference position. The position of the selected one of the plurality of control information displays is changed by the display position changing means. In response to the change in the position of the selected control information display, the control information changing means changes the control information corresponding to the selected control information display. Therefore, by looking at the current position of the control information display, the current state of the control information can be known, and by changing the position of the control information display, it can be known how the control information has been changed.

[0007]

EXAMPLE This example has a sequencer 10, for example, as a means for generating performance information, as shown in FIG. The sequencer 10 generates performance information in MIDI format, for example. This performance information is supplied to the sound source 14 via the personal computer 12, for example.

The sound source 14 has a plurality of channels, and each channel generates a musical tone of a tone color designated by performance information at a designated volume and in a designated localization (pan). As the performance information, there is control information other than volume and localization for each tone color, for example, note information indicating a pitch,
To simplify the description, other items are omitted. The personal computer 12 also displays the performance information on the display means, for example, the graphic display 16 by displaying the performance information.

An example of this performance information display is shown in FIG. In this example, since musical tones of five tones are generated by five channels, five images representing musical instruments corresponding to the respective tones are displayed on the screen of the display 16 as performance information displays A to E. Then, the pan information is assigned in the horizontal direction (X coordinate) of the screen, and the vertical direction (Y coordinate).
Volume information is assigned to.

The pan information is, for example, 0 at the left end and 12 at the right end.
A value of 7 is assigned. When the performance information display is displayed near the left end, the performance information display indicates localization near the left end, and when the performance information display is displayed near the right end, the performance information display appears. The display shows localization near the right edge.

The performance information is, for example, 127 at the lower end,
A value of 0 is assigned to the upper end, and the closer the performance information display is to the lower end, the louder the volume is,
The closer the performance information display is to the upper end, the smaller the volume.

Therefore, the information of the pan and the volume of the tone color represented by these performance information displays can be known from the displayed positions of the performance information displays A to E.

The personal computer 12 is also provided with a user interface, for example, a mouse 18. By operating this, the personal computer 12 freely changes the display positions of the performance information displays A to E. Furthermore, the personal computer 12
When the display positions of the performance information displays A to E are changed, the pan information and the volume information represented by the changed positions are calculated and supplied to the sound source 14 in the MIDI format.

Therefore, the sound source 14 controls the localization and the volume of the musical tone of the tone color corresponding to the performance information display whose display position is changed, based on the pan information and the volume information calculated based on the changed display position. To do.

In order to control the volume and pan in this way,
The processing performed by the personal computer 12 will be described with reference to FIGS. 1, 3 and 4. First, an interrupt process not shown in the drawings will be described. When performance information is input from the sequencer 10, the personal computer 12 executes an interrupt process to transfer the input performance information. The buffer memory is for storing the data waiting to be processed. In such a case, when the process of the flowchart of FIG. 3 is executed, the reading of the process waiting data supplied from the sequencer 10 and stored in the buffer memory is started (step S6). If there is no data waiting to be processed in step S6, step S6 is repeated until the performance information is input.

The performance information is sequentially supplied from the sequencer 10 in the form of one set of channel number and tone color information, one set of channel number and volume information, and one set of channel number and pan information, and these are sequentially processed. It is stored as waiting data.

Then, it is detected what kind of performance information the read processing waiting data thus read out is (step S8). Then, when it is determined that the information is timbre information,
The tone color information is stored in each channel tone color storage area 20 provided on the RAM of the personal computer 12 in association with each channel as shown in FIG. 4 (step S10).

When it is determined in step S8 that the volume or pan information is present, the volume storage area 22 or the pan storage area 24 corresponding to each channel is provided in the RAM as shown in FIG. Volume information or pan information is stored.

If it is determined in step S8 that none of the tone color information, pan information and volume information is present, the process returns to step S6 to read the next process waiting data and detect the next performance information.

Subsequent to step S10 or S12, it is judged whether or not the tone color information, the volume information and the pan information have been prepared for each channel (step S14).

When each piece of information about each channel is gathered,
The display position of each performance information display is determined based on the volume information stored in the volume information storage area 22 and the pan information stored in the pan information storage area 24.
The performance information display to be displayed is selected based on the tone color information stored in 0 (step S16). The sound source 14
The image of the musical instrument corresponding to each of a large number of musical tones that can be generated by
The image corresponding to the tone color information is selected on the OM as the performance information display.

Then, the selected performance information display is displayed at the display position determined as described above (step S18). An example of this display is shown in FIG. 5 as described above. With the image of the musical instrument corresponding to each tone color being displayed at the position corresponding to the volume and pan of that tone color, the performance information for instructing the performance is provided by the sequencer 1
When supplied from 0, the sound source 14 thereafter starts playing according to the performance information from the sequencer 10. Of course, the timbre, the volume, and the pan are played while being displayed on the screen.

When an event occurs by the user interface (mouse) 18 while the performance is being performed in this way, the processing shown in FIG. 1 is performed. That is, it is determined whether the position operated by the user interface 18 is within the effective range, for example, the display position of the performance information display displayed on the screen (step S2).
0) If it is out of the valid range, this process is terminated and the next event is waited for.

If it is within the effective range, the current timbre, volume and pan information corresponding to the operated performance information display is stored in the temporary storage area (step S22). Then, it is determined what the operation of the user interface 18 is (step S24).

For example, when it is determined that the drag and drop is performed, it is determined whether or not it is canceled (step S28). That is, it is determined whether the operated performance information display has finally returned to the original position. If canceled, the current tone color, volume, and pan information stored in the temporary storage area in step S22 is called (step S30), and the display coordinate calculation and performance information are performed as in step S16 of FIG. Select the display (step S32),
Similar to step S16 of FIG. 3, it is displayed on the screen (step S34), and the process is terminated.

If it is determined in step S28 that the cancellation is not canceled, the user interface 18
The X and Y coordinates of the dragged and dropped position of are converted into volume information and pan information (step S3).
6).

The converted volume information and pan information are shown in FIG.
Are stored in corresponding positions in the volume information area 22 and the pan information area 24 (step S38), and performance information is generated based on these stored values. The number and the pan information are set as one set and transmitted as a MIDI signal to the sound source 14 (step S40).

Then, steps S32 and S34 are executed to change the display position of the performance information display to the dragged and dropped position.

If it is determined in step S24 that it is a double click, a tone color changing operation is performed (step S42). For example, by double-clicking, a window is opened on the screen of the graphic display 16 on which a large number of tone color names that can be generated by the sound source 14 or images of musical instruments corresponding to these tone color names are displayed. The image selection work is performed.

It is judged whether or not this tone color changing operation has been canceled (step S44). In the case of cancellation, steps S30, S32 and S34 are executed and the image of the musical instrument corresponding to the original tone color is displayed at the original position.

If it is determined in step S44 that the cancellation is not canceled, steps S38, S40 and S3 are performed.
2, S34 is executed in this order, the updated tone color name is stored in the corresponding position of the tone color name storage area 20, is transmitted to the sound source 14 as a MIDI signal together with the channel number, and the tone color updated at the original position is stored. Display the image of the instrument corresponding to.

In the above embodiment, the sequencer 10 is used as the performance information generating means, but an electronic musical instrument may be used. Further, instead of the personal computer 12, a dedicated control device can be used. Further, the sequencer and the sound source may be included inside the personal computer 12 or the dedicated control device. In this case, the form of the performance information is not limited to the MIDI form.

In the above embodiment, the volume information is displayed in the vertical direction (Y coordinate direction) of the graphic display 16. However, instead of this, the volume and reverberation information can be displayed. The smaller the value of, the greater the reverberation.

[0034]

As described above, according to the present invention, the display position of the control information display showing the plurality of control information for the timbre detected from the input performance information by the distance from the reference position is changed to the display position changing means. It is possible to change, and further, because the control information is generated and output according to this position change,
It is possible to easily know a plurality of control information for one timbre, and also to easily know how to change the control information when changing the control information.

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a flowchart showing an operation of a main part of one embodiment of a performance information control device according to the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a block diagram of the embodiment.

FIG. 3 is a flowchart showing an operation of the same example in an initial state.

FIG. 4 is a diagram showing a tone color storage area, a volume storage area, and a pan storage area used in the embodiment.

FIG. 5 is a diagram showing a display surface in the example.

[Explanation of symbols]

 10 Sequencer 12 Personal Computer 14 Sound Source 16 Graphic Display 18 User Interface

Claims (1)

[Claims] 1. Detecting means for detecting a timbre from input performance information, and one control information display representing a plurality of control information for the timbre detected by the detecting means as a distance from a reference position. Display means for displaying each tone color on one screen, display position changing means for changing the display position of a selected one of the control information displays displayed on the screen, and the control information by the display position changing means. A performance information control device comprising: control information changing means for generating and outputting control information according to a change in display position.