JPS58792A - Melody playing wristwatch - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To report the time to the user with an emotional sounds in a simple circuit constitution, by mixing the second signal of a sound signal generating circuit and the melody signal of a melody signal generating circuit to a sounding material in a quartz oscillation wrist watch. CONSTITUTION:A time counting circuit 3 receives and counts the signal of a timing signal generating circuit 2, to which a quartz oscillator 1 is connected, and hold the counted value as time information and includes the time reporting function and other additional functions. An input device 5 interlocks with a member provided on the case of the watch to operate the circuit 3 and other parts. A sound syntheisizing circuit 6 receives information of the circuit 3 to synthetize a digital sound signal. ROMs 1 and 7 hold phoneme data for syllables and words, and ROMs 2 and 8 hold data constituting sentences. A melody synthesizing circuit 11 reads out data of ROMs 3 and 12 to generate an analog signal. The signal of the circuit 6 is converted to an analog signal through a register 9 by a DA converter 10 and is mixed with the signal of the circuit 11 in a mixing circuit 13, and they are amplified by an amplifier 14 and are outputted as an acoustic signal to a speaker 15.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION The present invention includes means for digitally synthesizing audio signals;
This relates to a so-called audio clock that notifies the time by voice.

The purpose of the present invention is to modify the audio information emitted by the audio clock with a musical melody, which is not only economically advantageous in obtaining a more emotional sound (but also improves the quality of the music itself). It is to make it possible to improve.

Speech synthesis technology, which digitally synthesizes audio signals, has a long history, and various specific methods have been proposed. Typical examples are the AHCOB speech synthesis method and the PCM speech synthesis method. 1) Various improvements were made to these two basic methods and they became technically differentiated, and the current (L-Cho-I) synthesis technology has grown to the point where it can differentiate other technologies depending on its use. Ta.

In 1978, a machine called "Sbeak and Spell" was released by Texas Instruments T1゜ in the United States.
, E, business suddenly became active, electronic desk calculators, vending machines, cash service machines, gas and fire alarms,
It has been rapidly applied to translators and other learning machines.

Among these, voice clocks were proposed early on as a concrete application of voice synthesis technology.

In 1980, Sharp released the 1゛Each Shokei'', and we finally entered the era of practical use.

In the future, the number of products that incorporate voice synthesis technology will increase in a wide variety of fields, making devices more convenient to use, and the development of new functions is expected to progress rapidly.

A voice wristwatch that incorporates voice synthesis technology into a watch has not yet been put into practical use, but it is only a matter of time before it becomes a reality.

The biggest problem with incorporating a voice synthesis circuit into a wristwatch is that many circuit elements must be accommodated in a limited space. In other words, the minimum necessary circuits include a power supply battery, a reference oscillation circuit that serves as a time reference, a timekeeping circuit that counts the output signal of the reference oscillation circuit and creates time information, a speech synthesis circuit, and the necessary circuits for the speech synthesis circuit. Read-only memory (hereinafter referred to as ROM) that provides information
A circuit for amplifying the power of the synthesized audio signal, a sounding body for electromechanically converting the audio signal, and a control means for operating and controlling the functions of each of these circuits are necessary and inexpensive. In order to realize various circuits with as few circuit elements as possible, large-scale integration is absolutely necessary, but even with current technology, it is difficult to integrate the audio clock circuit into a single integrated circuit.
It is not easy to realize this with a C chip.

In particular, if you improve the quality of the synthesized speech or increase the number of languages that are generated, the required +(O to 1 -) will increase rapidly.This means that the audio clock circuit can be constructed with a single IC chip. This results in making the clock larger than necessary and increasing the cost.Therefore, there are certain restrictions on the quality and vocabulary of the synthesized voice, and this is a problem when it comes to voice clocks. It is supposed to give a kind of hesitation to the written expressions uttered.

To compensate for this shortcoming, attempts are made to add emotion to the expression by adding music before, after, or before and after the text. Conventionally, this music has often been synthesized as -g in speech synthesis, but this had the opposite effect in reducing the amount of uO+kl.

The present invention solves the drawbacks of the prior art by adding a minimal melody synthesis circuit that synthesizes only musical melody sounds, making it possible to generate musically high-quality melody sounds for a long time. At the same time, by sharing the sounding body and sounding body drive circuit that output audio with the sounding body and sounding body drive circuit that outputs melody sounds, it is possible to simplify the circuit and save space for parts arrangement. be. The present invention will be described in detail below with reference to the drawings.

FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing the circuit configuration of a voice wristwatch with a melody according to the present invention.

In the figure, numeral 1 is an oscillator using a crystal oscillator, which generates a time reference signal for a clock device. Reference numeral 2 denotes a timing signal generation circuit, which is mainly composed of a frequency divider and generates various timing signals from the time reference signal. Reference numeral 6 denotes a clock circuit, which receives and counts signals of a constant period from the timing signal generation circuit 2 and holds them as time information, and also has a stopwatch function, an alarm function, a time signal function,
It includes additional devices such as a tie 7-fll function, a Hals counter function, and a pacemaker function.

4 is a display device represented by a liquid crystal display device,
This is a means for visually transmitting information held by the above-mentioned functions possessed by the clock circuit 6. Reference numeral 5 denotes an input device, which is composed of a group of switches linked to members provided on the case of the watch and an interface circuit, and is provided to operate each function of the audio watch including the clock circuit 3. ing.

The speech synthesis circuit 6 receives information to be expressed by speech from the clock circuit 3 and synthesizes a series of digital speech signals arranged in chronological order.

Both 7 and 8 are read-only memories, but ROM
1.7 holds the phonological data necessary to synthesize speech in units of one syllable or one syllable, and)LOM2.8
holds the grammatical data necessary to construct a sentence by stringing together 115 syllables or words.

A temporary storage register 9 is provided to store one of the series of digital audio signals synthesized by the audio synthesis circuit 6 for a certain period of time.

Reference numeral 10 denotes a DA conversion circuit which converts a digital audio signal into an electrical analog signal to generate an analog audio signal. In addition, the above-mentioned speech synthesis circuit 6, ROM1.7, ROM2
．． 8, the register 9 and the DA conversion circuit 10 constitute an audio signal generation circuit 3o.

Reference numeral 11 denotes a melody synthesis circuit, which generates an electrical analog signal as a melody signal according to the data stored digitally in the read-only memory of the OMs 3 and 12;
1 and the ROM 3.12 constitute a melody generating circuit 61.

Both the melody signal and the analog audio signal are additively mixed in a mixing circuit 13 and converted into an electrical acoustic signal containing both melody and audio information. The electric acoustic signal is amplified in power by an amplifier 14, and output as an acoustic signal by a speaker 15 serving as electromechanical conversion means.

In such a circuit, the voice synthesis circuit 6 or melody synthesis circuit 11 starts operation when the clock circuit 6 repeatedly calls a certain condition or when a command to start operation is issued via the input device 5. Both movements may be performed at different times or at the same time, and the melody
It is possible to generate sounds and voices separately, or to generate voices with melodies in the background.

The speech synthesis circuit 6 receives information to be transmitted by voice from the clock circuit 6, and outputs information to be transmitted by voice from the clock circuit 6. A group of digital audio signals having a sequential arrangement are synthesized, and the arrangement order of words is determined according to the grammar data stored in the ROM 2.8 to assemble a group of digital audio signals as a single sentence.

The digital audio signal group is given as a digital audio signal that changes from moment to moment, but after the audio synthesis circuit 6 determines one digital W audio signal, it generates the next digital audio signal. A certain amount of time needs to pass to determine.

Register 9 is used to temporarily record the previous digital audio signal so that it is not lost during this time, and its storage capacity is for storing one of the many continuously changing digital and audio signals. Large enough to be stored.

On the other hand, the melody synthesis circuit 11 receives from the clock circuit 6 a signal that controls the type of melody to be synthesized and the start/stop of the synthesis operation. The necessary information can be compressed into the three elements of music: frequency, rhythm, and strength. Even if some vibrato effects and timbre modifications are added to this, the total amount of information required is only several tens of minutes to several hundred times that of voice synthesis.

This is due to the fact that the sounds used in music, that is, musical tones, are composed of very little information compared to voices. Therefore, when performing signal synthesis, it is advantageous in terms of sound quality and economy of memory and circuits to have a dedicated synthesis circuit that takes advantage of its characteristics. Actually PAL
Even if you synthesize melody hills that imitate musical instrument sounds using LCOI (, method) audio synthesis equipment, it will be difficult to create a lively sound. , which requires high-speed logic operation and is not practical for wristwatches.The audio signal and melody signal, which have been separately synthesized as described above, are superimposed in the mixing circuit 162, thereby amplifying the power. and a speaker 15 which is a sounding body.
to drive. Although the amplifier 14 and the speaker 15, which are drive circuits, can be shared by both, the mixing circuit 13, O, and their surroundings will be explained below based on a more specific embodiment.

FIG. 2 shows the most basic circuit for mixing two signals. AC voltage signal corresponding to audio signal ~・1 and melody
The alternating current voltage signal -'2 corresponding to the signal is coupled via impedances Z and Z2, respectively, and a mixed signal of the two signals, that is, a mixed voltage signal Vm corresponding to the electrical acoustic signal mentioned above, is coupled to the coupling point through impedances Z and Z2, respectively. occurs.

The mixed voltage signal Vm is amplified by the amplifier 14, and the input impedance of the amplifier 14 is sufficiently thicker than the impedances Z1 and Z2, so that the signals of the human power signals V1 and 2 are The source impedance is z
If l and z2, then it becomes as follows.

Here, V and v2 respectively represent the magnitudes of the two AC' voltage signals, and Zl and Z2 respectively represent the magnitudes of the two impedances.

That is, the mixed signal Vm is the input AC voltage signal V1 and v
It is given as a weighted average voltage of 2.

This makes it possible to select the ratio of the acoustic effects of the voice signal and the melody signal by appropriately selecting the impedances z1 and Z2 to obtain the most pleasant acoustic output.

Figure 3 shows the circuit in Figure 2 in more detail, impedance Z1 is realized by a series circuit of capacitor C1 and resistor RX, and impedance Z is realized by capacitor C.
2 and a resistor R2. Further, the amplifier 14 is a dipleno/ginn type MO8FET transistor'
11. , a gate bias resistor RG connected between the gate and north of the transistor T1, and a drain resistor Ro connected between the train of the transistor T1 and the power supply line VDD.

Further, the source and gate of the transistor T1 are connected to the resistors R and R2 via another power supply line Vss and the resistor Rc.
are connected to the connection points of transistor l'
[The amplified output signal VOUT is taken out from the connection point between the +1 tone-in and the resistor RD. Since the resistors R and G have sufficiently large values, the mixed signal Vm is given by the above formula (1i).

If the voltage amplification degree of this amplifier is A, then the output signal VOUT
is obtained from equation (1) as follows.

Figure 4 shows another basic circuit for mixing two signals, where AC voltage signals V1 and 2 are coupled via impedances Zl and Z2, respectively. Since the voltage is always constant, currents i+ and 1 of 12 supplied from the two signal sources flow into the amplifier 14 whose input point is the coupling point. The inflow of light 1. is as follows.

Here, ~r and ■2 indicate the magnitude of the two AC voltage signals, Zl and Z2 indicate the magnitude of the two impedances, and 21 and 22 are the magnitudes of -1-), respectively. J: No of Shinto's signal source impedance (~Saro-・1
The quasi-5 diagram is based on the large χ in Figure 4), and the impedance Z1 is a capacitor (Σ).

It is realized by a series circuit of and resistor R1, and the impedance Z2
is realized by a series circuit of capacitor C2 and resistor R. Further, the amplifier is composed of an N P N type bivore transistor/transistor 'r2, a base bias resistor itB of the transistor '1'2, and a collector resistor l of the transistor '1'2.

One end of the collector resistor Rc is connected to the collector of the transistor T2, and the other end is coupled to the power supply line VCC.

The base resistor rL R&t, the transistor Ill, the top and bottom ends are connected, and the other end is connected to the front [IL! tyu;(
Pure Vt: (゛(, connected 11. Transistor T
The emitter of No. 2 is connected to the second power supply line VEE.

The base of the transistor T2 constitutes the input point of the amplifier and is connected to the connection point of the two resistors R1 and R2, and the power amplified output signal VOUT is output from the connection point of the collector of the transistor T2 and the collector resistance RJC. taken out. Transistor T2σ? Since the base-emitter voltage is constant when a sufficient base bias current is supplied, the ionization signal input to the base is given by equation (3).

If the current increase degree of this amplifier is β, the output (4'4VO
UT is expressed as follows. (where, C is the collector resistance) jcO value.

The method of superimposing and mixing audio signals and melody signals has been described above in detail with respect to the circuits shown in FIGS. 2 and 4 and their more specific embodiments shown in FIGS. 3 and 5. However, in these examples, both the audio signal and the melody signal are transmitted through one signal line and one reference potential line (not shown).

Of course, this type of signal transmission is often used in general, but in cases where the battery voltage is limited to a few volts or less, such as in wristwatches, signal transmission is often used to widen the voltage range of the signal. Sometimes two lines are used to perform the puno 7 yuburu movement. This is a method in which each of the two signal lines transmits one half wave of the AC signal, and while one signal line is transmitting the signal waveform, the other signal line is at the reference potential. This is a system in which alternating current is applied to a load circuit connected between the two signal lines.

The waveform (a) in Figure 6 is the signal transmitted on the first signal line used in the push-pull method signal transmission, and the waveform (b) is the signal transmitted on the second signal line. . A load circuit is connected between the first and second signal lines, and the current flowing through the load is a complete alternating current as shown in waveform ()1) in FIG. The circuit of FIG. 7 shows a method of superimposing and mixing a melody signal supplied as a signal of a normal transmission method onto an audio signal supplied as such a Gunon Yupuru signal.

The □signals V11 and □12 both correspond to the flexible audio signal, and are half-wave voltage signals on the opposite side of the AC audio signal. The half-wave voltage signals ~'11 and v1□ are led to an amplifier 14 and a second amplifier 16 via impedances Z11 and Zl2, respectively. The outputs of the two amplifiers 14 and 16 are respectively coupled to two amplifiers of a loudspeaker 15 as a load circuit.
5 is driven by Gino/Nibble.

On the other hand, the alternating current Ff and voltage signal v2 corresponding to the melody signal are separated into two half-wave signals by the circuit 17, and the two Ushibuka signals are each input to the input voltage Z.
21 and Z2□ to the connection points of the impedances z, l and Zl2 and the amplifiers 14 and 16, respectively.

The mixing of the half-wave audio signal and the half-wave melody signal at each coupling point is the same as in the case of FIG. 2 or FIG. ) is equivalent to the formula.

FIG. 8 shows a more specific example of the circuit shown in FIG. 7. The alternating current voltage signal v2, which is a melody signal, is guided to two rectifier circuits via a high pass filter consisting of a capacitor C and a resistor R8. The first rectifier circuit is a positive half-wave rectifier circuit consisting of an operational amplifier 18, a resistor R6, and a diode D, and its output points are the resistor R0, the inverting input terminal of the operational amplifier 18, and the diode D10 cathode. It is a common connection point.

The half-wave voltage signal that is the output of the first rectifier circuit is connected to the positive half-wave voltage signal V11 of the audio signal and the operational resistor R2, respectively.
and 1, the power is amplified by an amplifier consisting of an operational amplifier 20, and the power is applied to one terminal of the speaker 15.

On the other hand, the second rectifier circuit is a negative half-wave inverting rectifier circuit including an operational amplifier 19, an input resistor R4, a feedback resistor R3, and a diode D2.

Here the values of resistors R4 and R6 must be equal. The output of the second rectifier circuit corresponds to the negative half wave of the melody signal, but with reversed polarity. This half-wave voltage signal is another half-wave voltage signal of the audio signal■1□
are mixed through operational resistors R22 and R02, respectively, and the power is amplified by an amplifier consisting of a paralysis amplifier 21 and applied to another terminal of the speaker 15. At this time, the voltage VOUT applied to the speaker 15 becomes L as follows.

However, R,=R,,=R,□,R2-1(,222H
, , , +1 (6, and r is the signal source impedance of the half-wave voltage signal VI and V12.

The circuit shown in FIG. 8 has been described above as a specific example of the circuit shown in FIG. It has to be something. Conventionally, it has been difficult to realize such a low-voltage operational amplifier. However, in recent years, C-M08iC technology has progressed, and monolithic ICs for operational amplifiers with a C-MO8 structure can now be manufactured easily. It is also possible to secure an output signal amplitude of 0.7 volts when the power supply voltage is 1.0 volts.

The audio clock with melody according to the present invention has been described above, and a specific method for mixing the audio signal and the melody signal has been described in detail.

According to the present invention, melody generation can be distinguished from methods such as voice synthesis that require a large amount of information, so the amount of ROM used in the entire circuit can be greatly reduced.

Moreover, the melody signal produced by the dedicated melody synthesis circuit has higher musical quality than that synthesized by the voice synthesis method, and gives a pleasant sound to the listener. Furthermore, the melody and music can be generated separately or simultaneously, allowing for varied expressions and enriching emotions.

Furthermore, since only one set of speakers and their drive circuits, which require a very large space, is sufficient for armchairs, a large-diameter speaker can be used, and the electromechanical conversion efficiency is improved, resulting in power savings of 0TNt. At the same time, the frequency characteristics of the speaker could be improved, and the design of the clock exterior was increased, allowing the creation of aesthetically beautiful audio clocks.

[Brief explanation of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing a voice clock with melody according to the present invention, and FIGS. 2, 3, 4, 5, 7, and 8 are used in the present invention. A circuit diagram showing an example of each signal mixing circuit, and FIG. 6 is a waveform diagram showing operating waveforms of push-pull signals. 1... Oscillator 2... Timing signal generation circuit 6... Clock circuit 6... Voice synthesis circuit -7... R, OMI 8 ...
...R, 0M29...Register 10...
...D-A conversion circuit 11 ... Melody synthesis circuit 12 ... R, 0M3 13 ... Mixing circuit 15 ... Speaker 60 ... ...Audio signal generation circuit 61...Melody generation circuit ■, ...Audio signal v2...Melody signal patent applicant Citizen Watch Co., Ltd.

Claims (1)

[Claims] A wristwatch uses a small battery as a power source, uses an oscillation signal from an oscillator containing a crystal oscillator as a time reference signal, and counts this signal to generate time information. It has one sounding body and a drive circuit that drives the sounding body, and mixes and superimposes the audio signal generated by the audio signal generation circuit and the melody signal generated by the melody signal generation circuit. 1. A voice wristwatch with a melody, comprising a signal mixing circuit for inputting a signal output from the signal mixing circuit to the driving circuit.