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WO1996006425A1 - Procede et appareil d'extraction de configurations de son pre-enregistrees en synchronisation - Google Patents

Procede et appareil d'extraction de configurations de son pre-enregistrees en synchronisation Download PDF

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Publication number
WO1996006425A1
WO1996006425A1 PCT/US1994/009479 US9409479W WO9606425A1 WO 1996006425 A1 WO1996006425 A1 WO 1996006425A1 US 9409479 W US9409479 W US 9409479W WO 9606425 A1 WO9606425 A1 WO 9606425A1
Authority
WO
WIPO (PCT)
Prior art keywords
sound
sequence
sounds
sequences
played
Prior art date
Application number
PCT/US1994/009479
Other languages
English (en)
Inventor
Joshua Gabriel
Original Assignee
Interactive Music, Inc.
Priority date (The priority date is an assumption and is not a legal conclusion. Google has not performed a legal analysis and makes no representation as to the accuracy of the date listed.)
Filing date
Publication date
Priority to US07/940,473 priority Critical patent/US5399799A/en
Priority claimed from US07/940,473 external-priority patent/US5399799A/en
Application filed by Interactive Music, Inc. filed Critical Interactive Music, Inc.
Priority to PCT/US1994/009479 priority patent/WO1996006425A1/fr
Publication of WO1996006425A1 publication Critical patent/WO1996006425A1/fr

Links

Classifications

    • G—PHYSICS
    • G10—MUSICAL INSTRUMENTS; ACOUSTICS
    • G10H—ELECTROPHONIC MUSICAL INSTRUMENTS; INSTRUMENTS IN WHICH THE TONES ARE GENERATED BY ELECTROMECHANICAL MEANS OR ELECTRONIC GENERATORS, OR IN WHICH THE TONES ARE SYNTHESISED FROM A DATA STORE
    • G10H1/00—Details of electrophonic musical instruments
    • G10H1/0033—Recording/reproducing or transmission of music for electrophonic musical instruments
    • G—PHYSICS
    • G10—MUSICAL INSTRUMENTS; ACOUSTICS
    • G10H—ELECTROPHONIC MUSICAL INSTRUMENTS; INSTRUMENTS IN WHICH THE TONES ARE GENERATED BY ELECTROMECHANICAL MEANS OR ELECTRONIC GENERATORS, OR IN WHICH THE TONES ARE SYNTHESISED FROM A DATA STORE
    • G10H1/00—Details of electrophonic musical instruments
    • G10H1/36—Accompaniment arrangements
    • G10H1/40—Rhythm
    • G—PHYSICS
    • G10—MUSICAL INSTRUMENTS; ACOUSTICS
    • G10H—ELECTROPHONIC MUSICAL INSTRUMENTS; INSTRUMENTS IN WHICH THE TONES ARE GENERATED BY ELECTROMECHANICAL MEANS OR ELECTRONIC GENERATORS, OR IN WHICH THE TONES ARE SYNTHESISED FROM A DATA STORE
    • G10H2220/00—Input/output interfacing specifically adapted for electrophonic musical tools or instruments
    • G10H2220/155—User input interfaces for electrophonic musical instruments
    • G10H2220/315—User input interfaces for electrophonic musical instruments for joystick-like proportional control of musical input; Videogame input devices used for musical input or control, e.g. gamepad, joysticks
    • G—PHYSICS
    • G10—MUSICAL INSTRUMENTS; ACOUSTICS
    • G10H—ELECTROPHONIC MUSICAL INSTRUMENTS; INSTRUMENTS IN WHICH THE TONES ARE GENERATED BY ELECTROMECHANICAL MEANS OR ELECTRONIC GENERATORS, OR IN WHICH THE TONES ARE SYNTHESISED FROM A DATA STORE
    • G10H2240/00—Data organisation or data communication aspects, specifically adapted for electrophonic musical tools or instruments
    • G10H2240/325—Synchronizing two or more audio tracks or files according to musical features or musical timings

Definitions

  • This invention relates generally to retrieval of prerecorded sound patterns, and more particularly to a method and apparatus for retrieving one or more sound patterns stored in memory, such as RAM or ROM, in synchronization with a portion of music at any point in the music.
  • This type of device limits the addition of the pattern to the beginning of a measure. It is also believed that another limitation of these devices is that the entire measure must be 5 stored somehow in order to be continuously retrieved. To store an entire song, and several patterns which might be added to the song would take an enormous amount of memory.
  • the present invention avoids these deficiencies and allows the user to define both an underlying song and one or more sound patterns to be added to the song of any length, with a minimum amount of memory needed to store them, and to begin adding the pattern synchronous with the song at any time during the song.
  • the present invention provides a method and apparatus for playing a first sequence of sounds represented by data stored in memory synchronously with a second sequence of sounds represented by data stored in memory, at any point during the playing of the second sequence of sounds.
  • a point in time is selected at which a specific sound in the first sequence of sounds must be played at the same time as the specific sound in the second sequence or sounds for the two sequences to be synchronous, typically the beginning of each sequence.
  • the number of sounds in the second sequence which have been played before the current sound being played is counted and used to determine which sound in the first sequence is synchronous with the current sound in the second sequence.
  • the data representing both sounds is then retrieved and used to generate, i.e. to "play," the identified sound in the first sequence simultaneously with the current sound of the second sequence.
  • Figure 1 is a flowchart of the method of the present invention.
  • Figure 2 is a listing of computer-like code of the flowchart of Figure 1.
  • Figure 3 illustrates a joystick-type input device which may be used with the present invention.
  • Figure 4 is a timeline of a basic track and two sound patterns as they may exist in the present invention.
  • Figure 5 illustrates one data structure which may be used to represent a sound pattern in the present invention.
  • Figure 6 is an illustration of one hardware embodiment of the present invention.
  • various sound patterns may be added to a basic track. Some sounds must first be recorded in a memory, as further explained below.
  • the basic track and each sound pattern may be of any desired length which is independent of the length of any other pattern or the basic track, the only non- memory limitation being that the cadences of the patterns should be such that they are musically pleasing when added to the basic track.
  • data is supplied to a sound generating chip which produces the desired sound or sounds from the data.
  • the data may include the address or addresses or actual recorded sounds which are digitized and stored and/or parameter data which instructs the sound chip as to how to play back the recorded sounds at the specified address(es), i.e. how to alter some of the parameters of the sound. This is explained in more detail below.
  • the term "note” is used herein to represent a sound of predetermined duration as also explained below; however, a “note” may actually be any collection of sounds, including but not limited to musical notes, which may be sampled and stored in memory as explained herein.)
  • the present time is obtained from a clock, normally the clock of a microprocessor which runs a program implementing the method through software.
  • the end time of the cycle is calculated by adding a predetermined period to the current time.
  • the basic track data for the note corresponding to the present position of the basic track counter is retrieved. This data is again generally the address of a note or notes to be played and playback parameters for the note(s). This basic track data is placed into the play buffer at step 18.
  • the system looks to see if an interrupt signal has been received from the input device which indicates that the user has signaled to end the song. If so, the song is ended. If there is no such signal, it is determined whether the user has selected a particular pattern to be added to the basic track by looking for a signal from an input device.
  • the input device is a joystick having eight positions in the directions up, down, left, right, up left, down left, up right and down right, as shown on Figure 2. If the input device is in the default position or condition (the center position of a joystick), then the system skips to step 26 because there is no pattern to be added to the basic track.
  • step 22 the sound pattern data corresponding to the present position of the counter for that sound pattern is retrieved.
  • the sound pattern data is some combination of one or more addresses for a note or notes and parameters for playback of the note(s).
  • the sound pattern data is also placed in the play buffer at step 24.
  • all of the counters are incremented, including not only the basic track counter and the sound pattern counter for the pattern selected, but those for all of the other sound patterns as well.
  • step 28 the system looks to see if any counter reads higher than the number of notes in the sound pattern to which that counter corresponds. If so, that counter is reset to zero at step 30, without affecting any of the other counters.
  • the clock is checked and compared to the end time of the note as calculated in step 14. If the end time has not been reached, the system waits until the end time is reached. Once the end time is reached, at step 34 the system sends the data in the play buffer, which contains the addresses of the notes to be played and the parameters for playing them, to the 5_ sound chip, which generates the notes from the recorded sounds at the specified addresses and the associated parameters. In shorter terms, the selected notes of the basic track and any selected sound pattern are played. The play buffer is now empty.
  • step 12 the system returns to step 12 to begin the process of playing the next note in the song.
  • each pattern has been completed an integral number of times and thus both start over at the same time, here at note 24. If the patterns are different, for example if pattern 1 is 12 notes and pattern 2 is 16 notes, then the point at which the patterns both start over might be later, in this case at note 48.
  • the counters keep track of which note in each pattern is appropriate for the current note of the basic track.
  • This feature allows the user to select a pattern at any point in time, and the system will add the pattern to the basic track essentially immediately, i.e. on the present note or the next note. If the input device is activated prior to step 20, the system can receive the signal that the user has selected a sound pattern in time to retrieve the proper note of the sound pattern and include it with the present note of the basic track. If the input device is activated after step 20, the system will not add the selected sound pattern to the basic track until the following note. This delay will be virtually undetectable by the user, who will perceive that the sound pattern that he or she has selected is immediately added to the basic track.
  • the patterns can be represented by as little as a single note which is reproduced with 5_ different parameters to sound differently.
  • the pattern for a tambourine having 16 sequential notes may be represented by a single recorded tambourine note and 16 sets of parameters for playing that recorded note. These parameters may include such things as amplitude or loudness, the envelope of the sound, i.e. how long it is sustained or decays, its pitch or frequency, etc. The precise parameters used will depend in part upon the capability of Q the sound chip used.
  • the sequence of notes of a sound pattern is represented by a "list," i.e. a series of data.
  • Each item in the list contains the address of the recorded sound to be played, and parameter instructions which tell the sound chip how to play that sound.
  • One possible form of such a list is shown in Figure 5.
  • the pre-recorded note of a 5 tambourine is held in address A.
  • the tambourine sound pattern is 16 notes long.
  • the list contains 16 data entries.
  • Each data entry contains the address of the recorded tambourine sound, and thus points to the pre-recorded note, as represented by the solid lines.
  • Each data entry also contains various parameters for playback of the tambourine sound, including amplitude, envelope and pitch as mentioned above, although these may be different for each 0 entry in the list.
  • FIG. 5 Also shown in Figure 5 is the counter for the tambourine sound pattern. As described above, the counter is incremented on each note, whether the tambourine pattern is selected or not, so that the system can always immediately add the tambourine pattern to the basic track if it is selected. Thus, the counter at all times points to the item in the list for the tambourine pattern which corresponds to the current note of the basic track, as shown by the dashed lines in Figure 5.
  • the counter will point to the seventh data entry of the tambourine pattern list, which in turn will provide the address of the tambourine sound and the parameters for its playback to the play buffer, and in turn to the sound chip. (Note that while there are 16 data entries in the _ tambourine pattern list, they are numbered from O to 15 for ease of programming, since it is often easier to reset a counter to zero than to 1.)
  • a bass sound pattern may be represented by a single pre-recorded note and a list containing the desired number of notes, each entry containing the address of the note and the appropriate playback parameters.
  • a drum sound pattern may contain 5 or 6 different pre-recorded sounds, each being for a different type of drum. But these sounds may still be repeated by having more than one entry in the list contain the address of each sound, and thus a sound pattern can be generated with far less memory than would be required to store a whole drum sequence.
  • the basic track of the song can be stored in this way.
  • the basic track may be one pre-recorded measure and a list of data entries which are accessed sequentially and cause the pre-recorded measure to be accessed sequentially, just as the sound patterns.
  • FIG. 6 shows one hardware embodiment of the present invention.
  • a microprocessor 40 controls the system.
  • the basic track information is contained in ROM 42, which has within it list data 44 and recorded sound data 46 and 48.
  • the list data is retrieved by the microprocessor 40, and contains the addresses of the sound data 46 and 48 which make up two basic tracks in this case. When the system is turned on, these two basic tracks are played.
  • Counter 58 counts the number of notes played.
  • the user has access to an input device 50 which allows selection of a sound pattern.
  • the sound patterns are contained in ROM 52, which may be in the same ROM chip as ROM 42, being shown separate only for clarity.
  • Four sound patterns are here shown represented by four lists 54a-d, each list pointing to corresponding sound data 56a-d. (Note, however, that a specific piece of sound data may be accessed by more than one list.)
  • Counters 60a-d correspond to sound pattern lists 54a-d, and are incremented along with counter 58, each being reset when it exceeds the length of the corresponding list.
  • microprocessor 40 looks to the appropriate counter 60a-d to determine which entry in the selected sound pattern list _ 54a-d should be accessed, and obtains the data from the appropriate list and the corresponding sound data. This data is sent to buffer 62. When the end of a note cycle is reached, as calculated from an internal clock in microprocessor 40, the data in the buffer is sent to sound chip 64 which generates sounds from the data. The sounds are then played over an output device 66, which may be headphones or a stereo system. In the above description, it is assumed that the sound chip can generate at least two notes in one note period, i.e. the basic track note and a sound pattern note. Most sound chips are capable of this.
  • Another way to implement this would be to have a step in the list contain the address of more than one note, and send all of the addresses to the play buffer and then to the sound chip. This is also within the concept of the present invention, again limited only by the 5_ capability of the sound chip and the ability of the programmer to include such a type of data storage.
  • the present preferred embodiment uses a sound chip known as OTTO from Ensoniq, believed to be capable of handling up to 32 sounds at once. Multiple basic tracks and/or sound patterns are thus well within the capability of the sound chip. While it is believed that the play buffer sends notes to this chip serially, and not in parallel, so that the notes actually start to play one after the other rather than all at once, the speed of the serial transfer is so fast that the user will be unable to tell that the notes are not really being played completely simultaneously. In addition, the notes will overlap, thus further enhancing the appearance of simultaneous play.
  • OTTO Sound chip
  • One familiar with sound chips in general, or the OTTO chip specifically will easily understand from the technical specifications of the chip how the chip is controlled, and thus how the parameter data described herein can be varied to vary the output of the chip.
  • the system looks for an interrupt at step 20, when it looks for a signal from the user through the input device.
  • the user presses the same button that was pressed to start the music to stop the music, whereupon the system plays a final note based upon an address affiliated with the interrupt signal. This ending procedure may be altered as desired.
  • the predetermined duration of the notes may vary from song to song depending upon the type of music to be played. This is done simply by altering the number of clock cycles of the microprocessor clock which equal the duration of a note. Generally the duration of each note in a song is the same, but this need not be the case, and it is possible to vary the duration of notes within a song, although this increases the complexity of the program required. Another possible variation is to use a single counter and a processor rather than multiple counters, and to calculate the proper entry of a sound pattern list each time a pattern is selected by the user.
  • the length of the selected pattern would be divided into the basic track counter which indicates the total number of notes played thus far, and the remainder would indicate the entry of the selected pattern list which should be called.
  • Yet another possible variation, given the capability of the sound chip to handle multiple notes, is to have each sound pattern "played" at all times, but have all patterns but the one or ones selected played at a zero amplitude, thus creating the same effect as if the ones selected are the only ones played.
  • input devices other than a joystick which may be used within the present invention. For example, a pad of buttons, each selecting a sound pattern when pushed. An input device such as this could allow the user to select only one sound pattern, like the joystick, or could allow selection of up to all of the sound patterns, again given the capability of the sound chip.
  • the actual system would consist of a self-contained main unit with the microprocessor and sound chip, as well as the counters and both RAM and ROM.
  • the ROM would contain routines necessary for operation of the unit, but no music.
  • the unit would have output jacks to allow the user to listen through headphones or by sending the output to a stereo system.
  • An internal battery would supply power with an additional jack for an AC power supply if desired.
  • the data needed for songs would be contained in cartridges containing additional
  • the ROM in the cartridge would contain the data, i.e. recorded sounds and data lists for one or more basic tracks and a set of sound patterns for a song. Other data in the cartridge would tell the microprocessor how many clock cycles make up the duration of one note for the song in the cartridge, so that each song may have a note length most suitable for the type of music, as well as the length of each sound pattern in the cartridge so that the sound pattern counters could be properly reset to zero when the length of each pattern was exceeded as above.
  • the data in the cartridge i.e. the data lists needed to reproduce the recorded sound
  • the data in the cartridge would be downloaded into the RAM in the main unit when the cartridge is inserted. This would serve both to keep the cost of the cartridge as low as possible, since the cartridge would thus need nothing but ROM of even a slow access speed, and to allow the processing to be done in the main unit by the microprocessor so that speed of operation is maximized.
  • only minimal RAM would be needed in the main unit to contain the lists, which as above do not require much memory. The only access to the cartridge necessary after this downloading would be to obtain the sound data.
  • the song could even have vocals.
  • a control such as a potentiometer for altering the level of the vocals or removing them completely so that the user could substitute his or her own voice if desired.
  • Another possibility is to allow the user to "record" his or her movements of the joystick, so that any combination of song and sound pattern created by the user can be stored in memory and then recreated as desired. Since all that is necessary is to keep track of the signals from the input device and the time at which they occur, the amount of memory required is very small. To record the user's voice, on the other hand, the amount of memory required would be quite large. While this is possible in theory, a more practical approach would be to record the song, with the user's voice, on a tape machine through the stereo output jacks.

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  • Physics & Mathematics (AREA)
  • Engineering & Computer Science (AREA)
  • Acoustics & Sound (AREA)
  • Multimedia (AREA)
  • Electrophonic Musical Instruments (AREA)

Abstract

Procédé et appareil de reproduction d'une première séquence de sons représentée par des données (46) mémorisées dans une mémoire (42) de manière synchronisée avec une seconde séquence de sons représentée par des données (48) mémorisées dans la mémoire (42), à tout moment lors de la reproduction de la seconde séquence de sons. On choisit un moment auquel un son spécifique de la première séquence de sons doit être reproduit au même moment que le son spécifique de la seconde séquence de sons pour que les deux séquences soient synchronisées. Le nombre de sons de la seconde séquence qui ont été reproduits avant le son en cours de reproduction est compté et utilisé afin de déterminer quel son de la première séquence est synchrone avec le son en cours de reproduction de la seconde séquence. Les données représentant les deux sons sont ensuite extraites et utilisées afin de générer un son identifié de la première séquence simultanément au son en cours de reproduction de la seconde séquence.
PCT/US1994/009479 1992-09-04 1994-08-24 Procede et appareil d'extraction de configurations de son pre-enregistrees en synchronisation WO1996006425A1 (fr)

Priority Applications (2)

Application Number Priority Date Filing Date Title
US07/940,473 US5399799A (en) 1992-09-04 1992-09-04 Method and apparatus for retrieving pre-recorded sound patterns in synchronization
PCT/US1994/009479 WO1996006425A1 (fr) 1992-09-04 1994-08-24 Procede et appareil d'extraction de configurations de son pre-enregistrees en synchronisation

Applications Claiming Priority (2)

Application Number Priority Date Filing Date Title
US07/940,473 US5399799A (en) 1992-09-04 1992-09-04 Method and apparatus for retrieving pre-recorded sound patterns in synchronization
PCT/US1994/009479 WO1996006425A1 (fr) 1992-09-04 1994-08-24 Procede et appareil d'extraction de configurations de son pre-enregistrees en synchronisation

Publications (1)

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WO1996006425A1 true WO1996006425A1 (fr) 1996-02-29

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Citations (3)

* Cited by examiner, † Cited by third party
Publication number Priority date Publication date Assignee Title
US4594930A (en) * 1983-05-10 1986-06-17 Naoyuki Murakami Apparatus for synchronizing playback rates of music sources
US5092216A (en) * 1989-08-17 1992-03-03 Wayne Wadhams Method and apparatus for studying music
US5189237A (en) * 1989-12-18 1993-02-23 Casio Computer Co., Ltd. Apparatus and method for performing auto-playing in synchronism with reproduction of audio data

Patent Citations (3)

* Cited by examiner, † Cited by third party
Publication number Priority date Publication date Assignee Title
US4594930A (en) * 1983-05-10 1986-06-17 Naoyuki Murakami Apparatus for synchronizing playback rates of music sources
US5092216A (en) * 1989-08-17 1992-03-03 Wayne Wadhams Method and apparatus for studying music
US5189237A (en) * 1989-12-18 1993-02-23 Casio Computer Co., Ltd. Apparatus and method for performing auto-playing in synchronism with reproduction of audio data

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