Electricity: motive power systems – Plural diverse motor controls – Running-speed control
Patent
1992-07-13
1995-01-17
Wysocki, Jonathan
Electricity: motive power systems
Plural diverse motor controls
Running-speed control
318369, 318569, 318551, 318824, 84601, 84602, 84644, 84645, H02P 100
Patent
active
053828917
DESCRIPTION:
BRIEF SUMMARY
The invention relates to a system for on-line control of clock pulse data in a computer or microprocessor-related system and in particular, to a man-machine interface which is capable of controlling clock pulse data. The invention is particularly suitable for use with music synthesizers.
The majority of man-machine interfaces do not operate at real time. The reason for this is that the majority of computer systems are not capable of carrying out complex operations at the same speed as the human brain. In the last half of a decade considerable improvements have been achieved with the speed of operation of microprocessors and computers and it is now possible for computer systems including robots to be designed which are capable of carrying out human functions at real time speed. For example, it is possible to design a robot system in which the robot is capable of reading and playing music at the same speed as a human would play. Such robotic systems open up a whole series of possibilities for combining human and robotic behaviour. The robots may be active as described above or may be passive, for example, a music synthesizer capable of reproducing musical sounds from preprogrammed and/or prerecorded digital data. Independent of whether these devices are active or passive the speed of operation of the system is determined by clock pulse data. The machine-like accuracy of this clock pulse data can result in problems when human beings have to operate with a computer controlled machine. As the speed of operation of computers increases and the applications in which real time computing must be synchronized with human behaviour also increase, there is a need to be able to control a real time active or passive robot so that the speed of operation can be flexibly altered in accordance with human requirements.
In the following, embodiments will be described with relation to musical synthesizers and multi-media systems. The present invention is however not limited to these kind of devices but may be used as a man-machine interface with any clock pulse controlled system.
The simplest form of music sequencing system is shown in FIG. 1 in which a musical instrument or keyboard for inputting musical data into a sequencer is connected to the sequencer and also to an amplifier and recording device. With this kind of sequencing device data relating to each musical instrument or musical part, must be entered separately. The musical data may be entered directly from a musical instrument such as the keyboard of an electronic organ or the information may be inputted directly using a computer terminal. This system is extremely time consuming and laborious if several different parts are to be played simultaneously such as occurs with orchestral music. Such a system (MIDI) is known from "MIDI" in Theorie and Praxis" Elecktor Verlag, 1990.
A more advanced and complex conventional system is shown in FIG. 2 in which a series of sequences (0, 1, 2, 3,) or electronic musical instruments are connected together as well as a tempo clock generator (6) which products time impulses which control the operation of the sequences (0, 2, 3). In this way, a plurality of musical parts may be replayed simultaneously. Further, by programming the tempo clock generator it is possible to alter the tempo of the music during play back. The system is organised as a local area network (LAN) in which musical performance frames travel along the loop, each frame containing digital information relating to the musical notes, timing, start and stop of the note as well as identification data for the receiving device. The node (6) typically despatches tempo click information at the clock rate of one 96th of a note duration. A typical tempo is 160 gpm (quarter notes per minute) which means that one 96th of a note duration is 15.265 milliseconds. Node (6) therefore despatches clock frames every 15.625 milliseconds. The node (6) is a master of total performance, and the tempo of each sequencer is controlled by the reception of tempo click information from the master. Su
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Masih Karen
Wysocki Jonathan
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