Music – Instruments – Electrical musical tone generation
Reexamination Certificate
2001-11-05
2004-01-06
Donels, Jeffrey (Department: 2837)
Music
Instruments
Electrical musical tone generation
C084S656000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06673995
ABSTRACT:
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a musical signal processing device, and more particularly to a musical signal processing device for outputting audio data which is adapted to the tonal characteristics of input audio data.
2. Description of the Background Art
Various musical signal processing devices for outputting processed audio data by applying acoustic signal processing to input audio data to are conventionally available. Examples of such musical signal processing devices include: tone control devices such as graphic equalizers, compressors, and tone controls; acoustic effect devices such as reverb machines, delay machines, and flanger machines; and audio data editing devices such as cross-fading devices and noise reduction devices. Such devices enjoy popularity across a wide range of fields, from music production studios for business use to sound reproduction devices for consumer use. Moreover, the changes in the manner s of music distribution in recent years have led to the increasing prevalence of devices such as audio data compression encoders and electronic watermark data embedders. As such, musical signal processing devices are being utilized by producers at music producing entities, individual musicians, or general users who pursue music for their hobbies, etc., for the purpose of tone adjustment, musical creation, and pre-processing for (satisfying the range constraints or the like of) subsequent processes, among other applications.
FIG. 20
is a block diagram illustrating the general structure of a commonly-used conventional musical signal processing device. As shown in
FIG. 20
, the conventional musical signal processing device includes an input section
91
and an acoustic processing section
92
. In accordance with a user instruction, the input section
91
outputs parameters to the acoustic processing section
92
which define conditions for the processing to be performed by the acoustic processing section
92
. In accordance with the parameters received from the input section
91
, the acoustic processing section
92
applies a predetermined processing algorithm to input data so as to output processed data. Thus, the musical signal processing device is capable of adjusting the tone of the output audio data based on the parameters as manipulated by the user via the input section
91
.
As disclosed in Japanese Patent Laid-Open Publication No. 8-298418, a musical signal processing device has been proposed in which commonly-used terms or expressions can be utilized as a tone evaluation language for adjusting the tone of the device. This device allows a user to input his/her feeling about the tone of an output sound from the device by using terms or expressions which are commonly used as the tone evaluation language for sound reproduction devices, whereby settings of an FIR filter of a graphic equalizer can be established. As a result, general users who may lack in knowledge and/or experience in handling acoustic processing can easily perform a tone adjustment.
In conventional musical signal processing devices, when a user determines that the tone of an output sound (hereinafter referred to as “output tone”) is inappropriate, the user takes the trouble of again setting the parameters of tone adjustment in order to obtain an appropriate Output tone.
However, the musical data to be processed by the aforementioned musical signal processing devices may have varying contents, so that the processes which are appropriate for the musical data may differ depending on its content. For example, musical data of certain contents may require an acoustic processing for enhancing the low-frequency components, whereas musical data of other contents may require an acoustic processing for enhancing the high-frequency components.
Therefore, in accordance with conventional musical signal processing devices, a set of parameters which have once been optimized by a user may not be optimum for a different kind of input data. In other words, conventional musical signal processing devices cannot perform acoustic processing in accordance with the content of input musical data.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
Therefore, an object of the present invention is to provide a musical signal processing device capable of providing a tone which is adapted to the content of input musical data.
The present invention has the following features to attain the object above.
A first aspect of the present invention is directed to a musical signal processing device for applying predetermined acoustic processing to input musical data, comprising: an analysis section for analyzing acoustic characteristics of the input musical data to produce an analysis result; a parameter determination section for determining an acoustic processing parameter in accordance with the analysis result by the analysis section, the acoustic processing parameter being used for adjusting a tone of an output of the predetermined acoustic processing; and an acoustic processing section for applying the predetermined acoustic processing to the input musical data in accordance with the acoustic processing parameter determined by the parameter determination section.
Thus, according to the first aspect, it is possible to set an acoustic processing parameter in accordance with an analysis result representing the acoustic characteristics of input musical data. By employing such an acoustic processing parameter for changing the tone of the output musical data, it is possible to change the output tone in accordance with the analysis result, so that an output tone which is adapted to the contents of the input musical data can be obtained.
According to a second aspect based on the first aspect, the analysis section comprises: a characteristic value detection section for detecting a characteristic value representing characteristics of contents of the input musical data, the characteristic value being used as the analysis result; and an intermediate data generation section for generating intermediate data, wherein the intermediate data represents the characteristic value detected by the characteristic value detection section in terms of an index which is different from the characteristic value and which is in a form readily understandable to humans, and wherein the parameter determination section determines the acoustic processing parameter based on the intermediate data which is generated by the intermediate data generation section.
Thus, according to the second aspect, a characteristic value representing an analysis result of the input musical data is converted to intermediate data expressed by using an index which is in a form readily understandable to humans, and then an acoustic processing parameter is determined based on the index. Since the determination of the acoustic processing parameter from the characteristic value is generally made by using conversion rules, the conversion of the characteristic value to an index in a form readily understandable to humans facilitates the preparation of the conversion rules as compared to the case where the characteristic value is directly converted to an acoustic processing parameter.
According to a third aspect based on the second aspect, the intermediate data is genre information representing a genre in which the input musical data is classified.
Thus, according to the third aspect, genre information is employed as intermediate data in the process of obtaining an acoustic processing parameter from a characteristic value. It is presumable that the conditions for appropriate acoustic processing will be similar for any pieces of music (as represented by the input musical data) that are of the same genre or similar genres. Therefore, an appropriate acoustic processing parameter can be easily set by determining the acoustic processing conditions depending on the genre of a given piece of music. The use of genre information as intermediate data facilitates the preparation of conversion rules for obtaining an acoustic processing parameter from a characteristic val
Date Toshihiko
Hirata Tomomi
Kobayashi Ryosuke
Ogawa Michiko
Donels Jeffrey
Matsushita Electric - Industrial Co., Ltd.
Wenderoth , Lind & Ponack, L.L.P.
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