Music – Instruments – Electrical musical tone generation
Reexamination Certificate
2002-02-01
2003-03-25
Witkowski, Stanley J. (Department: 2837)
Music
Instruments
Electrical musical tone generation
C084S622000, C084S645000, C084S735000, C084S742000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06538189
ABSTRACT:
FIELD OF THE INVENTION
This invention relates to an electronic wind controller for simulating, the playing characteristics of acoustic woodwind instruments. More particularly, this invention provides certain improvements in wind controllers for making such instruments easier to play, more expressive and capable of producing chords.
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
In the technology of digital music and sound, there is a need for certain improvements, especially in wind controllers for simulating the playing characteristics of woodwind instruments. In digital music, the MIDI (Musical Instrument Digital Interface) standard is both a hardware and software data transmission specification. This widely used standard specifies a scheme for connecting music synthesizers, controllers, and other music processing equipment. The standard calls for unidirectional, serial data transmission at 31.25K bits per second between devices. The standard also specifies a data protocol for exchanging musical performance data, control information, and other data. Typically, a MIDI-compatible musical instrument such as a keyboard or wind controller has a MIDI output which can be connected to the MIDI input of a synthesizer. When notes are played on the instrument, MIDI data flows via the serial data link to the synthesizer where it is interpreted and converted into an analog waveform suitable for amplification, listening on headphones or speakers, or recording. MIDI messages are usually short sequences of data bytes used to convey actions to the synthesizer. Each MIDI message begins with a command byte, such as “note on” or “note off”. Additional bytes of information are added to the message to indicate which pitch should be played (called a note “value”), and how loudly (called the “velocity”). A “note on” message will cause a pitch to be produced by the synthesizer and sustained until a corresponding “note off” message arrives. Furthermore, polyphony (more than one note playing at a time) can be achieved by sending multiple “note on” messages in a row. A synthesizer receiving multiple “note on” messages will produce the pitches together as a chord. The data rate used by MIDI is sufficiently high that the sequential, but nearly simultaneous, arrival of these messages cannot be discerned by the listener. MIDI provides for numerous other commands and control messages used for things like synthesizer programming and data transfer.
Though relatively inexpensive when compared to the cost of a high quality saxophone, clarinet, or flute, the wind controller has failed to gain widespread acceptance among woodwind players. The failure of these instruments to catch on can probably be attributed to their major shortcoming; the high degree of difficulty of playing the commercially available wind controllers well. Even musicians with a technical mastery over traditional acoustic woodwinds find the wind controller to be difficult, if not impossible, to play with equal finesse.
In digital music, the instruments themselves have no acoustic properties whatsoever and are made of computers, switches and transducers of various description. Sounds are “triggered” through the production of data signals, such as MIDI data, rather than being produced by an acoustic process. The accidental triggering of a note, in MIDI parlance, has become known as a “glitch”. Glitches usually happen during the transition between two notes. But each type of electronic controller has its own characteristic glitch risk. With keyboards there is almost no risk, whereas with wind controllers the risk of glitching is considerable.
Presently, wind controllers are wired with a single switch at each key position, where each key corresponds roughly to a key on the woodwind instrument, such as a saxophone, which is simulated by the controller. Keys are either depressed or not and thus each key on the controller has two states or positions, up or released and down or held. Due in part to the nature of woodwind fingerings, when a musician makes a note transition that calls for a state change in more than one key, there is a glitch risk, as will be described below.
Consider the following example of how a glitch can arise on a wind controller such as the Yamaha WX-11. A transition from the note G# to the note C# calls for four keys to go from a closed position to an open position. If all four keys are lifted at exactly the same instant we will have a clean, glitch-free transition between G# and C# with no other notes sounding. However, if there is a very slight difference (as measured by a 32 KHz clock) in transition times, a glitch will arise. This obtains because, out of all of the possible key combinations involving the same four keys as those in the G# to C# transition, five combinations represent actual notes. For a performer playing with less than machine-like precision, the wind controller will recognize (on the way to C#) a different note transition than the one intended. Perhaps it will play G#-A-C#, or even G#-G-C-C#. This is just one of many similar examples which frustrate even very accomplished woodwind players trying to make use of a wind controller.
There is a need, as set forth above, in wind controllers for preventing the accidental triggering of a note, i.e. an event which has come to be known as a “glitch”.
In electronic wind controllers, the fingering positions of the counterpart acoustic instrument, such as the saxophone, are mostly preserved so that a musician familiar with a saxophone will be able to readily learn to play a wind controller. This is done as a convenience when, in fact, a wind controller could have any arbitrary fingering chart imaginable. In an acoustic instrument such as a saxophone, clarinet, or flute the fingerings on the instrument have been determined largely by the laws of physics, the fingering charts for these instruments are subject to the acoustic properties of the instrument and therefore are not ideal for the player. As any woodwind player can attest, each of the twelve major and minor keys has its own characteristic, or idiomatic “feel”. Some musical keys are easier to play in than others. A standard woodwind fingering chart shows the primary fingerings for the instrument, and some charts show a few alternate fingerings, too. But to a skilled musician, the alternate fingerings on the instrument play a very important role and are used often. In fact many “undocumented” alternate fingerings are learned by experimentation and discovery by musicians looking to achieve a kind of mastery over the instrument.
Electronic musical instrument makers have overlooked this aspect of woodwind playing almost entirely. Current instruments fail to introduce new secondary, or alternate, fingerings that will be of use to the player. Furthermore, ideally a musician would prefer if the many unassigned key combinations would not create a sound at all. In the prior art (for an example, Yamaha WX-11), unfortunately almost every possible key combination on the instrument produces a note. This makes the instrument into a kind of “mine field” full of unwanted fingerings that make it more difficult to play, increase the glitch risk described above, and introduce key combinations which are not useful. There is a need, as set forth above, to provide wind controllers with customizable secondary, or alternate fingerings that will be of use to the player.
Although the wind controller technology is highly developed, there remains a need for providing the wind controller with the capability of playing chords. Examples of chording instruments are, of course, the piano, the guitar, and even the harmonica. Even though traditional acoustic woodwinds are not polyphonic and hence are not chording instruments it would be a desirable capability for a wind controller. Although some devices like harmonizers are available to create preset chords and intervals, and MIDI sustain pedals can help produce chords by layering sustained notes, these devices do not meet the need for the wind controller to play chords.
In t
Reising Ethington, Barnes, Kisselle, Learman & McCulloch, P.C.
Witkowski Stanley J.
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