Music – Instruments – Electrical musical tone generation
Reexamination Certificate
1999-05-13
2001-01-30
Donels, Jeffrey (Department: 2837)
Music
Instruments
Electrical musical tone generation
C084S605000, C704S500000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06180861
ABSTRACT:
FIELD OF THE INVENTION
This invention relates to a tone generation device and method, distribution medium, and data recording medium. More specifically, the invention relates to a tone generation device and method, distribution medium, and data recording medium wherein a compression method is used in which little time is required to expand the beginning part of the data for generating one tone, or no compression is done, and for the other part, compressed tone data is used using a high-compression method, and while the beginning part of the data is being expansion-processed and played, the other part is being processed, thereby making the delay time from when the request is made to play a prescribed tone until it is played unnoticeable to the user.
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
In an electronic musical instrument or game machine, user operation occurs randomly, so the tones that are to be played cannot be anticipated and it has been impossible to generate tones by predicting user operations for sound-expression requests. One requirement for an electronic musical instrument or game machine is that when a request is made for playing a prescribed tone, it must be played immediately. In order to handle such unpredictable requests for immediate expression, the tone data used in electronic musical instruments and game machines has either not been compressed or has been compressed using a compression method whose processing time upon expansion is short, such as, for example, adaptive differential pulse-coded modulation (ADPCM).
In a minidisk (MD), ATRAC (adaptive transform acoustic coding) and ATRAC 2 have been developed as high-efficiency encoding audio compression techniques. These techniques provide high sound quality, predict the coming data (not controlled by user operation) in order to pre-read the data, and are making it possible to realize music playback machines that can generate tones.
ADPCM can compress data to about ¼, and ATRAC 2 can compress data to about {fraction (1/10)} to {fraction (1/20)}. Furthermore, the sound obtained by expanding data compressed by ATRAC 2 is closer to the original sound (the pre-compressed sound) than is the sound obtained by expanding data compressed by ADPCM.
However, ATRAC 2 imposes a heavier (about 20-fold) processing burden for compression and expansion than does ADPCM, and for this reason it has been considered unsuitable for electronic musical instruments and game machine, in which user requests for sound generation must produce the desired expression immediately.
Also, in an electronic musical instrument or game machine, requests for the expression of multiple tones are sometimes made simultaneously, which leads to the problem that not all the tones can be generated (expressed) immediately if a compression method requiring heavy processing, such as ATRAC 2, is used.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
The present invention eliminates the delay time between a sound expression request and when the sound is expressed and makes it possible to use a high-efficiency encoding sound compression method. This is done by tone data that is compressed using different compression methods for the beginning part and the other part of the data for generating one tone, and by storing part of the expansion-processed data.
The tone generation device of the present invention has a reading means that reads tone data consisting of first data that either is not compressed or is compressed by a first compression method having a short time required for expansion processing and second data that is compressed by a second compression method having a time required for expansion processing which is longer than for the first compression method; a first output means that expands said first data as necessary among the data read by the reading means and outputs it; and a second output means that expands and outputs said second data.
The tone generation method also includes a reading step which reads tone data consisting of first data that either is not compressed or is compressed by a first compression method having a short time required for expansion processing and second data that is compressed by a second compression method having a time required for expansion processing which is longer than for the first compression method; a first output step that as necessary expands the first data among the data read by the reading means and outputs it; and a second output step that expands and outputs the second data.
The distribution medium provides a computer-readable program that executes processing that includes a reading step which reads tone data consisting of first data that either is not compressed or is compressed by a first compression method having a short time required for expansion processing and second data that is compressed by a second compression method having a time required for expansion processing which is longer than for the first compression method; a first output step that as necessary expands the first data among the data read by the reading means and outputs it; and a second output step that expands and outputs the second data.
Tone data is recorded on the data recording medium from first data that either is not compressed or is compressed by a first compression method having a short time required for expansion processing and second data that is compressed by a second compression method having a time required for expansion processing which is longer than for the first compression method.
The tone generation device of the present invention has a first memory means that stores compressed tone data; an expansion means that expands the compressed tone data read by the first memory means; a decision means that decides whether to store the tone data expanded by the expansion means; a second memory means that stores the tone data expanded by the expansion means in accordance with the decision result of the decision means; and an output means that selects and outputs the output of the second memory means or the output of the expansion means.
The tone generation method includes a first memory step that stores compressed tone data; an expansion step that expands the compressed tone data read in the first memory step; a decision step that decides whether to store the tone data expanded in the expansion step; a second memory step that stores the tone data expanded in the expansion step in accordance with the decision result of the decision step; and an output step that selects and outputs the output of the second memory step or the output of the expansion step.
The distribution medium provides a computer-readable program that executes processing that includes a first memory step that stores compressed tone data; an expansion step that expands the compressed tone data read in the first memory step; a decision step that decides whether to store the tone data expanded in the expansion step; a second memory step that stores the tone data expanded in the expansion step in accordance with the decision result of the decision step; and an output step that selects and outputs the output of the second memory step or the output of the expansion step.
The tone data that is read consists of first data that either is not compressed or is compressed by a first compression method having a short time required for expansion processing and second data that is compressed by a second compression method having a time required for expansion processing which is longer than for the first compression method. Among the data that is read, the first data is expanded and output as necessary, and the second data is expanded and output.
Tone data is recorded in the data recording medium consisting of first data that either is not compressed or is compressed by a first compression method having a short time required for expansion processing and second data that is compressed by a second compression method having a time required for expansion processing which is longer than for the first compression method.
In the tone generation device the tone generation method and the distribution medium tone data rea
Donels Jeffrey
Helfgott & Karas P.C.
Sony Computer Entertainment Inc.
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