Did You Know...
...that Charles Goodyear performed some of his experiments on rubber while in debtor's prison? He was there so often he referred to it as his "hotel". Chronically in debt because of poor business sense and ill health, Goodyear depended on the generosity of friends and family. Even after he unlocked the secret to vulcanizing rubber, he was unable to improve his financial situation. When he died, his estate was $200,000 in debt.
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| Number | Title | Issue Date |
| 7262359 | Digital recording device for electric guitars and the like A digital recording device includes a housing that is engageable with a lower curvature of a guitar's frame. The housing includes an arcuate inner surface, an arcuate outer surface coextensively shaped with the inner surface, and a padded member conjoined to the ext... | 08/28/2007 |
| 7151214 | Interactive multimedia apparatus The apparatus (1) comprises a guitar (3) having strings (42) operable by a user to generate electric signals, a control unit (2), storage means for a simulation backing track in any desired multi-media file format and audio/audio-visual e... | 12/19/2006 |
| 6479739 | Method of controlling tone generating drivers by integrating driver on operating system A method is designed for controlling a plurality of tone generating drivers by an integrating driver installed in an operating system to generate music tones according to performance data created by a music application software. In the method. the perform... | 11/12/2002 |
| 5728963 | Low-power music synthesizer and transmitter This patent application describes a low-power electronic music synthesizer (1) which may be combined with a radio transmitter (2) for use in audio-kinetic sculptures or toys. The invention consists of a low-voltage circuit implementing a multiple voice an... | 03/17/1998 |
| 5506371 | Simulative audio remixing home unit The present invention pertains to audio equipment simulative of musical instruments. The invention allows a user to simulate the playing of music reproduced from an external audio source. The present invention allows a user to quickly modify the amplifica... | 04/09/1996 |
| 5504270 | Method and apparatus for dissonance modification of audio signals A method and apparatus for analyzing and reducing or increasing the dissonance of an electronic audio input signal are realized by identifying the partials of the audio input signal by frequency and amplitude. The dissonance of the input partials is calcu... | 04/02/1996 |
| 5424488 | Transient discriminate harmonics generator A transient discriminate harmonics generator which receives an audio input signal and produces an output signal containing harmonics of the input signal. The output signal is amplitude shaped as a function of the input signal's time and amplitude envelope... | 06/13/1995 |
| 5136917 | Musical tone synthesizing apparatus utilizing an all pass filter for phase modification in a feedback loop A musical tone synthesizing apparatus has a closed-loop configuration including an adder, a filter and a delay circuit. The adder adds its feedback signal to a signal to be synthesized which is applied from an external device. The filter constructed as th... | 08/11/1992 |
| 5131310 | Musical tone synthesizing apparatus A musical tone synthesizing apparatus is disclosed wherein an excitation signal corresponding to performance data is generated and supplied to a loop circuit. In the loop circuit, this excitation signal is delayed for at least a fixed time period and a re... | 07/21/1992 |
| 4879937 | Sound effector A sound effector for changing original sound signals generated from an electric musical instrument and picked up by a pickup element. The effector having an inductance circuit into aurally improved distinctive sounds by suitably distorting the waveform in... | 11/14/1989 |
| 4841828 | Electronic musical instrument with digital filter A pitch synchronizing signal snychronized with the pitch of a digital tone signal to be filtered is generated by a pitch synchronizing signal generation circuit. A digital filter circuit which receives the digital tone signal and imparts it with a desired... | 06/27/1989 |
| 4815354 | Tone signal generating apparatus having a low-pass filter for interpolating waveforms A tone signal generating apparatus comprises a waveform memory in which a plurality of waveform data representing different waveforms but corresponding to a same tone name are stored. These different waveform data are sequentially read from the memory and... | 03/28/1989 |
| 4757737 | Whistle synthesizer A whistle synthesizer comprises a microphone, a housing, system electronics within the housing, and controls outside the housing. The player whistles into the microphone, the signals from which are processed to provide an instrument output signal suitable... | 07/19/1988 |
| 4409877 | Electronic tone generating system A tone generating system for an organ comprises a first group of tone generators for producing notes of a first chromatic scale and second group of tone generators for producing notes of a second chromatic scale, slightly offset from the first. The tone g... | 10/18/1983 |
| 4365533 | Musical instrument A new, performer played, real time, multitonal, multitimbral musical instrument consists of speed and force sensitive keys in which time domain multiplexing is used to find and associate one and only one tone generator, not otherwise busy, with any key th... | 12/28/1982 |
| 4356751 | Electronic musical instrument An electronic musical instrument comprises a musical tone production circuit responsive to a depressed key among a plurality of keys, and a control circuit for controlling tone production manner which includes a plurality of manually operated members moun... | 11/02/1982 |
| 4315452 | Electronic organ percussive modulator An electronic organ apparatus arranged to provide percussive musical tones by differentiating a rectangular waveform tone signal and subsequently clipping the differentiated signal at a variable level under the control of an envelope signal to produce an ... | 02/16/1982 |
| 4290334 | Electronic wave sharing synthetic sound system An electronic sound system especially effective with bell sounds synthesizes the approximate sound of each bell in a set of 49 switch operated bell sounds. The synthesizing is accomplished by utilizig an envelope generator for each partial of a group of 7... | 09/22/1981 |
| 4290335 | High frequency roll-off circuit A high frequency roll-off circuit for a gain stage including an amplifier having a feedback network together with a dual potentiometer comprising two serially connected gang operated resistors connected between the amplifier feedback port and through a ca... | 09/22/1981 |
| 4287804 | Electronic musical instrument with timbre selection A timbre-select type electronic musical instrument in which the application of a sound effect unsuitable for the selected timbre is automatically blocked. This instrument includes means for detecting that a certain timbre is selected and means responsive ... | 09/08/1981 |
| 4282791 | Keyer system for an electronic organ A keying system provides selectable decay times for individual frequency components of a tone to be generated by an electronic organ having a top octave generator producing a multiplicity of rectangular wave signals, and a plurality of associated divider ... | 08/11/1981 |
| 4278001 | Selective keyer biasing to enhance percussion effect A keying system provides selectable decay times for individual components of a tone to be generated by an electronic organ having a top octave generator producing a multiplicity of rectangular wave signals, and a plurality of associated divider circuits. ... | 07/14/1981 |
| 4265157 | Synthetic production of sounds A method and apparatus for producing sounds from one or more-time overlapg sequences of one or more electrical pulse signals having a frequency corresponding to the pitch of the sound to be produced from the signals holding the pulse width or pulse pause... | 05/05/1981 |
| 4248123 | Electronic piano An electronic musical instrument using continuous tone generators capable of simulating the sounds of a conventional acoustical piano. The instrument includes a gating circuit featuring a timed switch travel circuit having a double-time constant for impro... | 02/03/1981 |
| 4248121 | Pulse generator for producing the harmonic equivalent of a sawtooth wave An electronic organ tone generating technique produces a harmonic equivalent of a sawtooth wave. In one embodiment square waves generated by a conventional tone generator are applied to a one shot multivibrator, the output of which is a series of narrow r... | 02/03/1981 |
| 4218950 | Active ladder filter for voicing electronic musical instruments A multiple-stage active RC distributed filter having multiple inputs and a single output for producing filtering of large groups of notes for tone coloration in electronic musical instruments. Output signals from the keying circuits may be applied to sele... | 08/26/1980 |
| 4208940 | Device for producing an ensemble effect A device for producing an ensemble effect in an electronic musical instrument. The device has a plurality of parallel electronic delay circuits adapted to be supplied with a musical tone signal, delay time modulating circuits coupled to each of said delay... | 06/24/1980 |
| 4191082 | Key range dividing type electronic musical instrument An electronic musical instrument having the key range divided into upper and lower divisions, including a logical circuit converting the change-over position outputs of a key range dividing position selecting switch into gate control signals specifying co... | 03/04/1980 |
| 4186643 | Apparatus for chorus effect in electronic musical instruments Apparatus for chorus effect in an electronic musical instrument in which a passing circuit for a musical tone signal is obtained from a musical tone signal generator by operation of a key. The passing circuit is connected to a plurality of variable delay ... | 02/05/1980 |
| 4181059 | Circuit for simulating sound of wire brush rotated around head of snare drum An electronic musical circuit simulates the sound of a wire brush rotated around the head of a snare drum by differently amplitude modulating and bandpass filtering in separate channels a noise signal derived from a suitable source and summing the modulat... | 01/01/1980 |
| 4175463 | Resonator for a musical tone synthesizer A tone synthesizer in which a musical tone of selected fundamental frequency is generated with a resonance effect at selected harmonics of the tone. The resonance effect is produced by adding an amplitude modulated carrier signal to the musical tone, the ... | 11/27/1979 |
| 4175465 | Circuit for simulating string bass sound In a circuit for simulating the sound produced when a stringed instrument, such as a bass viol, is plucked, square wave signals of different frequencies from a tone generator are combined to produce a synthesized sawtooth waveform which is applied to a lo... | 11/27/1979 |
| 4160402 | Music signal conversion apparatus Apparatus for converting the relatively rapid rise time, relatively long fall tone envelopes of a music source output to envelopes having relatively long rise time and relatively rapid fall time and for also varying the frequency of the tone in the nature... | 07/10/1979 |
| 4127049 | Signal generating system utilizing a cathode ray tube A signal generating system for an electronic musical instrument utilizing an electronic beam tube with a radiation intercepting structure and means to derive a signal from beam current pulses produced by scanning the structure. The width of pulses is modu... | 11/28/1978 |
| 4104946 | Voicing system for electronic organ In a voicing system for electronic organs, square wave signals from a tone generator are converted to a waveform of another shape, the harmonic structure of which is useful for producing certain organ voices. This modified waveform is further modified, as... | 08/08/1978 |
| 4079653 | Method and apparatus for imitating speech characteristics of vox humana and similar reed organ pipes In an electronic musical instrument, such as an electronic organ, the speech characteristics of Vox Humana and similar reed organ pipes are simulated by applying a repeating series of pulse groups separated from each other, which groups each contain a sho... | 03/21/1978 |
| 4050343 | Electronic music synthesizer An electronic music synthesizer is disclosed in which the sound producing chain includes a voltage-controlled oscillator, band-pass filter, low-pass filter, and amplifier in which selected control currents are supplied to low impedance points within the s... | 09/27/1977 |
| 4038895 | Breath pressure actuated electronic musical instrument A musical instrument having a general body outline similar to that of a saxaphone. A front key panel having a plurality of keys mounted thereon is located for easy fingering access to the keys which are in the same general location as the fingering keys o... | 08/02/1977 |
| 4014237 | Musical note detecting apparatus Apparatus for automatically detecting the pitch of individual notes of music represented in analog form by an electrical signal. The apparatus includes an arrangement of band-pass filters, connected in parallel, for receiving the electrical signal and pas... | 03/29/1977 |
| 4012981 | Electronic musical instrument provided with a waveform converter for changing a sawtooth wave tone signal into a rectangular wave tone signal A waveform converter for use with an electronic musical instrument comprises an input for receiving a sawtooth wave tone signal, an output for delivering a rectangular wave tone signal, a semiconductor active element adapted to switch the output voltage f... | 03/22/1977 |
