Famous Patents
The first commercial microwave oven was nearly 6 feet tall and weighed in at 750 pounds.
PatentStorm News
Make the Most of Our Site
See this month's Top Inventors and Most Cited Patents.
Stay on top of the latest innovations by subscribing to an RSS feed.
Registered users: Manage your profile.
| Number | Title | Issue Date |
| 7432431 | Speed detecting apparatus for keyboard musical instrument A speed detecting apparatus for a keyboard musical instrument is provided for accurately detecting the speed of bivotal movements of a hammer and a key even if a shutter implies errors in its attachment, without affected by such errors. The speed detecting apparatus... | 10/07/2008 |
| 7432430 | Musical instrument, music data producer incorporated therein and method for exactly discriminating hammer motion In an automatic player piano, hammer sensors monitor associated hammers so as to report current positions on the hammer trajectories, and a data processor analyzes the hammer motion for producing pieces of music data representative of the performance on the acoustic... | 10/07/2008 |
| 7361828 | Automatic player musical instrument, automatic player incorporated therein and method used therein An automatic player piano is fabricated on the basis of an acoustic piano, and an automatic player is expected to give rise to key motion for reenacting performance with solenoid-operated key actuators; since the hammers of acoustic piano are different in mass, the ... | 04/22/2008 |
| 7342166 | Method and apparatus for randomized variation of musical data An initial note series is collected from a real-time source of musical input material such as a keyboard or a sequencer playing back musical data, or extracted from musical data stored in memory. The initial note series may be altered to create variations of the ini... | 03/11/2008 |
| 7339105 | Automatic musical performance device Provide an automatic musical performance device, which is capable of giving a concert magic function in an acoustic instrument with a feeling of normally playing the acoustic instrument. A time period Tv between two points, and a tempo Tmp found based on a ti... | 03/04/2008 |
| 7285718 | Keyboard musical instrument and other-type musical instrument, and method for generating tone-generation instructing information Detector detects movement of a hammer (driven member) that strikes a string (abutted member) by moving in response to operation of a key. On the basis of detection outputs of the detector and a given abutment-presuming reference value, it is presumed that the hammer... | 10/23/2007 |
| 7279630 | Automatic player musical instrument, automatic player used therein and method for exactly controlling keys An automatic playing system creates a feedback control loop for the keys incorporated in an acoustic piano; key sensors, which are provided under the front portions of the keys, informs a motion controller of current positions, and the motion controller periodically... | 10/09/2007 |
| 7268289 | Musical instrument performing artistic visual expression and controlling system incorporated therein A set of formation data codes, which includes action event codes and duration codes, is loaded in an automatic player piano, and a controller interprets the action event codes for driving the solenoid-operated key actuators; since the solenoid-operated key actuators... | 09/11/2007 |
| 7265281 | Automatic player musical instrument having playback table partially prepared through transcription from reference table and computer program used therein An automatic player piano is only equipped with key sensors, and the automatic player is expected to give rise to hammer motion to be varied together with the loudness of tones; the manufacturer prepared not only a velocity conversion table expressing a relation bet... | 09/04/2007 |
| 7238873 | Automatic player musical instrument exactly reproducing performance and automatic player used therein An automatic player piano is equipped with solenoid-operated pedal actuators for driving the pedals in a playback; since a large quantity of induction is coupled to the solenoid, the driving signal is delayed due to long time constant so that the pedals behave diffe... | 07/03/2007 |
| 7227069 | Insertable piano/keyboard strip for sensing key movement A portable modular device for the purpose of sensing key movement of a piano or keyboard, processing key movement information, and communicating at least key-note ON/OFF and key-note velocity information. A portion of the modular device, the key sensor strip, insert... | 06/05/2007 |
| 7223913 | Method and apparatus for sensing and displaying tablature associated with a stringed musical instrument A system and method of enhancing guitar instruction based on Tablature Plus encoding of playing techniques within a MIDI file or other data structure, that may be rendered on an associated player application that provides multimedia output of the piece being played ... | 05/29/2007 |
| 7202409 | Musical instrument automatically performing music passage through hybrid feedback control loop containing plural sorts of sensors An automatic player piano includes keys driven for the angular motion through a hybrid feedback control loop; a controller, a key position sensor, a plunger velocity sensor and a solenoid-operated key actuator form parts of the hybrid feedback control loop for each ... | 04/10/2007 |
| 7169997 | Method and apparatus for phase controlled music generation An initial note series is collected from a real-time source of musical input material such as a keyboard or a sequencer playing back musical data, or extracted from musical data stored in memory. The initial note series may be altered to create variations of the ini... | 01/30/2007 |
| 7166792 | Storage medium containing musical score displaying data, musical score display apparatus and musical score displaying program Musical score displaying data include note or musical score information indicative of a note or musical score symbol to be displayed, position information indicative of a display position on a musical score where the note or musical score symbol is to be placed, and... | 01/23/2007 |
| 7105733 | Musical notation system An integrated system and software package for creating and performing a musical score including a user interface that enables a user to enter and display the musical score, a database that stores a data structure which supports graphical symbols for musical characte... | 09/12/2006 |
| 7094962 | Score data display/editing apparatus and program For a plurality of types of additional attribute data included in note data, a selection section selects one or more of the plurality of types of additional attribute data. For a plurality of the note data, a display section displays pictorial figures or the like re... | 08/22/2006 |
| 7030307 | Music teaching device and method Methods and apparatus are provided that help users learn to play one or more instruments by employing simplified note recognition techniques, improved feedback, and a simplified keyboard tablature. In one aspect, users are encouraged to play specified notes within a... | 04/18/2006 |
| 7002068 | Method for making electronic tones close to acoustic tones, recording system for the acoustic tones, tone generating system for the electronic tones A grand piano generates acoustic tones through vibrations of strings and sound board so that the acoustic tones are converted to analog audio signals at recording points over the sound board, and a group of waveform data sets are produced from the analog audio signa... | 02/21/2006 |
| 6995310 | Method and apparatus for sensing and displaying tablature associated with a stringed musical instrument A system and method of enhancing guitar instruction based on Tablature Plus encoding of playing techniques within a MIDI file or other data structure, that may be rendered on an associated player application that provides multimedia output of the piece being played ... | 02/07/2006 |
| 6992241 | Automatic player musical instrument for exactly reproducing performance and automatic player incorporated therein An automatic player piano has a feedback control loop for each of the black/white keys; the controller firstly determines a reference trajectory, i.e., a target key position varied with time for each key to be moved in the play-back, and calculates a target key velo... | 01/31/2006 |
| 6981208 | Multimedia data routing system and method A technique for providing routing of various multimedia events throughout the course of a multimedia presentation using a computer with a storage and a display. A variety of multimedia objects are defined in the storage and grouped in logical relationships to enable... | 12/27/2005 |
| 6969791 | Automatic player keyboard musical instrument equipped with key sensors shared between automatic playing system and recording system An automatic player piano has various sorts of individuality due to differences in size, design margins applied to the component parts and a difference in electric characteristics of system component parts so that key position signals contain error components due to... | 11/29/2005 |
| 6940005 | Keyboard musical instrument for exactly producing tones and hammer sensor varying output signal exactly representing physical quantity of hammer A hammer sensor includes a photo-filter plate movable together with a hammer assembly and having a base plate fixed to the hammer shank and an arc pattern formed on the base plate and different in transparency from the base plate, a photo radiating element radiating... | 09/06/2005 |
| 6472589 | Method and apparatus for sensing, controlling and recording key motion in a keyboard musical instrument A device and related method for detecting, controlling, and recording keyboard motion in which individual magnets, sensors and actuators associated with each key capture and re-produce key motion with a high degree of accuracy. The method uses a non-conta... | 10/29/2002 |
| 6411289 | Music visualization system utilizing three dimensional graphical representations of musical characteristics A computer system for producing a three dimensional illustration of a musical work includes determining for each sound of the musical work its tone, harmony and tonality. Each of these characteristics of the musical work is assigned a value so that it can... | 06/25/2002 |
| 6384305 | Method and apparatus for sensing key movement in a musical keyboard A method and apparatus for measuring and recording keyboard motion in which an array of magnets and sensors capture key movement with high accuracy. This method uses a non-contact sensing and assembly technique that requires no mechanical or electrical co... | 05/07/2002 |
| 6359207 | POSITION TRANSDUCER SYSTEM WITH BUILT-IN CALIBRATOR FOR MOVING OBJECT, METHOD FOR ACCURATELY DETERMINING POSITION OF MOVING OBJECT AND KEYBOARD MUSICAL INSTRUMENT EQUIPPED WITH THE POSITION TRANSDUCER SYSTEM A silent automatic player piano calibrates the black/white keys so as to exactly relate a key position signal to the current key positions on the trajectory of the key by itself before a recording so that the key motions are exactly recognized in a record... | 03/19/2002 |
| 6336028 | Software function adding method An object of the present invention is to provide a system in which it is possible to pre-warn the consumer who is trying to purchase contents that cannot be written on the PD that the contents cannot be written on the PD. Based on the PD writability infor... | 01/01/2002 |
| 6297437 | Keyboard musical instrument and information processing system incorporated therein for discriminating different kinds of key motion A keyboard musical instrument includes an acoustic piano for generating acoustic tones, a silent system for rebounding the hammer assemblies between the escape from the key action mechanisms and strikes against strings and automatic playing system for act... | 10/02/2001 |
| 6229081 | Keyboard musical instrument, position sensing device and light-emitting controller both incorporated therein An automatic player piano is equipped with a position detecting device for detecting current positions of the black/white keys, and the position detecting device radiates light beams across the trajectories of the black/white keys, wherein the position de... | 05/08/2001 |
| 5911169 | Recording sensor mounting rail for keyboard operated musical instrument An extruded recording sensor mounting rail for keyboard operated musical instruments, particularly electronic player pianos, which can be used to install recording sensors in a new or existing piano. First and second flanges extend longitudinally along th... | 06/08/1999 |
| 5864631 | Method and apparatus for musical score recognition with quick processing of image data A musical score recognition apparatus is constructed for recording an image of a given musical score and for processing the recorded image to thereby recognize involved components so as to produce performance information according to the following methods... | 01/26/1999 |
| 5841050 | Method and apparatus for optically determining note characteristics from key motion in a keyboard operated musical instrument A method and apparatus for accurately sensing key motion in a keyboard operated musical instrument, in which optical emitters and sensors are positioned adjacent to the keys. The optical emitters and sensors are arranged on a plurality of individually add... | 11/24/1998 |
| 5834669 | Method and apparatus for optically determining note characteristics from hammer catchers in a keyboard operated musical instrument A method and apparatus for accurately sensing key motion in a keyboard operated musical instrument, in which optical emitters and sensors are positioned above the hammer catchers. The optical emitters and sensors are arranged on a plurality of individuall... | 11/10/1998 |
| 5824930 | Keyboard musical instrument having key monitor exactly discriminating key motion A keyboard musical instrument continuously monitors a key motion, and determines present key state on the basis of the previous key state, the present key position and a lapse of time during the previous key state so as to exactly control a tone generatio... | 10/20/1998 |
| 5763805 | Performance information transmitter and/or receiver for a performance information system A performance information transmission system includes a performance information transmitter device and a performance information receiver device which are capable of correcting transmission errors in event information transmitted from the performance inf... | 06/09/1998 |
| 5739450 | Keyboard musical instrument equipped with dummy key/hammer event supplementing system An automatic player piano records an original key motion reciprocated between a rest position and an end position as a series of a key-on event, a hammer event and a key-off event by using key/hammer sensors, and supplements the key/hammer event for an un... | 04/14/1998 |
| 5731530 | Automatic player piano exactly reproducing special touches An automatic player piano records not only regular key-on event/impact event/regular key-off event representative of a regular key motion between a rest position and an end position but also irregular key-on event/irregular key-off event representative of... | 03/24/1998 |
| 5714702 | Pedal controlling system and method of controlling pedal for recording and reproducing pedal action A pedal controller monitors a damper pedal incorporated in an acoustic piano, and reduces the amount of music data information represented by digital pedal position signals through an anti-aliasing filtering, a decimation and an interpolation without sacr... | 02/03/1998 |
