Did You Know...
...that one person who claimed to be the inventor of the television is Russian emigre Vladimir Zworykin? In 1929 David Sarnoff, founder of RCA, asked Zworykin what it would take to develop TV for commercial use. He said: a year and a half and $100,000. In reality, it took 20 years and $50 million! Before his death in 1982 at the age of 92, Zworykin said of his invention: "The technique is wonderful. It is beyond my expectations. But the programs! I would never let my children even come close to this thing."
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| Number | Title | Issue Date |
| 7176374 | Music synthesizer and a method of generating a synthesizer output with a constant beat Prior art synthesizers often select a small interval d to detune. For example, if the nominal oscillator frequency was 1000 Hz, then applying a detune parameter of 10 cent would result in a detuned oscillator frequency of 1006 Hz. However, at the next octave, the no... | 02/13/2007 |
| 6974902 | Music synthesizer and a method of generating a synthesizer output with a constant beat Prior art synthesizers often select a small interval d to detune. For example, if the nominal oscillator frequency was 1000 Hz, then applying a detune parameter of 10 cent would result in a detuned oscillator frequency of 1006 Hz. However, at the next octave, the no... | 12/13/2005 |
| 6198034 | Electronic tone generation system and method An electronic tone generation system comprises a plurality of portable handheld wireless transmitters, with each transmitter representing at least one music note and being operative to transmit a signal indicative of that at least one note. A receiver rec... | 03/06/2001 |
| 5569871 | Musical tone generating apparatus employing microresonator array A musical tone generating apparatus employs an array of microresonant structures to generate the harmonic component signals of a musical tone to be generated. The microresonant structures produce high frequency signals which are down converted to audio fr... | 10/29/1996 |
| 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 |
| 5194684 | Method and apparatus for selective reduction of upper harmonic content in digital synthesizer excitation signals Variable frequency sawtooth waveforms are often utilized as an excitation signal in a digital musical synthesizer. A problem exists at lower sampling rates in such systems due to an aliasing problem which occurs at frequencies near the Nyquist rate. Low p... | 03/16/1993 |
| 4909116 | Electronic musical instrument generating background musical tone An electronic musical instrument includes a keyboard, a first tone generator, a second tone generator, a hold switch, and a control unit. The keyboard designates a pitch of a musical tone to be generated. The first tone generator generates a first musical... | 03/20/1990 |
| 4813328 | Formant filter generator for an electronic musical instrument In the production of a desired musical waveform by combining harmonic components corresponding to respective harmonic orders, each harmonic component value is controlled by a selected cut-off harmonic order qc, level Ha and slope of the formant filter cha... | 03/21/1989 |
| 4811644 | Electronic musical instrument for generation of inharmonic tones The present invention is directed to an electronic musical instrument which has a circuit for calculating a harmonic function corresponding to a fundamental wave. The electronic musical instrument is provided with a circuit for generating, as the harmonic... | 03/14/1989 |
| 4430918 | Electronic musical instrument An electronic stringed instrument which uses electrical resistance wires as strings to control the frequency of electrically generated sounds. By shorting a string at various points along its length a variable voltage output is obtained and converted into... | 02/14/1984 |
| 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 |
| 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 |
| 4262574 | Integrated I2 L circuit for superimposing audio-frequency electrical signals of an electronic organ An I2 L circuit for superimposing audio-frequency electrical signals in an electronic organ is provided. With each current unit of audio-frequency to be superimposed a double-collector I2 L transistor is associated, and each key is c... | 04/21/1981 |
| 4226157 | Waveform synthesis for an electronic musical instrument A plurality of rectangular waves of selected duty cycles and fundamental frequencies are generated. Selected ones of these waveforms are then added at selected amplitude ratios. Such additions provide resultant waveforms of desired fundamental frequencies... | 10/07/1980 |
| 4193332 | Music synthesizing circuit A music synthesizer is disclosed. In the preferred embodiment, it cooperates with a tone source, such as a conventional or traditional music instrument, to form a synthesized output. The output can be voiced to provide music shaped and modified to a desir... | 03/18/1980 |
| 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 |
| 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 |
| 4150253 | Signal distortion circuit and method of use A method and apparatus are described for electronically processing sound. An electrical signal derived from audio information is split up into two separate signal paths. The signal travelling along one path is passed through an exciter circuit and an atte... | 04/17/1979 |
| 4070943 | Electronic organ keying system An organ is described in which a small number of note generators, each comprising a binary divider, a group of keyers, and an envelope generator, serves an entire keyboard. Each note generator is selectively operable by multiplexed signals from a keyboard... | 01/31/1978 |
| 4044643 | Musical instrument circuit providing celeste and vibrato effects A circuit is shown for changing the frequency of a basic keyed oscillator by controlling the amount of keying voltage reaching the oscillator and the circuit used for vibrato. The purpose of this circuit is the achievement of true "pipe organ celeste" eff... | 08/30/1977 |
| 4012702 | Chime generating circuit A circuit for electronically generating chime-like tones wherein an oscillator circuit output is passed through a diode bridge having another diode across the D.C. terminals thereof and poled to be conductive. The resultant tone is distorted to considerab... | 03/15/1977 |
| 3971283 | Electronic Zimbelstern An electronic Zimbelstern system in which a sequential counter actuates a set of self-damping circuits in a predetermined repeating sequence, the self-damping circuits each enabling a different set of sinusoidal tone sources in such relative amplitudes an... | 07/27/1976 |
| 3968716 | Musical instrument with means for scanning keys A new, performer played, real time, multitonal, multimbral 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 that... | 07/13/1976 |
| 3935783 | Electronic piano circuit The embodiment of the invention disclosed herein is directed to an electronic musical instrument of the keyboard type used to electronically reproduce piano sounds. The circuit has means to vary the amplitude of the piano voice in response to the velocity... | 02/03/1976 |
