Patent Application
20120024132
The present invention relates to the field of musical instruments. In particular, the present invention relates to electronic musical instruments that simulate percussion instruments.
A recent proliferation of inexpensive computer processors and logic devices has influenced games, toys, books, and the like. Some kinds of games, toys, and books use embedded sensors in conjunction with control logic coupled to audio and/or visual input/output logic to enrich the interactive experience provided by the game, toy, book, or the like. An example is a book or card (e.g., greeting card) that can sense the identity of an open page or card and provide auditory feedback to the reader relevant to the content of the open page or card.
One type of sensor used in games, toys and books is a capacitive touch sensor. A capacitive touch sensor typically is a small capacitor enclosed in an electrical insulator. The capacitor has an ability to store an electrical charge, referred to as capacitance. When a power source applies an increased voltage across the capacitor, electrical charges flow into the capacitor until the capacitor is charged to the increased voltage. Similarly, when the power source applies a decreased voltage the capacitor, electrical charges flow out of the capacitor until the capacitor is discharged to the decreased voltage. The amount of time it takes for the capacitor to charge or discharge is dependent on the change in voltage applied and the capacitance of the capacitor. If the capacitance is unknown, it can be calculated from the charge or discharge time and the change in voltage applied. A person touching or coming close to a capacitive touch sensor can change the sensor's effective capacitance by combining the person's capacitance with the capacitance of the capacitive touch sensor. This change in effective capacitance can be detected by a change in the charge or discharge times.
Most common capacitive touch sensors, such as those used in cell phones and ATMs are made on inflexible substrates several millimeters thick and protected by glass. Thin film capacitive touch sensors are known, such as those taught in U.S. Pat. No. 6,819,316 “Flexible capacitive touch sensor.” However, thin film capacitive touch sensors are not used much. One reason is that thin film capacitive touch sensors can exhibit a “two-sided” effect that makes thin film capacitive touch sensors sensitive to touch on both sides of the sensor.
A number of prior art patents have described games (e.g., board games), toys, books, and cards that utilize computers and sensors to detect human interaction. The following represents a list of known related art:
The teachings of each of the above-listed citations (which does not itself incorporate essential material by reference) are herein incorporated by reference. None of the above inventions and patents, taken either singularly or in combination, is seen to describe an embodiment or embodiments of the instant invention described below and claimed herein.
For example, U.S. Pat. No. 5,853,327 “Computerized Game Board” describes a system that automatically senses the position of toy figures relative to a game board and thereby supplies input to a computerized game system. The system requires that each game piece to be sensed incorporate a transponder, which receives an excitatory electromagnetic signal from a signal generator and produces a response signal that is detected by one or more sensors embedded in the game board. The complexity and cost of such a system make it impractical for low-cost games and toys.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,129,654 “Electronic Game Apparatus,” U.S. Pat. No. 5,188,368 “Electronic Game Apparatus,” and U.S. Pat. No. 6,168,158 “Device for Detecting Playing Pieces on a Board” all describe systems using resonance frequency sensing to determine the position and/or identity of a game piece. The system requires a resonator coil in each unique game piece, which increases the complexity and cost of the system while reducing the flexibility of use.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,413,518 “Proximity Responsive Toy” describes a toy incorporating a capacitive sensor coupled to a high frequency oscillator, whereby the frequency of the oscillator is determined in part by the proximity of any conductive object (such as a human hand) to the capacitive sensor. This system has the disadvantage of using a plate capacitor, which is thick, inflexible and costly.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,955,603 “Interactive Gaming Device Capable of Perceiving User Movement” describes another approach to sensing player interaction by using a series of light emitters and light detectors to measure the intensity of light reflected from a player's hand or other body part. Such a system requires numerous expensive light emitters and light detectors, in particular for increasing the spatial sensitivity for detection.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,645,432 “Toy or Educational Device” describes a toy or educational device that includes front and back covers, a spine, a plurality of pages, a plurality of pressure sensors mounted in the front and back covers and a sound generator connected to the pressure sensors. The pressure sensors are responsive to the application of pressure to an aligned location of a page overlying the corresponding cover for actuating the sound generator to generate sounds associated with both the location of the sensor which is depressed and the page to which pressure is applied.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,538,430 “Self-reading Child's Book” describes a self-reading electronic child's book that displays a sequence of indicia, such as words, and has under each indicia a visual indicator such as a light-emitting diode with the visual indicators being automatically illuminated in sequence as the child touches a switch associated with each light-emitting diode to sequentially drive a voice synthesizer that audibilizes the indicia or word associated with the light and switch that was activated.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,299,041 “Animated Device” describes a device in the form of a greeting card, display card, or the like, for producing a visual and/or a sound effect that includes a panel member or the like onto which is applied pictorial and/or printed matter in association with an effects generator, an electronic circuit mounted on the panel member but not visible to the reader of the matter but to which the effects generator is connected, and an activator on the panel member, which, when actuated, causes triggering of the electronic circuit to energize the effects generator.
Each of the prior art patents included above describes a game, toy, book, and/or card that requires expensive components or manufacturing techniques and/or exhibits limited functionality. As will be described below, embodiments of the present invention overcome these limitations.
Embodiments of an electronic instrument simulating a percussion instrument using capacitive touch sensitive sensors are described herein. Embodiments of a simulated percussion instrument comprise an art layer, a sensor layer, a shielding layer, an electronics package and a speaker. The art layer has depictions of one or more percussion instruments. The sensor layer is deposed under the art layer. The sensor layer has one or more instrument sensors, each comprising one or more capacitive touch sensors. Each instrument sensor is positioned underneath one of the depicted percussion instruments in the art layer so that a finger tapping the depicted instrument will trigger the sensor. Each of the capacitive touch sensors is electrically connected to the electronics package. The electronics package is configured to detect changes in capacitance sufficient to be a “triggering event” that occur when a particular capacitive touch sensor is touched.
In some embodiments, when a triggering event is detected in a capacitive touch sensor, when in certain modes, the electronics package plays on the speaker a sound sample of a percussion instrument associated with that capacitive touch sensor. When in other modes, the electronics package plays on the speaker a percussion instrumental track of a song along with other background and vocal tracks, muting at a phrase maker in the percussion instrumental track when no instrument sensor has been triggered for a period of time and unmuting after a triggering event on one of the instrument sensors.
The shielding layer serves to shield the backside of the sensor layer, reducing the risk that a sensor in the sensor layer will be triggered from the backside. An electronics package electrically connected with the sensor layer has an audio engine to pay sound samples of percussion instruments.
In some embodiments, the shielding layer comprises a conductive ground plane layer adjacent a separation layer. In other embodiments, the shielding layer comprises an air gap structure to create an air gap layer adjacent the sensor layer.
In some embodiments, the instrument sensors are star-shaped, providing a change in capacitance that varies depending on how far from the center of the instrument sensor a triggering event (such as a finger touch or near finger touch) occurs.
The embodiments of the present invention present numerous advantages, including: (1) inexpensive and simple construction; (2) substantially one-sided triggering of the capacitive touch sensors; (3) thin construction; and (4) integration of artwork on a layer or substrate with the capacitive touch sensors.
Additional advantages of the invention will be set forth in part in the description which follows, and in part will be obvious from the description, or may be learned by practice of the invention. The advantages of the invention may be realized and attained by means of the instrumentalities and combinations particularly pointed out in the appended claims. Further benefits and advantages of the embodiments of the invention will become apparent from consideration of the following detailed description given with reference to the accompanying drawings, which specify and show preferred embodiments of the present invention.
The accompanying drawings, which are incorporated into and constitute a part of this specification, illustrate one or more embodiments of the present invention and, together with the detailed description, serve to explain the principles and implementations of the invention.
In the drawings, similar reference characters denote similar elements throughout the several figures. With regard to the reference numerals used, the following numbering is used throughout the various drawing figures:
Before beginning a detailed description of the subject invention, mention of the following is in order. When appropriate, like reference materials and characters are used to designate identical, corresponding, or similar components in differing figure drawings. The figure drawings associated with this disclosure typically are not drawn with dimensional accuracy to scale, i.e., such drawings have been drafted with a focus on clarity of viewing and understanding rather than dimensional accuracy.
In the interest of clarity, not all of the routine features of the implementations described herein are shown and described. It will, of course, be appreciated that in the development of any such actual implementation, numerous implementation-specific decisions must be made in order to achieve the developer's specific goals, such as compliance with application- and business-related constraints, and that these specific goals will vary from one implementation to another and from one developer to another. Moreover, it will be appreciated that such a development effort might be complex and time-consuming, but would nevertheless be a routine undertaking of engineering for those of ordinary skill in the art having the benefit of this disclosure.
Many existing capacitive touch sensor design kits available from manufacturers use printed circuit boards to create and connect thin film capacitive touch sensors. This approach is too expensive and cumbersome for most low-cost applications (e.g., game, toy, book, etc.). A low-cost alternative is to manufacture thin film capacitive touch sensors (thin compared to printed circuit boards). One method of manufacturing thin film capacitive touch sensors is to print the elements of the capacitors with conductive ink onto a thin film substrate using a screen printing technique. The thin film substrate may be a sheet of material like plastic (e.g., polyester) or paper. In addition to being lower cost than a printed circuit board, thin film substrates such as polyester or paper are more flexible.
The conductive ink used generally includes a polymer and a metal and/or carbon conductive material. For example, the polymer may include powdered and/or flaked silver, gold, copper, nickel, and/or aluminum. In some embodiments, the conductive pathways range from less than 100 Ohms to 8K Ohms resistance, depending on their material composition and configuration. Conductive ink with less conductive material may be less expensive, but may exhibit greater resistivity. Conductive ink with a greater amount of conductive material may be more expensive, but may exhibit decreased resistivity.
Alternately, instead of screen printed conductive ink, one or more of the conductive pathways may be formed from thin copper or other metal layers. For example, one or more of the conductive pathways may be formed from a thin copper sheet that is photo-lithographically patterned and etched to form one or more of the conductive pathways, i.e. the capacitive element and/or related interconnects. Capacitive elements with partial fill patterns may be etched from thin metal as well. The copper conductive pathways may be laminated to a flexible substrate layer. Accordingly, either the copper and conductive ink conductive pathway embodiments, or a combination thereof, may form at least part of a flexible circuit (e.g., a “flex” circuit).
The cost of capacitive touch sensors may be mitigated by substituting the capacitive element 12 with the solid fill pattern shown in
As examples of partial fill pattern capacitive touch sensors,
In the embodiments shown in
In some embodiments, any additional electronics that couple to the one or more capacitive elements and related interconnects may be at least in part be included on the same flexible substrate as the one or more thin film capacitive touch sensors. Alternately, at least some of the additional electronics may be included on a separate substrate. For example, at least some of the electronics may be included on a separate printed circuit board. Multiple circuits on multiple substrates may be electrically coupled together with any electrical coupling devices and/or methods known in the art.
One-Sided Capacitive Touch Sensors with a Ground Plane
One-Sided Capacitive Touch Sensors with Air Gap Structures
As an alternate approach to using a conductive ground plane layer shield to form a substantially one-sided capacitive touch sensor, other embodiments use materials with very low dielectric constants as a shield for one side of the capacitive touch sensor. More specifically, one very inexpensive material with a very low dielectric constant is air. The inclusion of an air gap layer will lower the capacitive sensitivity on the air gap layer side of the capacitive touch sensor. Nevertheless, a capacitive field may still be triggered by proximity though the air depending on the configuration of the capacitive touch sensor. Accordingly, one-sided thin film capacitive touch sensors with an air gap layer should be tested for any potential application to determine their suitability. For example, there is a relationship between the size/area of a touch capacitive touch sensor and its proximity sensitivity through air. Generally, larger capacitive touch sensors are more sensitive and may require a thicker air-gap for proper shielding. As a guideline, the air gap layer should be at least the thickness of any overlay material on top of the capacitive elements. For example, a configuration that includes a thin film capacitive touch sensor that is 2 mil thick (thin film with capacitive elements printed in conductive ink on its underside), an art layer that is 10 mil thick and a 5 mil layer of glue totals an overlay of 17 mil over the capacitive elements. This would suggest an air gap layer of at least a 17 mil (˜0.5 mm). For capacitive elements less than 2 square inches in area, an air gap layer of five times the overlay thickness have proven to be sufficient.
One-Sided Capacitive Touch Sensors with Dielectric Blocks
Further, the sensor layers described in the embodiments above need not be planar layers. For example, sensor layers (and any ground plane shield layer and/or air gap layer) may be formed in a non-planar configuration. Further, for a substantially enclosed non-planar configuration (e.g., a bottle, can, or other container), the interior of the container may serve as the air gap layer to substantially mitigate or prevent false and/or unintentional capacitive touch sensor triggering.
Simulated Percussion Instruments with Capacitive Touch Sensors
The air gap structure 298 may be constructed/molded in plastic or other non-conductive material with a lattice, corrugated or other structure formed therein to create an air-gap layer behind the sensor layer 294. This air gap layer will reduce the risk of false and/or unintentional capacitive sensor triggering on the underside of the simulated percussion instrument 290, as described above in the discussion regarding
Though not illustrated, construction of a simulated percussion instrument may include a combination of an air gap structure (producing an air gap layer) and a conductive ground plane layer. In particular, art details may be printed in full color on paper or plastic sheets, allowing the simulated percussion instrument to be overall very thin. Depending on overall configuration of the drum platform and air gap structure, the construction may include at least one ground plane layer to shield at least a portion of the capacitive elements and at least one air gap layer to shield at least another portion of the capacitive elements. The inclusion of the conductive ground plane behind at least some capacitive elements obviates the need for a plastic housing in that region, thereby enabling that region of the simulated drum set to be substantially thin. Alternately, the air gap structure forms an air gap or lattice of air gaps behind the capacitive elements in thicker regions of the simulated percussion instrument that include the air gap structure. Accordingly, the overall shape of the simulated percussion instrument may be flexible as the shape of the drum platform and the air gap structure need not substantially match. Said differently, capacitive elements adjacent only the drum platform (and shielded by a conductive ground plane only) may operate substantially similarly to capacitive sensors adjacent the drum platform and the air gap structure (and shielded by an air gap, conductive ground plane, or a combination thereof).
The layout of individual capacitive touch sensors and functions associated with each determines the interactivity a user may have with a simulated percussion instrument.
Some embodiments of the simulated drum set include four control sensors 386 that appear as buttons adjacent the drum set artwork. In these embodiments, the four control touch sensors are: “MODE” to select the song, play pattern, and other features of the drum; “VOLUME UP” to increase the overall volume of the simulated drum set; “VOLUME DOWN” to lower the overall volume of the drum; and “DEMO” to play a demo of the selected song or to stop music playback in any mode.
In addition to the dedicated control sensors, the instrument sensors 376 may also be used to in combination with the MODE sensor to change modes. In order to select a different operating mode, the user may touch the MODE sensor to enable menu selection, and then touch one of the drums or cymbals to select a different operating mode. In some embodiments, the operating modes assigned to each instrument sensor are printed on the drum or cymbal artwork. More specifically, to select an operating mode, the user may hold the MODE sensor while simultaneously tapping or touching the drum or cymbal sensor associated with the operating mode. Alternately, the user may touch and release the MODE sensor before sequentially selecting a mode/function on the drums and cymbals. In this case, touching the MODE sensor a second time may cancel the mode selection process.
Volume control in some embodiments is implemented digitally, with the VOLUME UP and VOLUME DOWN buttons used to adjust the volume. Each time the VOLUME UP sensor is touched the overall volume of the simulated drum set may be increased until a maximum volume is reached. Alternatively, each time the VOLUME DOWN sensor is touched the overall volume of the simulated drum set may be lowered until the minimum volume is reached. The Volume controls may be used at any point, for example when a song is playing or not playing, to adjust the volume of the simulated drum set.
The DEMO sensor is used to play a “demo” of the current song selection within the constraints of the selected operating mode. For example, DEMO may have no effect in Freestyle Mode (modes described in more detail below). In Karaoke mode, DEMO may play the music using only the enabled music or song tracks. In Rhythm or Perfect Play Mode, DEMO may play all music or song tracks. Touching DEMO a second time may end the “demo” playback.
The basic functionality of the instrument sensors 376 is to detect a finger tap much like a real drum or cymbal being hit with drumsticks. The finger tap may then trigger an audio output. As will be described more fully below, the audio output triggered by the drum sensor implementation may depend on one of three audio output/playback modes. The three modes include a Freestyle Mode, a Rhythm mode, and a Perfect Play mode. Two of these modes (e.g., Freestyle and Rhythm) cause the actual playback of sampled and/or pre-recorded audio of drum or cymbal sounds. The other mode (Perfect Play) may enable the playback of an audio track with pre-recorded music. Accordingly, the simulated drum set may produce a different audio output depending on both the mode and the specific triggering of the one or more instrument sensors 376.
In other embodiments, a single simulated drum or cymbal may have more than two sensors, adding more granularity in the sound produced by a simulated drum. Some drum and cymbal designs may continuously change tone or other characteristics based on the distance played from the center. A good example is bongo/conga drums as they produce distinctly different sounds when struck in the middle or closer to the edge. In particular, the sound may include a constant change from the center of the drums to their edges. Similarly, a ride cymbal may produce distinctly different sounds depending on where it is struck. For such a drum or cymbal, multiple capacitive touch sensors distributed about the drum or symbol may allow the emulation of multiple distinctive sounds. For example, a multiple sensor design/configuration of an embodiment may include multiple interleaved sensor rings to emulate this behavior. More specifically, multiple interleaved concentric capacitive touch sensor rings may be used to detect the specific areas of the drum or cymbal that was struck or played. By extension, multiple concentric capacitive touch sensor rings at multiple radii of the cymbal surface may each trigger the generation of a different audio output sample to approximate the taper and bow/curvature of the cymbal. Similarly, multiple concentric capacitive touch sensor rings at multiple radii of the bongo or conga drum head surface may each trigger the generation of a different audio output sample to approximate the elaborate sounds produced by various areas of each drum.
In some embodiments of simulated percussion instruments, individual capacitive touch sensors may have various shapes given the relative ease with which the conductive ink of the touch sensors may be printed (e.g., screen printed) in complex shapes. For example,
In other embodiments, the interdigitated region does not use star-shaped fingers, but fingers shaped more like a square wave. Touching anywhere in this square wave interdigitated region may yield an equivalent signal for both sensors.
Other multiple sensor configurations may be employed to more accurately emulate the variable sounds of percussion instruments. For example, a multiple sensor configuration representing a steel drum may include multiple capacitive touch sensors having multiple sizes, shapes, and locations to emulate the multiple facets of the steel drum face. The embodiments are not limited in this context.
Some embodiments of the simulated drum set may operate in various modes that exhibit different operational characteristics. For example, changing modes may alter the audio output, alter the difficulty level, and/or alter the creative freedom permitted. For example, some embodiments of the simulated drum set include a “Rhythm” mode, “Freestyle” mode, and a “Perfect Play” mode. Each operating mode will be discussed in turn.
In the Rhythm and Freestyle modes, tapping sensors associated with drums, cymbals, and/or pedals artwork causes playback of pre-recorded percussion instrument sounds. In Freestyle mode, the simulated drum set operates as a solo instrument with no background music, offering the user great flexibility in timing and selection of various percussion instrument sounds. Simply stated, Freestyle mode allows the user to play the simulated drum set as though they were a real drum set. For example, each of the drum and cymbal sensors triggers the output of its own assigned audio sample when tapped. In some embodiments of the simulated drum set, there are also multiple sound sample kits. Sound sample kits are collections of different drum and cymbal sounds that can be chosen (e.g., by triggering a mode or control sensor) to map a different set of drum and cymbal sounds to the sensors. For example, some embodiments may include three built-in sound sample kits to alter the drum and cymbal sounds. Accordingly, while the simulated drum set artwork may not change, the user may have some flexibility to alter the sounds generated by the simulated drum set.
In Rhythm Mode, some embodiments of the simulated drum set behave much like Freestyle Mode. Touching drums and cymbals sensors will still play the associated audio sample. However, in Rhythm mode the simulated drum set is configured to also play a background track superimposed with the user triggered drum and cymbal audio samples. The background track comprises sounds of other instruments, such as guitars, and/or vocal sounds. Each background track relates to a song. One or more background tracks are in the simulated drum set. The user can switch background tracks using one or more of the control sensors. Further, any of the sound sample kits can be used in Rhythm mode. In an embodiment, the sound sample kit may even be switched at any point during song playback.
For both Freestyle mode and Rhythm mode, some embodiments of the simulated drum set are capable of playing multiple sounds simultaneously. However, the number of sounds that may be played simultaneously may not be unlimited. A hardware and/or software algorithm may select and control multiple audio channels to play multiple sounds simultaneously. For example, each time a drum, cymbal, or pedal sensor is touched in Freestyle Mode, the simulated drum set plays the associated audio sound sample if one of the audio channels is available. If all audio channels are already actively playing a sound, one of the sounds must be stopped to release an audio channel to play the new sound. In some embodiments, to accurately simulate the of playing actual drums, multiple instances of a particular drum or cymbal audio sample may be played on more than one audio channel if more than one audio channel is available. The maximum number of instances that may be simultaneously played may be set individually for each audio sample (e.g., depending on how many audio channels may be desirable to accurately reproduce the sound of the drum or cymbal). This is taken into account by the hardware and/or software algorithm (e.g., the “audio playback engine” or simply the “audio engine”) to select and control the multiple audio channels. In some embodiments, an audio channel for a new instance of an audio sample is chosen using the following procedure:
1. Determine the number of audio channels on which the audio sample is already playing. If a maximum number of instances for the audio sample is already playing (e.g., as predetermined for the corresponding drum or cymbal), stop playing the instance of the audio sample on the one channel having the least amount of time left to play so that audio channel becomes available to play the new instance of the audio sample.
2. If the maximum number of instances is not already playing, choose a new audio channel on which to play the new instance of the audio sample:
a. If any audio channels are not playing any audio samples, use one of these channels. The audio channel selected among these is arbitrary.
b. If all audio channels are playing audio samples, use the channel with the least amount of time left to play on its audio sample.
When terminating play of one audio sample instance in order to play a new instance of the same or different audio sample, it may be desirable to stop the audio sample with the least amount of time left to play, rather than stopping the sample that has been playing the longest. This will usually produce a more pleasing effect. For example, audio samples used for cymbals may be much longer than those used for a snare drum. However, stopping the snare drum sample in the middle (which may have only been playing for a short time) may be much less noticeable than stopping a cymbal sound in the middle because the user expects much more sustain (e.g., longer sound generation/playback) from a cymbal than a snare drum.
Rhythm Mode may employ a similar method to select an audio channel for the playback of an audio sample. In contrast to Freestyle mode, one or more of the available audio channels may be used for playback of background tracks associated with a song or music selection and would accordingly be unavailable to play other audio samples. For example, as the user plays the simulated drum set along with a song in Rhythm mode, three audio channels may be used to play a vocal track, a guitar track, and a general background track for that song. Those three channels would not be available for the playback of audio samples generated by the user tapping or otherwise triggering various drums and cymbal sensors.
In some embodiments, in addition to the Freestyle and Rhythm modes, a user may select the Perfect Play mode. In this mode, the simulated drum set may play a song's background tracks (e.g. vocal, guitar, and general background tracks) while the user's actions control playback of a main instrumental track (e.g., the drum track) for that song. Perfect Play is the easiest mode as tapping/hitting drums, cymbals, and/or pedals enables playback of the main instrument track. In one embodiment, the playback of the main instrumental track may not depend on which drum, cymbal, and/or other pedal in particular is tapped or otherwise triggered. Playback of the main instrumental track stops after a short time if the user stops drumming (e.g., tapping/hitting the drums, cymbals, and/or pedals).
To enable the Perfect Play mode, the audio playback engine includes a key feature to properly align and play the multiple audio channels so that the song, including playback of the main instrumental track, sounds appropriate. In particular, the audio playback engine employs “phrase markers” to properly align and play the multiple audio channels. More specifically, each song has associated data that may include a table of phrase markers that indicate times at which playback of the main instrumental track should be muted if the user has stopped playing. The table of phrase markers for each song stored for playback by the simulated drum set may be compiled manually based on the song's drum track and reflects points at which a musician would actually play/not play during the song. The compiled table of phrase markers allows the simulated drum set to have predefined musical phrases for the music's drum part during each song playback. Accordingly, the audio engine may use the phrase markers to control the playback of the main instrumental track in response to the input (or lack of input) from the user. For example, the audio engine may respond to the phrase markers to prevent the playback of the main instrumental track during predetermined portions of the song regardless of the input from the user. Further, the audio engine may respond to the phrase markers to prevent the playback of the main instrumental track from muting in the middle of such phrases (e.g., once the playback has been triggered by the user).
In some embodiments, the audio engine may use phrase markers with time units of audio samples. Accordingly, the phrase markers may be compiled based on the final sampling rate of the song. In some embodiments, the phrase markers may use time units of seconds (or milliseconds) or measures and beats. Further, in some embodiments, phrase markers may be stored as time delays relative to the previous phrase marker; however, an alternate embodiment may use an absolute time format. The use of relative or absolute times may be independent of the type of time unit.
When audio playback of stored tracks of a song reaches a phrase marker, the simulated drum set's firmware may mute the drum track if the user has not played for a certain period of time, for example by tapping a drum, cymbal, and/or pedal. The time period may be ½ second in some embodiments, but may be easily changed and could be different for each song. If the user has played within the required period, the drum track will continue playing at least until the next phrase marker is reached. If the user plays while the drum track is muted, it will be immediately un-muted without waiting until a phrase marker is reached. Each time the user plays, the time is stored or a timer is reset so that the time since the last play event can be checked when a phrase marker is reached. In some embodiments, playback of the drum track may continue internally while it is muted so that it remains synchronized with playback of the song's other tracks. Accordingly, by playing the simulated drum set, for example by tapping a drum, cymbal, and/or pedal, the user may effectively play the correct drum sound or sounds at the correct time for the song. Even if the user's play timing is only approximate, the Perfect Play mode may substantially ensure that the drum track matches the song being played.
In addition the various features of the Perfect Play mode described above, the embodiments of the simulated drum set may include any number of possible additional variations. For example, the user may select alternate main instrument tracks (e.g., by selecting different sound sample kits and/or other selection methods), control volume of main instrument track by changing speed of play or by physical orientation of the simulated drum set, and/or introduce additional user-triggered effects to main instrument track.
In some embodiments, when in Perfect Play or Rhythm modes, the user starts playback of a song (i.e., playback of the associated audio tracks for the song) by playing the simulated drum set, for example by tapping or otherwise touching a drum, cymbal, or pedal. Alternately or additionally, the simulated drum set may include different means of starting a song beyond the primary instrument play function (e.g., by tapping or otherwise touching a drum, cymbal, or pedal). The simulated drum set or other similarly fabricated instrument may start a song playback by the user utilizing a separate touch sensor or other trigger. The separate touch sensor or other trigger may start the song in lieu of or addition to starting to play the simulated drum set. In some embodiments, starting song playback will often be accomplished using capacitive touch sensors or other controls already present in the instrument. This may save cost and reduces complexity of the instrument. Generally speaking, the method of starting the song may be selected on an instrument-by-instrument basis so as to be easy to use and logical.
Once the song playback has been triggered as introduced above, the simulated drum set of an embodiment or any other instrument may play a count-in prior to the beginning of a song. The count-in, akin to the same for live play of real instruments, may inform the user of the selected playback song's tempo and gives him or her time to prepare. The count-in may typically be two measures, but can vary from song-to-song as appropriate.
The count-in may further aid multiple users playing multiple instruments to play a selected song together. Regardless of the method of starting the song and the particular instrument or multiple instruments playing the song, all embodiments of instruments that include the same song (i.e. have the sound tracks and data associated with the song) can be played together, particularly if the songs (i.e. the sound tracks) are the same length and edited identically. Further, the count-ins may have the same length. As starting a song on any instrument may require only a single action such as touching a strum sensor on a guitar or tapping drum sensor, it may be easy to start the same song on multiple instruments for group play.
Additional features may facilitate the synchronization of song playback across multiple instruments. For example, all but the main track (e.g., the track representing the instrument being played) may be muted on one or more instruments such that only a few or one instrument plays the other song track(s) (e.g. general background track, vocal track) to facilitate easier song synchronization. In such a case, additional tracks representing the instruments being played in the group may be muted. For example, for an instrument group including a simulated drum set and simulated guitar, the other song track(s) may be played only by the simulated drum set and may be muted by the simulated guitar. Further, so that the guitar sound is generated only by the simulated guitar actually being played by a user, the song track(s) played by the simulated drum set may further omit the guitar track. Additional or alternate synchronization methods may include wired or wireless coupling among the multiple instruments.
In some embodiments, alternate functions are available. In some embodiments, there are three types of alternate functions: selection of main operating mode (Rhythm, Perfect Play, or Freestyle); selection of sound sample kits (sound sample sets) for Rhythm or Freestyle modes; and muting and un-muting tracks for Karaoke mode. Alternative function may be accessed by touching control sensors or a combination of control sensors and instrument sensors. Instrument sensors may be assigned one or more alternate functions, which are accessed by triggering the instrument sensor and a mode modifier touch sensor. In the embodiment shown in
In some embodiments, the alternate functions may be accessed through the use of a mode modifier sensor, in combination with one or more other control sensor such as volume up or down.
In some embodiments, the simulated drum set may have the ability to selectively mute or play different tracks of songs. For example, the instrument may split songs into two tracks, one track for the main instrument (such as the drum track), and another track for everything else. This allows the instrument to play the background music and adjust the volume level (mute/unmute) of the instrument track.
In an alternate embodiment, the music or song may be split into more than two instrument tracks. For example, an embodiment may use four tracks per song to typically represent the guitar, drums, vocals, and other music. The actual number of tracks and the instruments assigned to each track may vary with the particular songs. The simulated drum set may include an interface or one or more controls for muting and un-muting (or in some embodiments, controlling the volume of) the various music or song tracks individually and/or in combination. In some implementations, the interface or one or more controls may allow the user to select which music or song tracks are to be played when starting the song. In other implementations, the interface or one or more controls may allow the user to adjust track selection while the song is playing. One result of the selective muting of any vocal tracks is a Karaoke mode for which the user can themselves provide accompanying vocals.
Invoking or selecting the Karaoke mode may be performed in several ways, depending on the embodiment. For example, with a Perfect Play or Rhythm mode selected, the user may touch the mode and volume down control sensors together to toggle a track state (mute or un-mute) of a subsequently selected music or song track. For a particular song, the user may select which track to mute or un-mute by touching the drum instrument sensor assigned to the particular desired track (e.g. vocals, guitar, and other background music).
Karaoke mode may expand the play possibilities of the simulated drum set. Akin to karaoke as generally understood, the user may mute the vocal track so they may sing along with the songs. A user or solo player can also mute various other tracks to achieve interesting variations in the songs. In some embodiments, the main instrument track may not be muted. However it may be possible to effectively mute this track by simply doing nothing (i.e., not playing the instrument) while the song is playing in either Perfect Play or Rhythm mode.
Karaoke mode may also improve ensemble play by allowing different instruments to be used together more effectively. Take the example of three users having simulated guitar, drum set, and microphone respectively. The guitar player may mute the drum and vocal tracks, the drum player may mute the guitar and vocal tracks, and the microphone user may mute the guitar and drum tracks. This makes using the instruments together much more like playing in an ensemble. If desired, the remaining background music track could be enabled on only one of the three users' instruments as described above to mitigate synchronization issues.
In some embodiments, some of the instrument sensors are pedal sensors, located beneath artwork of drum set pedals. For example, the simulated drum set may include three drum set pedals, one simulating a hi-hat cymbal and two for simulating a bass drum (commonly known as double bass pedals). These pedal sensors are implemented to behave substantially similar to the pedals on physical drum sets. For example, when a bass drum pedal sensor is tapped or otherwise triggered, a bass drum sound track is played. The two bass drum pedals of an embodiment may behave independently to allow the user to rapidly play bass drum sounds.
The simulated drum set may include a hi-hat sensor and a hi-hat pedal sensor. A real hi-hat includes two cymbals that are mounted on a stand, one on top of the other, that may be clashed together using a pedal coupled to the stand. A narrow metal shaft or rod may run through a hollow tube through both cymbals and may connect to the pedal. The top cymbal may be connected to the shaft or rod with a clutch, while the bottom cymbal remains stationary resting on the hollow tube. When the pedal is pressed, the top cymbal crashes onto the bottom cymbal (closed hi-hat position). When released, the top cymbal returns to its original position above the bottom cymbal (open hi-hat position). When the hi-hat cymbal is struck with a drum stick it has a distinct sound when open compared to when closed. Touching and releasing the hi-hat pedal sensor causes the simulated drum set to play a muffled hi-hat cymbal sound. If the hi-hat pedal sensor is touched and held, hitting the hi-hat sensor will cause the simulated drum set to play a closed hi-hat sound. If the hi-hat pedal is released (or not touched), tapping the hi-hat sensor will cause the simulated drum set to play an open hi-hat sound. Tapping the hi-hat cymbal sensor in this state will play a cymbal sound with a longer sustain.
In some embodiments, the pedal sensors may trigger or otherwise implement additional or alternate behaviors. For example, one of the bass pedal sensors may be used to play a multiple strike sound with one touch to the pedal. The rate of the multiple strikes may be adjusted to be appropriate for the current music's tempo. Further, a pedal sensor could be mapped to any other drum or cymbal on the simulated drum set selected by the user. Further still, the hi-hat pedal sensor could act like a toggle switch. Each time the hi-hat pedal is touched it could change the state between open and closed. This effective shortcut may free up fingers for other activities during while playing.
Some embodiments of the simulated drum set may also include a hardware port to which external physical pedals may be connected. The hardware port may further support the connection of two pedals (e.g., the two pedals may daisy-chain together). For such an embodiment, one pedal may be mapped to the bass drum and the other pedal mapped to the hi-hat. The physical pedals may operate in addition to and/or in lieu of the virtual pedals. Similar to the virtual pedals, the physical pedals may be configured to trigger or otherwise implement additional or alternate behaviors as described above.
In addition to the functionality described above, some embodiments of the simulated drum set may include a looping feature or capability. For example, the addition of one or more sensors may allow the user to record a series of drum events for approximately 8 beats (2 measures) and then may give the user the ability to “loop” that recording as a background track while playing over it. Some embodiments of the simulated drum set may also come with some pre-made and/or pre-recorded loops from which the user may choose. Some embodiments of the simulated drum set may further include drum fills. Drum fills may be pre-determined and/or pre-recorded musical drum phrases. The user may trigger a drum fill, which would be one of the pre-recorded phrases, by any variety of triggering. For example, the user may trigger a drum fill by playing a particular drum sequence. Alternately, the user may directly trigger the drum fill. Some embodiments of the simulated drum set may also allow the user to record custom drum fills. Both the loop and drum fill functionalities may be adjusted to different tempos (or in an embodiment mapped automatically) so they would work with different songs that may have differing tempos.
Those skilled in the art will recognize that numerous modifications and changes may be made to the preferred embodiment without departing from the scope of the claimed invention. It will, of course, be understood that modifications of the invention, in its various aspects, will be apparent to those skilled in the art, some being apparent only after study, others being matters of routine mechanical, chemical and electronic design. No single feature, function or property of the preferred embodiment is essential. Other embodiments are possible, their specific designs depending upon the particular application. As such, the scope of the invention should not be limited by the particular embodiments herein described but should be defined only by the appended claims and equivalents thereof.
The present application claims the benefit of, and priority to, U.S. Provisional Application No. 61/368,235 filed on 27 Jul. 2010, incorporated herein by reference.
| Number | Date | Country | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 61368235 | Jul 2010 | US |
