4,979,213

43.72.Ne ORTHOGONALIZED DICTIONARY SPEECH RECOGNITION APPARATUS AND METHOD THEREOF

Tsuneo Nitta, assignor to Kabushiki Kaisha Toshiba 18 December 1990 (Class 381/43); filed in Japan 15 July 1988

This multispeaker, template-matching speech recognition system at- tempts to isolate speaker differences from the phonetic analysis data using an orthogonalization process. In contrast to prior methods, which have used Gram-Schmidt orthogonalization, this system is based on two forms of feature weighting called blurring and differentiation. Averaged feature vec- tor sets are first formed by summing across speakers for each template. Blurring consists of forming a new pattern data set by summing past (t -- 1 ) and future (t -+- 1 ) averaged feature vectors with two times the present (t) vector. In other words, the standard 1 -+- 2 -+- 1 smoothing filter is applied to the averaged feature vectors. Differentiation consists of taking the differ- ence between the future vector and the past vector. The blurred and differ- entiated data sets are used to construct successive orthogonal reference patterns.gDLR

4,961,177

43.72.Pf METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR INPUTTING A VOICE THROUGH A MICROPHONE

Kensuke Uehara, assignor to Kabushiki Kaisha Toshiba 2 October 1990 (Class 367/197); filed in Japan 30 January 1988

For the purpose of voice recognition by means of a microphone at some distance from the talker, an apparatus is described that directs a highly directional microphone at the talker's mouth. It is desired to have as high a

JLTRASONIC SENSOR

3O

SERVO MECHANISM

2O

DOOR OPEN/CLOSE• MECHANISM

DISTANCE DETECTING

CIRCUIT

VOCAL RECOGNITION

DEVICE

AUDIO RESPONSE

UNIT

PICTURE CAMERA PROCESSOR

HOST

'34

signal-to-noise ratio as possible with a remotely located microphone. The apparatus employs a video camera, a control means, and a positioning mechanism. Both the image and the voice will be placed into the control system for comparison.gMDB

5,044,248

43.75.EF GERMAN BASSOON EQUIPPED WITH IMPROVED PIANISSIMO KEY MECHANISM

Hiroshi Kenmochi, assignor to Yamaha Corporation 3 September 1991 (Class 84/380); filed in Japan 27 October 1989

This patent describes a Japanese improvement on a German bassoon. "A German bassoon comprises a crook, other component joints connected to the crook and a pianissimo key mechanism closing a pianissimo hole formed in the crook without any keywork, and the pianissimo key mecha- nism allows the pianissimo hole to be open when a player manipulates, thereby causing a performance of the German bassoon to be easy."--DWM

5,042,356

43.75.Hi KIT FOR CONVERTING A CONVENTIONAL DRUM INTO AN ELECTRONICALLY TRIGGERED DRUM

Jeffrey M. Karch, Cincinnati, OH 27 August 1991 (Class 84/725); filed 6 July 1989

Although the title of this patent leads the reader to believe that the musical drum would be triggered electronically rather than mechanically, the patent instead describes broadly a 2-transducer pickup system for re- sponding to conventional drumhead actuation by sending a triggering sig- nal to an amplification system or electronic drum synthesizer. The trans- ducers of a type not described are mounted on a panel beneath the upper drumhead, with one transducer at the center and the other mounted near the rim of the drum. The latter transducer is mounted on a shock-absorber

to reduce mechanical shock from the drum rim.mDWM

5,044,250

43.75.Hi DRUMSTICK WITH SOUNDING PELLETS

David M. Beyer, Los Angeles, CA 3 September 1991 (Class 84/422.4); filed 29 May 1990

This drumstick is a hollow tube 14 of polycarbonate plastic containing a number of pellets 22. The tube is threaded to receive any one of a variety of drumstick tips which make the actual contact with the drumhead during

playing. The purpose of the pellets is to "produce a maraca-like effect in perfect rhythm" with the playing of the drum without requiring an addi- tional musician equipped with maracas.mDWM

5,042,353

43.75.Mn METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR

PRODUCING VARIABLE INTENSITY IN A PLANO PERFORMANCE

Wayne L. Stahnke, Los Angeles, CA 27 August 1991 (Class 84/21); filed 23 August 1990

This patent is intended to provide electrical touch control for the indi- vidual keys of a grand piano of the player type, as described in earlier pa-

1196 J. Acoust. Soc. Am., Vol. 91, No. 2, February 1992 Patent Reviews 1196

Redistribution subject to ASA license or copyright; see http://acousticalsociety.org/content/terms. Download to IP: 129.174.21.5 On: Wed, 17 Dec 2014 23:40:04