Sound Collector with Bone Conduction Discriminator for Remote Music Lessons
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Solution Overview
Problem
Existing music performance systems experience noise issues during remote lessons due to the microphone capturing both tutor's voice and instrument tones, leading to a delayed and noisy audio experience for trainees.
Innovation Solution
A sound collector system with a vibration detector and microphone that distinguishes between voice and instrument vibrations, allowing only the voice signal to be transmitted, while suppressing instrument tones, is integrated into the music performance system.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If the microphone is kept in the on-state to capture the tutor's voice, then the voice signal can be transmitted, but the microphone also captures instrument tones causing noise and time delay
Solution Approach 1:
The patent divides the sound collection function into two separate microphones: one dedicated to capturing voice signals and another dedicated to capturing instrument tones. This segmentation allows independent processing and transmission of voice and instrument signals, preventing the noise problem where instrument tones are mistakenly transmitted as voice signals.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent introduces a voice signal discriminator as an intermediary device that analyzes the sound signal to determine whether it represents voice or instrument tones. This discriminator acts as a mediator between the microphones and the transmission system, enabling intelligent routing of signals based on their content type.
2Loss of information
If the microphone captures both voice and instrument tones, then all audio is transmitted, but the trainee hears delayed electric tones that sound noisy
Solution Approach 1:
The patent extracts only the necessary voice signal components from the mixed audio signal while excluding instrument tone components. By using the voice signal discriminator to identify and separate voice signals, the system transmits only relevant audio information, preventing the transmission of delayed and noisy instrument tone repetitions.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent implements dynamic control of signal transmission based on real-time analysis of the sound signal characteristics. The voice signal discriminator dynamically determines which signals to transmit by analyzing whether the current sound represents voice or instrument tones, allowing adaptive transmission that avoids noisy delayed tones while maintaining voice signal quality.
Applied Scientific Principles
This section explains which scientific principles are used to turn an abstract innovation direction into a practical engineering solution.
Function Achieved in This Case
This solution effectively reduces noise by ensuring trainees hear only the tutor's voice and the corresponding instrument tones without the delay and interference of electric tones, enhancing the remote learning experience.
Implementation Method 1
a vibration detector converting vibrations of a vibration propagating medium (e.g., skull bones) to a vibration signal
Implementation Method 2
a microphone converting the sound waves propagated through the air to the sound signal
Data Source
AI summary
A music station is connected through a communication network to another music station, and pieces of music data expressing an exhibition performance on a automatic player piano and pieces of voice data expressing tutor's explanation are transmitted from the music station to the other music station through different communication channels; and a close-talking microphone and a bone conduction microphone are incorporated in a sound collector on the music station, and a vibration signal from the bone conduction microphone is examined to see whether or not the cord of tutor vibrates; when the answer is given affirmative, a voice signal from the close-talking microphone is relayed to a transmitter module so that the sound collector does not permit the transmitter module to transmit the voice signal expressing noises such as the tones; whereby the music performance system prevents the trainee from tones reproduced from a headphone.