- Rockin’ Patent: US Patent No. 10,586,518
- Filed: 19 March 2018
- In the name of: Band Industries Inc
- Title: Automatic Tuning Methods And Systems
- What’s claimed: “An apparatus, comprising: a stringed musical instrument tuning device configured to adjust tension of a musical instrument string with a dynamic string tension adapting action rotationally applied to a tuning peg, the stringed musical instrument tuning device comprising: an actuator, adapted to releasably couple with a musical instrument tuning peg and radially displace the tuning peg about the tuning peg longitudinal axis of rotation; a sensor system, adapted to receive and transduce to electronic form a signal package comprising: a sound signal emitted by the musical instrument string; and, an undesired noise signal; an internal string model configured to represent string physical properties comprising a relationship between turning peg radial displacement and frequency; and, a controller, comprising: a processor, operably coupled with the actuator, and communicatively coupled with the sensor system; and, a memory that is not a transitory propagating signal, the memory connected to the processor and encoding computer readable instructions, including processor executable program instructions, the computer readable instructions accessible to the processor, wherein the processor executable program instructions, when executed by the processor, cause the processor to perform operations comprising: receive the signal package from the sensor system; configure a noise removal filter to remove the undesired noise signal from the signal package; recover an approximation of the sound signal based on applying the noise removal filter to substantially remove the undesired noise signal from the signal package; activate the actuator to apply corrective tuning peg radial displacement calculated as a function of the recovered sound signal approximation frequency measured by the processor, to tune the string to a predetermined reference frequency; and, automatically tune the musical instrument based on removing the undesired noise signal while activating the actuator to adjust the musical instrument string tension, until the fundamental frequency of the musical instrument string is within a predetermined tolerance of the reference frequency.”
- Why this patent rocks: This patent appears to relate to the ‘Roadie 2’ guitar tuner that is designed to enable players to automatically tune their instruments without having to rely on their own abilities to manually do so. The player attaches the device to, for example, the tuning pegs of their guitar and plucks the string; the Roadie 2 automatically adjusts the tension of the string and alerts the player when the instrument is correctly tuned. For more information and to see the Roadie 2 in action, see here.
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The information above is for general interest and information only and does not constitute legal advice.
