According to some aspects, a cymbal system is provided comprising a metal plate, a transducer coupled to the metal plate and configured to detect an acoustic signal generated by a strike of the metal plate, and processing circuitry, electrically connected to the transducer, configured to determine a cymbal articulation for the strike of the metal plate based on the detected acoustic signal. According to some aspects, a method is provided comprising the steps of detecting an acoustic signal generated by a strike of a metal plate, and determining a cymbal articulation for the strike of the metal plate based on the detected acoustic signal.

Performance information of main music is sequentially acquired, and an accent position of the music is determined. An automatic accompaniment is progressed based on accompaniment pattern data. Upon determination that the current time point coincides with the accent position, an accompaniment event whose tone generation timing arrives within a predetermined time range following the current time point is extracted from the accompaniment pattern data, the tone generation timing of the extracted accompaniment event is shifted to the current time point, and then, accompaniment data is created based on the accompaniment event having the tone generation timing thus shifted. If there is no accompaniment event whose tone generation timing arrives at the current time point or within the predetermined time range following the current time point, automatic accompaniment data with the current time point set as its tone generation timing is additionally created.

Systems and methods capable of providing adaptive and responsive accompaniment to music with fixed chord progressions, such as jazz and pop, are provided. A system can include one or more sound-capturing devices, a signal analyzer to analyze captured sound signals, and an electronic sound-producing component that produces electronic sounds as an accompaniment.

A drum assembly includes a drum, a stimulus processor assembly and a light pattern display generator. The drum includes a drum shell that at least partially defines a drum interior. The stimulus processor assembly receives a stimulus, generates an input signal, and converts the input signal to an output signal. The light pattern display generator receives the output signal from the stimulus processor assembly. The light pattern display generator generates a light pattern display in response to the output signal. Additionally, the light pattern display generator projects the light pattern display at least partially within the drum interior. The light pattern display generator can include one or more of an animation laser, a hologram projector and a lumin disk. The stimulus can be generated by the drum or by a source remote from the drum.

A keyboard musical instrument includes a string-striking mechanism (hammer), driver, sound receiver, analyzer, and adjuster. The hammer strikes a string responsive to a change in position of an associated key of keyboard. The driver drives the hammer under a driving condition in accordance with control data. The sound receiver generates an audio signal corresponding to a sound occurring in the vicinity of the hammer. The analyzer detects the hammer striking a string by analyzing the audio signal generated when the hammer operates. The adjuster adjusts the control data in accordance with results of the analysis. The analyzer detects hammer striking a string in accordance with an intensity of the audio signal occurring within a search range, which has a predetermined relationship along a time axis with regard to a time at which the hammer commences operation.

A system is described that permits identified musical phrases or themes to be synchronized and linked into changing real-world events. The achieved synchronization includes a seamless musical transitionachieved using a timing offset, such as relative advancement of an significant musical onset, that is inserted to align with a pre-existing but identified music signature, beat or timebasebetween potentially disparate pre-identified musical phrases having different emotive themes defined by their respective time signatures, intensities, keys, musical rhythms and/or musical phrasing. The system operates to augment an overall sensory experience of a user in the real world by dynamically changing, re-ordering or repeating and then playing audio themes within the context of what is occurring in the surrounding physical environment, e.g. during different phases of a cardio workout in a step class the music rate and intensity increase during sprint periods and decrease during recovery periods.

Provided are methods and systems for concealing missing segments and/or discontinuities in an audio signal, thereby restoring the continuity of the signal. The methods and systems are designed for and targeted at audio signals, are based on interpolation and extrapolation operations for sinusoids, and do not rely on the assumption that the sinusoids are harmonic. The methods and systems are improvements over existing audio concealment approaches in that, among other advantages, the methods and systems facilitate asynchronous interpolation, use an interpolation procedure that corresponds to time-domain waveform interpolation if the signal is harmonic, and have a peak selection procedure that is effective for audio signals.

Captured vocals may be automatically transformed using advanced digital signal processing techniques that provide captivating applications, and even purpose-built devices, in which mere novice user-musicians may generate, audibly render and share musical performances. In some cases, the automated transformations allow spoken vocals to be segmented, arranged, temporally aligned with a target rhythm, meter or accompanying backing tracks and pitch corrected in accord with a score or note sequence. Speech-to-song music applications are one such example. In some cases, spoken vocals may be transformed in accord with musical genres such as rap using automated segmentation and temporal alignment techniques, often without pitch correction. Such applications, which may employ different signal processing and different automated transformations, may nonetheless be understood as speech-to-rap variations on the theme.

A method for processing a music performance, the method comprising the steps of: receiving a first media signal from a media source; analysing the first media signal to extract any media signal characteristics; creating a reference media signal by suppressing at-least a predominant sound source of the first media signal; reproducing the reference media signal while receiving a users media signal from an input device to generate a second media signal; analysing the second media signal to extract any media signal characteristics; processing the characteristics of the second media signal in isolation or in combination with the characteristics of the first media signal; and generating feedback for the music performance based upon the processed media signals.

A server system 500 is provided for receiving video clips having an associated audio/musical track for processing at the server system. The system comprises a beat tracking module for identifying beat time instants (t.sub.i) in the audio signal and a chord change estimation module for determining a chord change likelihood from chroma accent information in the audio signal at the beat time instants (t.sub.i). Further, first and second accent-based estimation modules are provided for determining respective first and second accent-based downbeat likelihood values from the audio signal at the beat time instants (t.sub.i) using respective different algorithms. A final stage of processing identifies downbeats occurring at beat time instants (t.sub.i) using a predefined score-based algorithm that takes as input numerical representations of chord change likelihood and the first and second accent-based downbeat likelihood values at the beat time instants (t.sub.i).