ChrisK, who is a member here and over at Vdrums.com posted this yesterday on Vdrums.com. I hope you don't mind me copying your post for discussion here.
From Vdrums.com:
Edrum world released from Alkatraz Jail?
Yesterday, 04:14 PM (posted by ChrisK)
According to Mike Snyder (from ATV) The eDrum world delights: In the USA, today is RMHPE Day. #edrums #VDrums #aDrums
and Digital Drummer Magazine facebook group, from Allan L. Today Roland Patents expired, Patents based on applications filed after June 8, 1995, (actual filing date, not priority date), have a term of 20 years from the US filing date. This will allow Mesh head, trigger cone, head and rim zones, positional sensing and separate brushes circuit, among other things could be now available for edrum company in US.
1. A percussion detecting apparatus in an electronic percussion instrument system comprising:
a head the percussion surface of which comprises a net-like material wherein air passes through openings in said net-like material;
a percussion detector detecting percussion with respect to said head as an electric signal; and
a position detector which receives said electric signal and determines position information about the point at which said percussion originated on said percussion surface.
2. A percussion detecting apparatus in an electronic percussion instrument system as claimed in claim 1 wherein said net-like material is prepared by superposing a plurality of nets each of which is formed by combining longitudinal fibers with transverse fibers, and the fibers of adjacent nets superposed cross with each other at an angle smaller than 90 degrees.
3. An electronic percussion instrument system which detects percussion as an electric signal and generates a musical tone based on the electric signal thus detected comprising:
a head the percussion surface of which to be percussed is tunable;
a percussion detector which detects percussion upon said head as an electric signal;
a position detector which detects a percussion point by inputting the electric signal detected by said percussion detector to determine positional information about the percussion point; and
a display for effecting a display corresponding to said positional information of the percussion point detected by said position detector.
4. An electronic percussion instrument system as claimed in claim 3 wherein the percussion surface of said head is composed of a net-like material.
5. An electronic percussion instrument system as claimed in any one of claims 3 and 4 comprising further a position detector which performs arithmetic computations on said positional information of the percussion point, and an arithmetic computation compensator which responds to a tuning state of said head to compensate the arithmetic computations performed by said position detector.
6. An electronic percussion instrument system which detects percussion as an electric signal and generates a musical tone based on the electric signal thus detected comprising:
a tunable head;
a position detector which detects a position of a percussion point upon said head; and
a display which effects a display in response to the results detected by said position detector;
a percussion point positional mark for tuning being provided on said head.
7. An electronic percussion instrument system as claimed in claim 6 wherein the percussion surface of said head is composed of a net-like material.
8. An electronic percussion instrument system as claimed in any one of claims 6 and 7 wherein said display displays a tuning reference mark at a position corresponding to said percussion point positional mark.
Again, I hope you don't mind ChrisK.
To be honest I had forgotten that the patent expired in July. I knew this early in the year, and that is why I stated 2017 is going to be a good year for edrums. With the holiday coming up it had totally slipped my mind.
This is big news for the edrum community at large. This is going to open the flood gates for mesh head center mounted cone trigger pads here in the states and the cost should start coming down. (more on that soon…)
I've attached the patent with the relevant info highlighted for reference.
What you guys think about?