Musical instruments have always been very popular in society providing entertainment, social interaction, self-expression, and a business and source of livelihood for many people. Musical instruments and related accessories are used by professional and amateur musicians to generate, alter, transmit, and reproduce audio signals. Common musical instruments include an electric guitar, bass guitar, violin, horn, brass, drums, wind instrument, string instrument, piano, organ, electric keyboard, and percussions. Other electronic sources of music include synthesizers, thermions, and samplers. The audio signal from the musical instrument is typically an analog signal containing a progression of values within a continuous range. The audio signal can also be digital in nature as a series of binary one or zero values.
The musical instrument is often used in conjunction with related musical accessories, such as microphones, audio amplifiers, speakers, mixers, synthesizers, samplers, effects pedals, public address systems, digital recorders, and similar devices to capture, alter, combine, store, play back, and reproduce sound from digital or analog audio signals originating from the musical instrument. The musical instrument is connected to the accessories by audio and control cables, e.g., XLR cables, DIN cables, ¼ inch instrument cables, and AES3 cables, to transmit the analog or digital audio signals and control signals from one device to another. The audio cabling between the musical instrument and accessories requires time and expertise to set up and must remain in place during the musical performance. The audio cabling is expensive and inconvenient to transport, setup, take down, and store between performances. A missing or defective cable without a ready replacement can suspend or delay the musical performance. The audio cabling can form ground loops that introduce power line hum into the audio signals, acting as an antenna that receives unwanted radio frequency (RF) signals. In addition, the cabling is subject to damage from handing and repeated use, often limits the physical mobility of the performer, and presents a safety hazard due to the potential for tripping or electrical shock.
The musical instrument and related accessories typically include hand-operated controls located on a readily accessible panel or surface of the instrument to alter the volume, frequency response, tonal characteristics, and operational state of the instrument or accessory. The number and type of controls vary depending on the type of instrument. For example, an electric guitar may have control switches that select one or more pickups as the source of the audio signal, as well as control knobs that determine the volume and tonal qualities of the audio signal transmitted to an output jack. The electric guitar is connected by an audio cable from the output jack to an audio amplifier. The audio amplifier has a front panel with control knobs, buttons, sliders, and switches for amplification, volume, gain, filtering, tone equalization, sound effects, bass, treble, midrange, reverb dwell, reverb mix, vibrato speed, and vibrato intensity. The user adjusts the knobs, buttons, sliders, and switches on the front panel of the audio amplifier to dial in the desired volume, acoustics, and sound effects. The output of the audio amplifier is connected by audio cable to a speaker to audibly reproduce the sound.
In other examples, a synthesizer includes controls for selecting the instrument being synthesized, effects, automatic accompaniment, and other features. A multi-channel mixer has controls for each input channel, as well as additional master controls that affect each channel. The user controls the instrument or accessory by moving various switches, knobs, and sliders to the desired setting. Generally, a musical performance requires appropriate configuration of a number of controls on different musical instruments and accessories. The controls that must be set and coordinated on the musical instruments and accessories become a time consuming operation, often requiring readjustments during or between performances, and generally difficult to manage when several devices are used together.