Seer Announces New Software Synth

(Click for a close-up)

SurReal is Seer Systems' powerful, user friendly software application for Pentium® PCs that brings the audio quality of professional music synthesizers and samplers to the personal computer. Now, for just $129 (suggested retail price) you can add quality piano, brass, percussion, guitar, bass, classic synth, techno, ambient and many other musical instruments and sounds to your computer, getting the most out of the audio power offered by today's Pentium processors and sound cards. Plus SurReal now gives you an easy way to load SoundFonts files and play General MIDI files.

SurReal takes the most popular synthesis formats and lets you access the power of each. These formats are Sampling, FM, Physical Modeling, classic Analog and Modal synthesis. Play sixteen-part arrangements with a total of up to 64 notes at one time. Thousands of sounds are available, both from standard Reality banks and through the use of SoundFonts, a sampler format popularized by E-mu.

One of SurReal's most useful features is the simple front panel, which shows all 16 of the voices you have loaded with their settings for volume, pan, effects, and even mute and solo. An innovative knob called "Vari" uses powerful computing and clever programming to make musical changes to the sound. The alteration, from subtle to extreme, is totally at your control. The synthesizer responds in real-time, allowing you to instantly hear changes as you make them or to play along with sequences as they are playing.

SurReal works with the most popular sequencers such as Cakewalk, Cubase, Logic and others. SurReal can also play back sequences using its built-in Sequence Playback feature. The main screen has a basic recorder-style play control with timer that allows sequences to be loaded and played. You can easily re-voice a sequence and save it to disk along with whatever patches it uses.

The master portion of the main screen also features Effects control, letting you select effects such as reverb, chorus, flanging, delay, echo and others. Finally, SurReal includes authoring support for SeerMusic, for listening to music on the web without long download times and audio compression that can alter the way you intend your music to sound. You can also translate a MIDI file composed for General MIDI into a SeerMusic file in just two mouse clicks.

SurReal works with most consumer and professional soundcards available, from Event, E-mu, Terratech, Hoontech, Turtle Beach, Creative Labs, MIDIMan, ESS, Crystal and more.

Feature Set:

• Polyphony: 64-note maximum
• Simultaneous patches: Up to 16
• Synthesis engines: Sample playback, FM, Physical Modeling, Analog, Modal
• Effects: Reverb, Chorus, Flanging, Delay, Doubling
• Sequence playback: Play, back to start, pause, slider for locating segments, minute/second timer, file commands
• Computer requirements: Pentium® PC with appropriate soundcard. (133 MHz required, 200 MHz recommended, 32 MB RAM minimum, Windows 95/98)
• Samples can be loaded using SoundFonts, with no 32 megabyte limitation - limited only by computer's RAM