SurReal is a straightforward, single-page, polyphonic virtual
MIDI module.
SurReal comes complete with
the entire Reality sound set, and utilizes the same synthesizer engine and solid
latency / polyphony performance that makes Reality such a workhorse. It also may
be the very best and cheapest software Soundfont player available. Soundfont
support by Seer Systems is as good as gold, and was developed and tested in
cooperation with Emu. You can be sure that a Soundfont played on SurReal will be
exactly as its author intended.
Reality
users may well find themselves looking towards SurReal as a simple, low-overhead
way to load up a full MIDI port. For live performance, it’s a great front
end.
The interface consists of a sort of
space-age looking panel. An included sequence player can hold a list of imported
sequences - very handy for all sorts of applications. There is a built-in reverb
and chorus section, with several presets from which to choose. Below are sixteen
channel modules. Clicking the turquoise “patch strip” brings up a dialog with
all the patches from the loaded Bankset. Others can be imported. Changing
patches within the dialog instantly and seamlessly changes the sound currently
playing in that module - quite nice. One can leave the dialog open in a live
performance, for instance, and simply change sounds with the scroll
keys.
Another great feature of SurReal is
the “vari” knob on each module. Depending on how a sound was originally
programmed in Reality (or in the included content), the Vari key can be mapped
to any number of different controls for realtime
manipulation.
For users that would rather
not design sounds, but are still looking for high quality soft-synth performance
for their productions, SurReal works. It’s a far better alternative than
hardware modules that cost up to six times its price. And even users that
already own Reality may find SurReal to be a valuable addition to their
system.
Seer Systems is preparing to
launch a SeerSounds series, similar to the BitHeadz Black and Whites product.
This will provide SurReal users with another great source of
content.
.gif){kind=spacer}
Return to Reality by Seer
Systems