Producer: John Holston
Music and lyrics by: John Holston
14 reMixer tracks

This tune was composed in MIDI using Cakewalk Pro Audio 8.0 and Reality 1.5.3 for all the instruments. The vocal tracks were recorded onto Cakewalk Pro Audio multi tracks, mixed down to one track and edited into samples in Sound Forge 4.0. The resulting vocal samples were then imported into the Reality sound bank and mapped to the keyboard using Reality. Going back to Cakewalk the vocal samples were then “played” on the keyboard controller while the other MIDI tracks played. After the MIDI file was complete it was imported into Reality and the entire soundbank was saved as a SeerMusic file, given a discrete name, and you are now listening to it!

Gear used: Homemade computer with Pentium II-350, 64 megs RAM, Win 98, AWE64 Gold sound card, Stedman vocal mic, Behringer Autocomp compressor.

Listen: Jacob’s Letter 192k

1999.06.01 SurReal mention; Music & Sound Retailer

1999.06.05 Placement in Guitar Center, Sam Ash

1999.06.06 Reality & SurReal in JW Pepper Catalog

All MIDI Commands implemented; interactive web-based chimes and arpeggiating minisynth with real-time parametric control. Aptly termed by Rick Davies “The Best Audio Helper App You Never Heard in Your Life.”

In 1999, Seer Systems released ReMixer, a free helper app that rendered musical performances published in the SeerMusic format. Composers could create SeerMusic files with Reality, importing and creating musical elements from multiple sources. The SeerMusic files then included all of the information needed to let ReMixer recreate the performance exactly as the composer intended – track levels, synthesizer patches and parameter changes, and even effects processing were performed in real-time by ReMixer – a capability still well beyond the capabilities of any free helper app available on the Web.

Here’s a demo video from 1999 that demonstrates ReMixer stand-alone application user interface, particularly coded by Fred Malouf and David Roach. It shows how you can change the mix: level changes, mutes, solo, reverb on each track and even a global tempo and transpose setting for the entire song. Experienced electronic musicians will note that most of the tracks are being played by the software synthesizer built into ReMixer, including the lead guitar.

The Moog and Chimes demos show how Web application developers could embed synth controls in their user interfaces. Check out the way you can adjust the filter settings. This is not a simulation – these controls actually change the filter cutoff, resonance, etc. 10 years later, the SeerMusic platform is still the only one that enables this type of user experience.

Taken to 2012 processing levels, one could in principle use the system to implement a 32-channel mixing and effects board (to say nothing of a full-featured sampler) into any browser.

On March 23, 1999, the US Patent Office issued Patent #5,886,274 to Seer System. The title of the patent is “System and Method for Generating, Distributing, Storing, and Performing Musical Work Files.” (Check out this scan of the patent from the Seer Systems archives.)

Due to the EFF’s “Patent Busting” campaign, there seems to be considerable confusion around what exactly the “274 patent” describes. The EFF has gone so far as to call it “bogus” and “illegitimate,” but when pressed for their justification, the EFF respond that “free speech” is sufficient justification. They also point to Seer Systems’ founder, Stanley Jungleib’s book General MIDI as “prior art” that makes the patent invalid by describing the same music publishing system (in the section titled “GM2000”).

Does General MIDI describe the system described in the 274 patent? Does it even describe the SeerMusic system that Seer Systems released three years after General MIDI’s first publication?

Not at all.

In 1994 when Jungleib completed the first draft, and even in 1995 when the book was finally published, the devices with which musicians worked were still hardware devices – mostly keyboards and drum machines. Computers were used for sequencing and for editing synth programs, and Internet access was becoming increasingly commonplace, but software synths were simply not the sort of thing you could buy at a retail music store.

Jungleib wrote GM2000 to help synth manufacturers understand the difficulties facing composers and to encourage manufacturers to support General MIDI. GM2000 proposed a future version of GM in which a playback device could help hardware devices determine the most appropriate sounds for performing a composer’s work. If all else fails, the synths would have GM-mapped sounds to fall back on. In other words, the system would make the “worst case” a bit less bad.

Jungleib did not describe an end-to-end software solution that ensures that a composer’s work will sound identical on another system. Jungleib envisioned that system in October of 1995, months after the release of General MIDI. He then reassembled the Seer Systems design team and began work on Reality, the first step towards the SeerMusic system, in which he implemented the system that would eventually be protected by the “274 patent.”

If you’ve ever considered publishing a MIDI file of your own, but gave up on the idea because of all of the variables between you and your potential listeners, the difference between GM2000 and the 274 patent are obvious.

BTW – If you don’t have a copy of General MIDI, you can read it for free online and see for yourself.

www.harmony-central.com:
    “Seer Systems(TM) to Support Be(TM) Operating System”

i.e. Reality supports Being