New software product brings voice and sound to email messages; Midisoft unveils software that provides easy access to PC sound features.

ISSAQUAH, Wash.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--May 15, 1996--If you've ever had just a few minutes between meetings to respond to your many email messages, you know how frustrating it can be sitting down at the computer to type them out.

Now, thanks to a new software product for the PC, you can respond by speaking to the computer. The new product, Midisoft Sound Bar, is being unveiled at the Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3) in Los Angeles this week. Sound Bar integrates all PC sound capabilities into one location, offering an easy way to control sound on the PC.

The product's unique voice recording capabilities allow users to easily replace text with voice for sending email and other business communications. The product comes with a microphone that plugs into the PC's sound card for recording voice messages to send to co-workers or over the Internet.

"We believe that Sound Bar is going to change the way people use their PCs to communicate," said Midisoft President and CEO Larry Foster. "Sound Bar adds the speed and impact of voice communication to email and other PC applications."

Sound Bar will be available through national computer and consumer electronics retail stores in August and will have a suggested retail price of $19.95. "Midisoft Sound Bar is the first product that provides an easy way for people to access the sound capabilities available in today's new multimedia computers," said Foster.

"Until now sound applications have been buried in the computer, making them hard to find and difficult to use. Sound Bar sits right on the monitor desktop and makes it simple to use these new PC sound features."

Using a feature called Audio Notes, Sound Bar users can drop voice messages into specific sections or lines of a document to provide recorded voice feedback. For example, a person receiving a document simply clicks the Audio Note icon in the document to hear the recorded voice message from the sender.

"Many text documents such as legal materials, school papers, manuscripts and news stories go through many rounds of revisions," said Foster. "Our product eliminates the frustration of trying to read hand-written edits and scribbles."

Sound Bar is a task bar that was designed with the look and feel of the Windows 95 task bar to provide users with a familiar interface. Sound Bar occupies one edge of the user's screen and includes graphical, sound-related icons offering users the tools they need to work with sound effectively.

At the top of Sound Bar a sonar-style volume display makes it easy to adjust and monitor sound levels. The product provides slide-out drawers and an auto-hide feature that let users quickly access the functions they need, while conserving desktop space.

Other Sound Bar features enable users to easily locate sound controls and sound files on their PCs. The sound control feature provides quick access to all sound controls such as volume, bass, treble and balance. The Sound Finder feature helps users to easily find and list all sound, audio and MIDI (Musical Instrument Digital Interface) files on the PC, which users can drag and drop wherever they are needed.

Sound Bar also allows users to create and store voice messages with a scheduled playback feature for business or personal reminders. Sound Bar controls 3-D sound capabilities on suitably-equipped and licensed PCs. This enables users to place sounds in 3-D space, controlling their direction, distance and depth, providing their computer with the richness of surround sound.

Sound Bar is compatible with any online provider or Internet service that currently can send or receive mail. The product also is MAPI compatible and runs under Microsoft Exchange which is available on any Windows 95 computer. Minimum system requirements for Sound Bar include a 486 or greater PC, Windows 95 or Windows NT 4.0.

Midisoft Corp. is a leading provider of innovative software applications for the use of sound and music on personal computers. Based in Issaquah, the company develops award-winning consumer, business and OEM products that are sold at retail and licensed to hardware manufacturers. The company's stock is traded on the Nasdaq National Market under the symbol MIDI. -0-

Note to TV assignment editors: Call Laura Ames at 206/223-6408 for Midisoft VNR and B-Roll videotape on Betacam SP.

CONTACT: Laura Ames, 206/223-6408