There are a few situations where it is important to be able to use some parts of FreeMIDI and OMS in the same setup. One of these is when you run Digital Performer and any Digidesign hardware on the same system. For the most part things work pretty easily, but it can get a bit nasty when trying to get patchlists to work. Today’s tip is about how to set up OMS to use FreeMIDI Patchlists. The release of Digital Performer 2.6 added direct support of OMS via the FreeMIDI 1.4 release. If OMS (we recommend 2.3.6 or higher) is installed, Digital Performer can be configured to use your current OMS Setup, including OMS Devices and Patchlists. Because DP can now run under OMS, FreeMIDI’s OMS Emulation mode has been removed. If you wish to run Digital Performer with Digidesign’s Sample Cell under OMS (for example), you must configure an OMS Setup. The drawback is that your FreeMIDI Setup must be duplicated in OMS, solely for the purposes of synchronizing DP and Sample Cell. And, the duplicated set up in OMS may return OMS patchlists, or worse, patchlist may not even be supported under OMS. The set up below describes how to force OMS to use FreeMIDI patchlists. This set up benefits the Digital Performer user who must setup OMS, but has no real need for an OMS Setup file per se. For example: you need OMS to run Sample Cell concurrently, or you need OMS to synchronize Rebirth.
How it works: When you make a new device in OMS, OMS checks whether it has a patchlist for that particular device. These patchlist definitions are stored in the Factory Names folder found in the System Folder, OMS Folder. If a patchlist definition doesn’t exist, OMS doesn’t assign a patchlist; you must choose patches in an OMS application by bank select and patch change values. If FreeMIDI is set to “Use OMS when available,” FreeMIDI will search for an equivalent FreeMIDI Default Names patchlist. The FreeMIDI Name Provider (found in the System Folder: OMS Folder), provides the FreeMIDI Default Name patchlist to OMS. This means, forcing OMS to use FreeMIDI Patchlists is simply a matter of removing OMS’ patchlist definitions by throwing out the contents of the Factory Names Folder.
Getting Started: OMS Setup
1. Quit FreeMIDI Setup and OMS Setup
2. Locate the Factory Names folder found in the System Folder: OMS Folder
3. Open the Factory Names Folder, and remove the contents (you may want to back up the contents of this folder, or simply throw them out)
4. Open the OMS Preferences folder (in the OMS Folder) and throw out the “OMS Name Manager Prefs”
5. Launch OMS Setup, delete visible OMS Devices, and reconfigure the OMS Setup
6. When adding devices in OMS, be sure to choose from the list of Manufacturers and Models. If your device is not listed, assign a similar device, and modify its name to match your device (ex. change “JV-1080” to “JV-2080”)
7. After completing your OMS Setup, Save and Make Current
Setting up FreeMIDI:
1. Launch FreeMIDI Setup
2. Open the FreeMIDI Preferences window (File menu), and choose “Use OMS when available” from the Software Compatibility section. You may need to Quit and Launch FreeMIDI again so FreeMIDI opens using OMS’ Setup. The same OMS Setup above will appear in FreeMIDI. More importantly, the FreeMIDI patchlist you have always known and loved will remain intact: This trick only works when a FreeMIDI application is using the OMS setup. This method does not publish patch lists directly into OMS to use with software like ProTools, Studio Vision, Cubase or other OMS compatible software.
If all of this seems too mind boggling be sure you’re not alone. It’s why Sweetwater has a great technical support staff to help coach you through issues such as this.