Preferences

Choose menu File=>Preference in Windows or omb=>Preferences in OSX to get in the Preferences Window.

MIDI Ports

MIDI In: Select a MIDI In port from the listed ports that are available on your computer (if any). To connect a MIDI keyboard controller you need a MIDI interface cable. This MIDI interface comes with driver-software (mostly automatically installed when plugged in). This driver will show up in the MIDI In list. You can select more than one MIDI Port if available, they will be merged.

MIDI Out: Select the MIDI Out port. By default the JmSynth in Windows or QuickTime synthesizer in OSX. Better sound quality can be obtained by using a better external or software synthesizer.

Synthesizer compatibility defines how close your synthesizer matches the synthesizer that the styles where made for. If you have a Yamaha XG synthesizer then choose XG else choose GM. Identical should only be chosen when you only use styles that come from the arranger keyboard that is currently also used as MIDI Out synthesizer, or if you created the styles yourself for this synthesizer. Based on the compatibility mode OMB will decide how the notes, controllers, patches in the style will be played. E.g. the XG drumnotes outside the GM range when played on a non-XG synthesizer may unwantedly produce sounds of hooting owls and crashing cars. In GM mode OMB will convert this XG notes to GM notes that resemble the original XG drumsound. Another example is the conversion of some Tyros voices. Part of the note range for these instruments is not intended to play notes but used instead to activate effects. If you play styles for these instruments in "Identical" mode on an ordinary XG or GM synth then you will hear annoying beeps. In XG and GM mode these beeps will be filtered out.

GM bank: If the GM bank in your synthesizer is not in bank 0 then you can specify the different bank here.

Specify MIDI Out for each channel: You might want to include some non-GM synthesizers in channel 5-8. These can then be used in (right-hand) multivoices.

VST instruments (Windows only): Specify up to 4 different VST instruments. These instruments will become available in the MIDI Out list and the userinterface/panel of each VSTi will become available in the WIndows menu in OMB. Not all VST instruments will work in OMB but there are a lot of free instruments available that work fine. Make the buffersize shorter to reduce latency, make it longer to avoid distortion. If you have an ASIO driver installed (e.g. Asio4All) then you may be able to get a better latency result. But be aware that once ASIO is activated in OMB, you are no longer able to produce any sounds on your PC that goes thru the normal sound drivers, even jmsynth will no longer work.

Live control

Chord recognition: Select the chord recognition method that you intend to use.

Fixation: Select the controller type (e.g. from a MIDI footswitch) that will switch the chord recognition on and off. With chordfixation on, the chord will not change nomatter what you play.

Chord channel: Should only be specified when using a MIDI accordion that sends chord notes and melody notes on different channels. Or when you use separate MIDI keyboard controllers for chords and melody. Select a specific channel to receive chords from. If specified then highest chord key is ignored, all notes from this channel are regarded as (left hand) chord notes and all notes from other channels are regarded as (right hand) melody notes. Default is All: notes on all channels up to the highest chord key are regarded as left hand notes and otherwise as right hand notes.

Highest chord key: Specifies the split between left hand chord area and right hand melody area of the MIDI keyboard controller connected to the MIDI In port. Be aware that the numbering of the notes may be not the same as the ones printed on your keyboard. The C4 listed here is the middle C. On your 61 keys keyboard the lowest key corresponds with the C2 and the highest key with the C7.

Bass channel: Note played on this (MIDI in) channel will be played with the instrument defined as bass/split instrument in the current multivoice.

Keyboard split : Specifies an optional range of the keyboard for a second melody instrument. It uses the same instrument as the bass channel, which is defined in the multivoice. If none, there is no range of the keyboard assigned to this. If the value is lower than the highest chordkey then the split area is to the left of the chord area. If the value is higher than the highest chordkey then the split area is to the right of the melody area.

Control device: Choose to control the Live functions like selecting variations, presets etc. with the computer keyboard, a MIDI keyboard controller or a touch screen. The layout of the labeled actions in the Live window will change accordingly. When MIDI keyboard is selected you can specify a channel to distinguish the control MIDI keyboard from the MIDI keyboard that you use to play chords and melody. If you use only one MIDI keyboard then specify an activation trigger that will switch the function of your MIDI keyboard from playing to control and vice versa. When Touch screen is selected then choose the number of buttons to display.

Confirm restart: When chord recognition is "full keyboard" or "guitar" then a problem may occur when you keep playing melody after the ending. If a chord is recognized then the accompaniment will restart unwantedly. To prevent this check this option and the accompaniment will not restart after the ending until you have deblocked it with the confirm restart function (one of the functions assignable to keys or MIDI messages).

Touch sensitive variations: At each chord played a variation will be chosen depending on the velocity of the chordkeys. So play the chord very softy to switch to Main A and hit the chord hard to switch to Main D.

Slider actions: When you have sliders on your MIDI keyboard controller that send MIDI messages to the MIDI out port, then you can use these to control things like tempo and loudness. For each of the options on the left you can specify by which type of MIDI messages this will be regulated and on which channel this message should be.

Functions and multivoices triggered by keys, controllers and patches: For each of the functions and multivoices listed on the left you can specify which MIDI message coming from your MIDI keyboard controller will trigger this function. Any key or any button, wheel or slider that sends MIDI messages can be used. To define, click on a function or multivoice on the list on the left and then select the MIDI message that must trigger this on the right. You can also select a combination of three adjacent notes to trigger the action, then you can use the chord area both for chordplaying and triggering actions.

Sound control

Controller defaults: If a style does not contain specific settings for a channel regarding volume, pan, reverb etc. then the values listed here will be used. These initial controllers will be send when a style is switched instead of a GM Reset which would cause a glitch when switching styles non-stop.

Style loudness correction: When collecting all kinds of styles from the internet you will notice that the loudness of each style may vary a lot. This is a problem when you are playing live and don't want to adjust volume each time you switch styles. Therefor this can be automated by selecting "Avarage" as correction method. If you play styles where there is also too much difference in loudness between the instruments in one style then you can choose "Fixed".

Harmony velocity: Specify how loud the added harmonies in the multivoices should be as percentage of the note-on velocity of the original melody notes that you played with your right hand.

Karaoke

On top is the selection for the lyrics font and size.
Unicode is checked by default, it allows you to enter lyrics in languages with very much different characters like Chinese, Japanese and Korean. However if you want to play karaoke files with lyrics that contain language specific characters that are not in Unicode but need to be played with a language specific font file (e.g. Russian font) then unicode must be switched off.
Editor font and size should be a fixed width font, otherwise you will be able to work in Chords&Lyrics mode. If it is anything else then "Courier New" then it will also be used for the lyrics displayed in the eventlist and staff window, because it might be a language specific font and characters will not be displayed correctly without it.
Outline thickness makes the lyrics better visible on backgounds with various colours (pictures).
Click on the colour of lyrics, chords to change them.
Load or remove a background picture that is shown when no other picture is specified in playlist or karaoke file.
Check the right to left option if you have lyrics in Arabic language.
Check the play drums while paused to prevent complete silence when you interrupt the song for some comment during a performance before public.
By default the inserted lyrics will be MIDI lyrics events but you can also choose MIDI text events. Some karaoke players will only show text events.
The default to specify a linefeed in the MIDI file is a slash (/) at the beginning of the line but there are other options. The slash is automatically added when you insert lyrics. Already existing linefeeds in the MIDI file are not changed by this option.
The default code for new verse is a backslash (\) you can also choose a slash or have no verses displayed. You need to to place a slash at the start of each first line of a verse in the Editor window before you insert the lyrics . When the song is played only one verse will be displayed at a time.

Apart from the preferences you can also change fontname, fontsize, picture, subtitles, unicode and right to left settings for a specific MIDI/karaoke file. Add a marker event in the eventlist with the value:
fontname:specifyname
fontsize:specifysize
picture:specifyname
subtitles:on
subtitles:off
unicode:on
unicode:off
righttoleft:on
righttoleft:off

These changed values will be valid for the currently loaded MIDI file only and will be in effect for the entire MIDI file regadless at which timing they are placed. An exception is the specified picture, you can insert multiple pictures at different timings in the midifile, thus creating a slideshow.

Remote

Enable the remote control.

MIDI files

MIDI file types: There are two types of MIDI files, type 0 and type 1. In type 0 the events for all channels are in one track. In type 1 each channel is in a separate track. Although type 1 is most common, some sequencers are not able to load type 1.

Save chords in marker or XF events: Things like stylevariations, multivoices and chords are saved in a MIDI file in marker events. This will ensure that if you load and save the file in another sequencer these events will survive. If you want to play the MIDI file in a Yamaha keyboard you may choose to save the chords in Yamaha's XF format so that they will be visible on the keyboard display.

Voice list

One Man Band organizes the list of voices for each bank of your synthesizer in the same format as Cakewalk/Sonar. So if you have an .ins file with the names of all instruments in the different banks of your synthesizer dan you can load it here. If you don't have such a file and your synth does have more instrument banks than just GM that you want to use in OMB, then you can specify the names for them here. These instrument names wil be listed when you select an instrument patch/bank in the multivoice editor and the sequencer eventlist. To add an entry type a number that doesn't yet exist and press update, to modify type an existing one with a modified name and press update, to delete click on an existing one and press delete.

Keyboard

In some countries the lay out of the computer keyboard is a little different from the US layout, e.g. AZERTY instead of QWERTY. That can be a problem when using the keyboard in the Live window and the Sequencer main window. You can switch a few keys in the lay out here, so they will be displayed in the correct layout in the Live and Sequencer window.

Backup and restore the configuration.

All the settings that you change are saved in the file settings.cfg. This happens when the program is exited and they are restored when the program starts. The settings include all the menus and presets that you defined in the live window. You can save (store) and load (restore) a backup of the presets with the buttons at the lower right of the window.