Instrument definition in the omb.ins file.

If you just use the 128 GM instruments in your synth then this chapter is of no interest to you. But if you want to use many different instrument banks then this is a method to be able to address this instruments by name rather then by (controller) numbers.

Midi instruments in a synthesizer are organised in banks. Each bank can contain a maximum of 128 instruments. To select an instrument on a specific channel you must send a controller 0 containing the msb (most significant byte of the bank number) and a controller 32 with the lsb (least significant byte) followed by the patch. There are several places in One Man Band where you can specify an instrument with ctrl-0, ctrl-32, patchnumber. But in all those places you also have the opportunity to press an "ins" button and select the instruments from the window below.

 

 

One Man Band uses the same instrument definition file format as Cakewalk. The standard omb.ins file lists the instruments in an XG synthesizer. If you have an ins file for your synthesizer in Cakewalk then you can rename it to omb.ins and replace the omb.ins file in the One Man Band folder. There are .ins files for a lot of instruments available at Jörgen Sörensons Unofficial YAMAHA Keyboard Resource Site.

If you can't find an ins file on the internet or you need to make some modifications to the one you have, then here is a specification of what OMB needs to find in it. You can edit the file in MS-Windows Note Pad.

First there must be a line with the text:

.Patch Names

Don't forget the dot on the first position. After that come the patch definitions in the banks. Each bank starts with:

[Bankname]

The Bankname can be any text. It will be visible in the bank list in OMB. After the bankname comes a list of the patches in the bank, each on a separate line.

0=GrandPno
1=BritePno
2=E.Grand
3=HnkyTonk
4=E.Piano1
5=E.Piano2
6=Harpsi.
7=Clavi.
8=Celesta

 

The number before the = sign is the patchnumber and is always numbered from 0 to 127. Omissions of numbers are of course possible if your synth does not have all the patches filled in this bank. The text after the description is the name of the patch that will be visible in the patch list in OMB. If the patches in your synth are numbered 1 to 128 then you could define them as follows:

0=1 GrandPno
1=2 BritePno
2=3 E.Grand
3=4 HnkyTonk
4=5 E.Piano1
5=6 E.Piano2
6=7 Harpsi.
7=8 Clavi.
8=9 Celesta

Now the text "1 GrandPno" etc. will be shown in OMB.

Repeat the bank line and patch lines for all banks. After that there should appear a line that indicates the start of the instrument definitions where the banknumber of each bank is defined:

.INSTRUMENT DEFINITIONS

After that follows a list with banknumbers and names:

Patch[Banknr]=Bankname

Banknr is the value of the banknumber (0 - 16383) and Bankname is the same (exact same spelling) as the Bankname in the ".Patch Names" section.

You can add comment lines starting with a semicolon:

;Instrument definition of my synth.

Note names and controller names are not used by OMB.

 

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