Two OMS setups on same Mac?

[Oliroby]

Is it possible to have two OMS studio setups on the same Mac, and to be able to to chose which setup an application will call on when it's opened?

So for example one OMS setup that uses the Mac USB connection to a USB interface, and another OMS setup using the Mac serial connection to a serial MIDI interface?

On a Wallstreet G3 Powerbook, I'd like to have Recycle use the USB connection (via USB PCMCIA card)  for connecting to Roland S760, Akai S3000.

And the serial connection for using Alchemy 3 to connect to an Akai S950.

[GaryN]

As they say on Star Trek: "…where no man has gone before"

This is one of those ideas that looks like it should work on paper but…

* It's possible to have any number of OMS setups stored on disk and select one when you start before launching the application
* The serial connection can and should work without any problems
* The Cardbus……… ehhh………… maybe, maybe not. What you're calling "the USB connection" is NOT USB. It's closer to PCI and the PCMCIA card may or may not be compliant enough for OMS to "see" a MIDI interface connected to its USB port.
* Hell, just getting OMS's USB driver to see the PCMCIA card as a USB port may be a galaxy too far.
* To use both simultaneously would require a third OMS setup addressing all at once and that's really in Star Trek territory.

At the end of the day, you'll likely end up using only the serial port for all and like everyone else, marvel at how utterly useless the entire PCMCIA concept turned out to be. Just remember, you're trying to push a lot of very early or pre-MIDI notoriously buggy samplers together with an equally early laptop onto the same playground together and hoping they all get along somehow.

Be prepared for a long, lonely process. I suspect the odds of success are 50/50 at best.

[Oliroby]

* It's possible to have any number of OMS setups stored on disk and select one when you start before launching the application

How exactly is this done? I always thought that an OMS setup was saved in the OMS application folder, the OMS app is then quit. When a music application is opened that needs OMS, in my case Recycle, that saved OMS setup is then called upon.

I don't have my G3 Wallstreet setup at the moment, but I'm guessing I'd select the OMS setup I want to use by double clicking it, that opens OMS, leaving OMS open, and then opening Recycle etc?

[IIO]

the main issue which i think you are overlooking is that an OMS setup is in many cases - namely in DAW type of apps - not bound to the app at all, but to a project file.

the protools session or cubase song is what is asking for a specific "oms setup" when you open it (and complains when it cant be found.)

the other thing is that the selection of the OMS setup is of course stored in a preferences file.

to sum it up, i see no way to avoid using the OMS Setup app to do this.

How exactly is this done?

open OMS setup program, select "open" from its file menu. not sure if it also would work to just doubleclick the setup file in question. then you could make aliases to different setup in your applemenu and change it with one click.

[GaryN]

The OMS setup follows the studio - NOT the app (that's why it's called "Studio Setup" - duh)
It describes ALL of your MIDI devices, interfaces and interconnections.
You're supposed to be able to make ONE setup that works with everything - regardless of which app, interface or modules are actually in use.
OMS's job is mainly to sort out and remember MIDI details like channel assignments, routing between MIDI interface and however many keyboards / modules etc.
The main reason for having the ability to select from multiple setups is portability. If you say, have a multitracked sequence recorded and you move the computer to another location/studio, OMS will recognize that stuff doesn't match what was used to record and play that sequence so it will list all required channels and modules and offer to help you remap the tracks to substitute destinations in the "foreign" studio.
It also comes into play if you say, update some equipment and/or change channel assigns on the new stuff. When you launch a previous sequence, OMS setup will pop up so you can reroute/reassign the tracks to the new stuff.

* Point is, you don't need more than one setup at a time in one location unless you say, have too much money, you own a Peter Gabriel - sized pile of MIDI synths and samplers and you use multiple setups to address different roomfuls of stuff.

* Personally, in the century or two I've been using MIDI, I've never needed more than one setup at a time.

* All that said, adding Recycle and Alchemy (!) combined with mule-headed old Akai and Roland samplers MAY require you to get creative in unpredictable ways to keep everything orderly. You're not contemplating an everyday configuration but a rather unusual one (with ancient Powerbooks, no less). Sending MIDI data to play samples is one thing, getting and sending sample dumps over MIDI is another. Doing that over all of that early-MIDI hardware and software AND synchronizing with audio (on a Wallstreet?) will surely require time, experimentation, hair-pulling and……? The only way you could make this more complicated would be to try to also hang a SCSI sampler on the weird Mac HDI-30 port.

[IIO]

The main reason for having the ability to select from multiple setups is portability

it is also quite useful for having different configurations using IAC buses - because of the low limit of buses you can have.

[IIO]

wow, i had to read the question three times to figure that means at the same time.

then the answer is no.

[Oliroby]

No, not exactly two MIDI setups at the same time, but two setups which can be called upon at different times. USB Edirol for Roland and S3000, OMS Serial setup for Akai S950.

You're supposed to be able to make ONE setup that works with everything - regardless of which app, interface or modules are actually in use.

I'm leaning towards using my PowerBook G4 Ti for this over the Wallstreet. Mainly as its been discussed that MIDI via USB PCMCIA could be pretty flaky, where as adding serial ports via the Keyspan to the G4 Ti would be a more likely to work option.

But can OMS have one studio setup to include both serial and USB MIDI? Until I can get a Keyspan and Macman powered interface I'm not able to try.

(why the S950 needs serial MIDI is discussed here: http://macos9lives.com/smforum/index.php/topic,6151.0.html

Basically its the S950 giving me the grief, but it does sound great on breaks and time stretch 

[GaryN]

I'm just going to leave this here again…

* All that said, adding Recycle and Alchemy (!) combined with mule-headed old Akai and Roland samplers MAY require you to get creative in unpredictable ways to keep everything orderly. You're not contemplating an everyday configuration but a rather unusual one (with ancient Powerbooks, no less). Sending MIDI data to play samples is one thing, getting and sending sample dumps over MIDI is another. Doing that over all of that early-MIDI hardware and software AND synchronizing with audio (on a Wallstreet?) will surely require time, experimentation, hair-pulling and……? The only way you could make this more complicated would be to try to also hang a SCSI sampler on the weird Mac HDI-30 port.

[IIO]

you can use anything together in a setup which has (OMS) drivers, no matter if inter application midi, usb, firewire, PCI-serial, modem-serial or virtual devices such as quicktime.

...it is 3 clicks to try, no?

[refinery]

you could create AppleScripts which load the specific OMS studio setup you want to load, pause 20 seconds or something, then load the DAW. Then just launch the applescripts instead of the DAW app directly.

[IIO]

yeah, "folder actions".. or "multialias"... that was my first association, too.