While developing OMB, in the last 2 years, I have been in close contact with live performers. I noticed that what they were interested in for arranger functions was very different.

Some were mainly interested in being able to add superior (softsynth) sounds.

Others wanted to add all kind of gadgets that they needed to help them play and entertain the audience.

For adding softsynths and soundfonts you need a soft arranger, like it or not. And with all the added gadgets you may even like it.

I don't agree that it's difficult to navigate in OMB8. You can get all the presets for a particular song in only 3 key strokes (presets-key, submenu-key, choice-key).

And beside style and multivoice the presets may include much more:

- a text-note with chords and lyrics
- the complete scanned score for the song that will scroll
- a wave with sound effects for the intro
- a midi or mp3 file for accomp instead of a style
- a karaoke file that will scroll in big font

Navigating to the style variations doesn't need to be a problem either with all the options for that. How about using a wireless numeric pad for that?

I didn't have live performance in mind when I started developing OMB, but in the last two years live performers came with requests and they got what they wanted.

Jos