I think I have it figured out - at last(!) Duhhh!

In order to have the Forte working for all the instruments on a built in track, then to ADD a VST instrument of your choice the "re-route the MIDI playback to a default synth" box needs unchecking. At this stage your tracks will either be silent or will play the Microsoft wavetable synth sounds.

Then you MANUALLY go through and set them all to Forte Individually AND then set up a track for your custom VSTI.

It almost seems like a workaround to me, I was expecting everything to play back through Forte (or your default GM synth) EXCEPT tracks set to a custom VST. NOT so!


I think toooooo much like Cubase!


Suggestion:
IMO there needs to be a way to overide sending MIDI to the default DXI (forte in my case) when a different VST is loaded into a track AND "re-route the MIDI playback to a default synth" is ticked. I.E. for all tracks send MIDI to default synth UNLESS (and this is the key point) a custom VST is loaded into a track.

Still... got there in the end, thanks for the input guys!


Zero

Win 11 64, Asus Rog Strix z390 mobo, 64 gig RAM, 8700k