Hi Wendy,

You bring up some very important points. BiaB has opened the door of confusion to many people when it comes to MIDI. Many are used to using BiaB with the GM synth that comes with BiaB and GM softsynths are the only so-called plug and play synths that come with automatic presets. That is channel 1 is always piano, channel 17 is a drawbar organ, etc. BiaB does all of the background work for you. Your Forte is GM so it should work after you tell BiaB that it is the GM softsynth you want to use it should work.

But sForzando and Hi Q sounds are not GM compatible. That is you the user must set up tracks and channels. For example you must tell BiaB that you want the bass to play on track 1 channel 3 and the piano on track 7 channel 1, then set the synth up so the bass is on channel 3 and piano is on channel 1. All tracks and 16 MIDI channels are waiting for you to assign them. Note that you must do the above with all DAWs: the process maybe slightly different but the end result is the same-you must set everything up.

Thus I think PGMusic should take the Dummies book strategy and have step by step tutorial/videos for those whom never used MIDI before. This would also include how to replace a GM synth in BiaB. They may already have these tutorials, don't know.

Most all of my music is strictly MIDI, but I only use BiaB as a scratch pad to get the chord progression I want. I move all tracks to my DAW, Sonar, for all of my MIDI work. I rarely use GM as I have sounds that are far better. When you get into MIDI you have to learn a few MIDI commands called CCs and invest some money to get great sounding tracks. BUT I started out like you and everyone else. Go steady and keep learning.

I hope this helped and didn't confuse you too much.

Whenever I get something stuck in the back of my throat, I dislodge it by drinking a beer.
It's called the Heineken Maneuver.

64 bit Win 10 Pro, the latest BiaB/RB, Roland Octa-Capture audio interface, a ton of software/hardware