Danny and all,

Some of the less seasoned MIDI musicians may have left out the sysex header dump that defines instrument settings of the MIDI files. If you are curious, play some Tune 1000 MIDI files on a PC MIDI sequencer like Calkwalk and the program usually recognizes such sysex message(s) and asks you if you want to download it to the sound card or MIDI interface. That sets up all the instruments correctly according to the musician's definition of instrument per track. Your keyboards automatically download such sysex messages without asking you when they detect the presence of such message(s). That explains why the commercial MIDI files always play right. Try playing the MIDI files that you have problems also on the PC and see if they come with the sysex dumps. I guess they do not. Even if the MIDI file creators specified patches for GM specs, but without the correct sysex dumps your instrument will just play back the MIDI files according to the last MIDI track setup of last song you play on that instrument. Although I also own a Solton X1, I seldom play MIDI files with it. Maybe Solton has a smart program of picking up the patch number specified in each MIDI track to play the GM sound right whereas GEM WK8's designers did not go extra mileage to handle those MIDI files without sysex dump messages.

Paul Ip