My midi was set correctly (I tried everything except the Bank63 thing, but I can't see how that would have helped my Percussion track, or the accompaniment voices in the style (since they also merged). I think we're talking about apples and oranges here (I'm running Win2k and SONAR on a PC).

In anycase, VSampler 3 solves the problem (which is where I started out), so the question will be moot shortly - and version 3 is definitely a no-brainer upgrade from Version 2+

You can't (at present) get a 7200 rpm drive for a laptop unless you connect an external drive with Firewire or USB 2.0. 5400 is as good as you get, and it is not sufficient (IMO) ...