I'm not a doctor, but I play one on TV...
Just as a TV "doctor" has no clue as to your medical problem, the owner of a midi page has no clue as to your midi setup. What I can do is give you a detailed description of my midi system and how it's configured. Hopefully, you have better equipment than I do.
My studio has two PC's, one an Intel Pentium 200 based machine, and the other with an AMD K6 200 (both have ASUS motherboards and 80 meg of RAM). If you ask me which I prefer, I'd have to say the AMD K6. I use Creative Labs SB-32's as my sound cards, each with 8 meg of RAM. My biggest complaint about the SB-32 has been the poor quality of the Trumpet and Trombone patches. But hey, what do you want from a very inexpensive sound card. If you have an SB-32 or an AWE-32, you know what I'm talkin' about! I searched high and low for REALLY good brass patches to no avail. To solve my problem, I bought a Roland M-OC1 Orchestra module. One word... "WOW!". Finally, brass that sounds like brass! I have tested each of these arrangements using Trumpet and Trombone patches from the Roland. Needless to say, I'll never go back to my SB-32's brass instruments again! Too bad my Roland module doesn't have sax's! I only wish that Roland (or anybody for that matter) would make a module with Big Band instrumentation in mind. Wouldn't it be all too cool to have a "Coleman Hawkins" patch or a "Tommy Dorsey" patch! Oh well, I can dream, can't I ?
I recently added an Ensoniq Audio PCI card to my AMD K6 machine. The wavetables that come with the card are pretty lame, but I needed another external midi port and the price was right. The audio specs for the card seem to be much better than the SB-32 (they claim a >90db S/N ratio) so the card does have some redeeming social value after all! I'm not too sure if I'm going to get one for my Intel machine just yet.
As far as the AWE-64... I looked at them and decided that because they need a "special" memory module for memory expansion, Creative Labs can keep them. Someday, hopefully soon, someone will make a sound / midi card that I REALLY like...
In the keyboard rack is a Yamaha DX-7 and a Casio CZ-1000. Please, don't ask why I still have the Casio! To be very honest, I don't think that I've turned it on in about 4 months. Rounding out the system, an Alesis SR-16 Drum Machine/Module, the aforementioned Roland M-OC1 Orchestra module, a Roland MT-32, a DigiTech Vocalist II, and a Digital Music Corp MX-8 Midi Patchbay/Processor. I use Cakewalk Pro Audio (ver 6.01) as my sequencer software. I've tried Cubase and others, but keep coming back to Cakewalk.
As far as the midi files go, I have not assigned Banks (with the exception of the drum parts on midi channel 10) to these files as your system is most likely very different from mine. I had considered putting up a page on the SB-32 outlining my Banks and such, but that changes all too frequently. I suggest that you get the Vienna Sound Font Editor, download some Sound Fonts from the multitude of Web sites dedicated to the SB-32, and have some fun playing with the sounds. If you use a program such as Cakewalk, you can set the bank assignments for each instrument based on YOUR system. This is one of the reasons I highly suggest that you go to the Cakewalk Home Page and at least grab the demo version of their program.
My mixer is a DOD 1222RM, it's no Mackie, but it will do until something better comes my way. In the signal processing arena, in the rack are a DOD 512 Stereo reverb/effects processor and a DOD Series II 866 Gated Compressor/Limiter. If it sounds like I am a big fan of DOD products, well your right, I am. They are well made, reliable, not to mention affordable, solutions. I'm now to the point of needing another patch bay for all of the goodies I've been collecting. Thankfully, Hudson Audio Visual has good prices on patch bays and connectors.
In the recording end, I've been playing with a Sony MZ-R30 Mini-Disc recorder. This thing is pretty cool, optical and analog inputs, headphones with a remote control, 44.1Khz sampling rate and it's only 7.1 ounces! It even comes with it's own wall-wart to charge the lithium ion battery. At 1/3rd the price of a DAT, it's not too bad. I know that the purists will say that it uses compression, yadda, yadda yadda.... Regardless, it's still pretty cool. I haven't had the need, nor the money, for a DAT machine as yet, but at least I can make much better recordings now than I could with some beat-up "stereo system refugee" cassette deck. If I get truly inspired, (read that as winning the New Jersey Lotto), I'll buy myself a nice digital multi-track. Until then, it's Cakewalk for midi and digital audio recording with mix-down to Mini-Disc. If you have any experience with Mini-Disc, I'd love to hear your comments, pro and con. My Intel Pentium 200 machine has a Sony CDU926S CD-R for burning data and audio CD's.