Ok, I tried to do step 1 but I don't see Clock as a Project preference. I wonder if the free version of Cakewalk has this? I didn't pay for my Cakewalk, just downloaded the free version and registered. For step 2 I might have known that the duration on a percussion track doesn't affect anything but it's long since vanished from my memory. Eyeballing the event list with a reminder of what to look for, I manually edited the few dozens events with really screwy durations.
I've so far been doing minimal tinkering with these General MIDI files I've downloaded but I'm actually targeting either the TT1 that I found and configured for Cakewalk or my Roland SC-88VL that I recently got, or the Roland SC-55 that I bought many years ago. I understand that the TT1 is a superset of both my Roland hardware synths but there's a certain nostalgia playing with the boxes and getting them to work. I've got maybe a thousand MIDI files to sift through and spend time working on the ones where a) I can mute the lead track where I can play it using one of my wind controllers and my WX5/VL70-m combination, or b) play with it a lot to create something more like James Last/Dick Bakker sound. I want to add a MOTU Symphonic Instrument to my instruments to do b. Call me a modern day lounge lizard 8-). I think this MIDI file of Toto's "Africa" is something I can try a.
Herb...