Imported Midi Question

[neomass1]

First off, Hello! Should have joined this forum sooner but I've been working as a sound designer and Music composer in Portland Oregon a lot this year it just keeps slipped my mind. Hope you guys can help me out. I use logic pro 9. I don't know as much as I would like about Midi and how logic interacts with with, so any education you can give would be great!

 

A friend gave me a large bundle of full midi songs (something like over 50,000) and I've been blasting through them day in and day out. I been setting aside some songs I've wanted to mess with for the last week, and I finally got the time to mix them. I import a few of them into logic pro and things seem fine, beside a few things:

 

1. More instruments then midi tracks. At first I wasn't sure if they were being used at all but they do become active later in the song. I took a look at the Event List to see if maybe these empty tracks are used by other midi tracks. I guess there is a channel switch the lets the midi notes of one track be used an another. I think I'm right?

 

2. The sound of the original midi sound one way, and when I import it into logic it sounds different. Its not that big a deal to me that this happens, I really am just interested in why this is. From what I can remember midi is built into the computers software with preset sounds, so when Import into logic the software has to create a new environment? Maybe you guys can explain this to me. Also is there a way to import it with out messing up the instruments that the Midi file originally worked with? I do a lot of video games and I want to get into Midi to get into the Old School process.

 

If its not to much to ask for it would be great to site your sources. I can post pics of what I see or have in my Logic file if you need it.

Thanks guys!