GS in MIDI consists of all the General MIDI patches (sounds such as flute or trombone.) plus others accessed by extra banks. I've used these extra banks in my files mainly to avoid "flanging" which occurs when the same note in the same patch is used in different channels at the same time. This is especially useful in the music of Elgar where the composer uses many doublings and where reducing these doesn't give the desired effect. When played on a GM sound source. the flanging will occur but the sounds will default to a single bank and will usually give a not-too-bad reproduction of the file.
32 channels (erroneously called "tracks") again are useful in Elgar and other late romantics who use really large orchestras, but these can be reduced to 16 channels in most cases. I haven't done this in the Elgar 2nd Symphony but the others are available in 16 channel versions in Classical Archives and this and other sites. (see links.)
The last Elgar work that I sequenced was the Violin Concerto. This was more lightly scored so as to not drown out the solo violin and I was able to do it in 16 channels from the outset.
Edward Gold
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