Amiga Modules to Midi Question

[Dumpster]

Hi!  I used to be fairly active on the Amiga demoscene, and I have a number of Amiga mod files that I created back in the day as well as a large collection of my favourites.  I have a Yamaha Tyros 5 arranger workstation and I've used OpenMPT as my starting point to recreate my old music. OpenMPT is the only program I have found that does the job properly, allowing me to load in an Amiga module, choose 'Export to Midi' and then use a separate midi channel for each Amiga instrument. This is perfect , because it leaves me with all the piano notes on channel 1, the strings on channel 2, and so on.  I can then revoice channel 1 in the Tyros to a nice sounding piano.

All the other programs I tried converted the module note data into 4 midi channels, and this prevented me re-voicing the channels, so OpenMPT is fantastic for me.

So the process is:
Load Amiga mod into OpenMPT. 
Select Export as Midi.
Manually assign each Amiga sample to its own midi channel.
Load the midi file into the arranger.
Choose an instrument from the arranger and revoice each channel to something that sounds good.
Transpose each channel if necessary, depending on whether the Amiga sample was in the same key as all the others.
Once it sounds correct, save the new midi file.

From there, I can mess around further, add new layers and so on.  The problem I have is that when I come back to reload the midi into the arranger, all the instruments are back to what they were.  All my other changes save correctly (transposing etc), but the revoicing doesn't save so it's all piano sounds again.  I don't understand why. 

If I make my own new midi file on the keyboard, I can revoice it and save and everything is fine, so I'm confident that I am doing the Arranger side of things correctly.  But if I take a midi that I created through OpenMPT everything saves APART from the revoicing. 

I'm still learning, and don't know a lot about how midi files work, but I only get this issue with Midi's I have made through OpenMPT so wondered if anyone has come across this before and if there is anything I can do to fix it?  Thanks for any help!

[Saga Musix]

OpenMPT exports a program change command at the start of every instrument track, and if you don't actively choose any instruments in OpenMPT, it will just choose the first instrument (grand piano). Maybe this explains what you're seeing. Note that if you are fine with using an intermediate file, you could first convert your MOD files to IT or MPTM in OpenMPT, convert samples to instruments (by creating a new instrument in the instrument tab), and then manually assigning the corresponding MIDI program numbers to each instrument. Then, OpenMPT will remember these program numbers on each export so you don't have to fill them in manually.

I'll see if I can add an option not to export program change events, maybe that would help in your case.

[Dumpster]

Brilliant answer, thank you very much.

Spot on - the channel has a program event at the start and I can change this to whatever I need.  Thanks again!

[Dumpster]

I'll see if I can add an option not to export program change events, maybe that would help in your case.

Just noticed that you have made that change, which is really great of you - thank you.  I will donate.