A few questions

To your first question--right click on fx and you'll get some choices for midi effects. That's in MC3 anyway, so it may not work for you. And half the time I don't know what I'm talking about.

Ha ha. Surprised ya, didn't I, Reece?

I don't think you quite understand MIDI, Urdypooh. in order to "engage LFOs" you need a softsynth. the MIDI plugins are for manipulating the MIDI data, in order to manipulate the sound, you have to deal with the synths which are triggered by the MIDI data - that's a different thing. Look at some of these:
http://www.kvraudio.com/get.php?mode=results&st=adv&soft=i&type%5B%5D=5&type%5B%5D=34&type%5B%5D=42&type%5B%5D=57&type%5B%5D=24&type%5B%5D=47&type%5B%5D=35&type%5B%5D=48&type%5B%5D=30&type%5B%5D=2&f=0&fe=0&win=1&free=1&sf=0&receptor=&de=0&sort=1&rpp=15

you'll have to investigate them to find out if they allow you to manipulate the LFO, filters, etc. but these are softsynths that you insert AS a softsynth, not as a MIDI plugin.

for the SPDIF, "suppression" I don't think is the correct word, but I'm not sure exactly what you mean. do your meters on the soundcard's mixer move when you play something on the keyboard? If not, then the sound is not coming into the computer, but probably not even coming into the soundcard. your setup is relatively simple. it would have to be that either the keyboard manual is incorrect or you misunderstood it and you do have to set up something to make it output, or you have a cable problem, or you are not selecting the SPDIF as an input on your soundcard in your soundcard's mixer/app.

right - TTS-1 is a GM softsynth and will not allow you to change the synth parameters because then it wouldn't match the GM spec. that's why I gave you the link above to look at some of the free softsynths and probably several of those will allow you to change paramters and make your own sounds.

Frank,
If you feel like buzzing up to Brighton, we could demo a bunch of synths I have installed.
It might help to hear a few.

Bob,

for your PM box is full: Sure. I cannot manage today or tomorrow though. Do you have another day available?
I am still hanging in a conf call right now for work and have a meeting scheduled for a little later tonight.

Reece,

fortunately I like to learn....especially from smart people. My motto: Scio nescio (I know that I don't know - Sokrates)

AHA! well, that would be something that I wouldn't have known since I never use it.

Bob,

have a look at your AOL account. :-)

BTW the info that Frank gave in the "Gear" forum got me to change that setting. So thanks to him (as I had stated there) I got it going. :-)

Greg,

it transmits the audio. The MIDI part just comes through the MIDI port from my keyboard.

I know what you mean. Unfortunately MIDI is not descriptive enough to tell other devices how a patch sounds (outside of GM). And I prefer MIDI because I can manipulate single notes in it. (I am sure it is possible on an audio track but quite a bit more cumbersome.)

I am not sure, Bob.
You are right. S/PDIF is digital like MIDI. All the same it already has all the information to re-create the sound if the original device from which the sound was created is no longer available.
(A fun thing to test would be to record the MIDI part and the S/PDIF part at the same time. :-) )