Mod wheel only works on MIDI ch. 2 Aria & Kontakt?

I am running Sonar X1d producer expanded on PC with Windows 7 64-bit OS, i5-2400s 2.50GHz, 6GB RAM  and when using the Aria or Kontakt VST engines I can only get the mod wheel to work on MIDI Channel 2. Even more odd is the multis with mod wheel control will work on channel 1 or omni in the kontakt libraries (ie sample logic morphestra, cinematic guitars, rumble, fanfare, etc.) but not individual instruments. I am using an Alesis QX49 MIDI controller. Any ideas on how or why this is happening?
 
Thanks in advance!