Starter MIDI questions

[Diki Ross]

Search isn't really helping me so far, so forgive me for asking some things that perhaps have been asked and answered differently.

A little about my workflow and needs...

I come from a Cubase VST Mac OS 9.2.2 background (I have used more modern OSX Cubase's very little) on the Mac. I am now using an iMac 27", currently on OSX 10.6.8

My primary needs (at the moment) are to be able to open .MID files, send them to my MIDI interface (a Steinberg Midex3) and off to a variety of MIDI outboard stuff, primarily a Roland BK-9, Kurzweil K2500 and a Korg Triton (though others get added from time to time).

Let's deal with my primary issue at the moment... If I import an SMF, how do I get the Mixer to pick up the initial MIDI volume and Pan commands from the tracks and reflect them in the Mixer's initial settings? How do I get the Mixer's meters to show MIDI output rather than audio? And is there a way on import to have the Track's input and output channels set automatically (to reflect the MIDI channel of the track), rather than having to go and do it manually for each channel..?

My next weird request is, how do you get the little piano keys on the left side of the MIDI Piano Roll editor to play the same MIDI channel as the track? I can have a drum track open, and if I click on the notes, the drums sound fine (so being sent on Ch.10), but clicking in the piano keyboard on the left seems to play some other MIDI channel. Is there a way to set it up so that whatever MIDI channel the track is set to is what the keyboard outputs?

Finally (for now!) is there any way to do 'positional' editing? One of my favorite tricks on drum tracks is to be able to say 'select all the snare backbeats (beats on 2&4, for instance in a 4/4 song) and raise their velocities 20' or things like that? When working on drum tracks, it's very handy to do stuff based on the position in the bar, and incredibly time consuming to have to go through an entire piece selecting only the backbeats by hand. Cubase's Logical Editor made stuff like this a snap!

No doubt I'll have more as time goes on, but those basic questions will get me up to speed to start with.

Much appreciation, in advance!