Some Midi Output Problems

[grick]

Hi people,

first of all, I would like to thank lilypond developers for putting in 
so much time and effort into this beautiful software. All your hard work 
is greatly appreciated.

And now, i explain my problems. I'm using lilypond-2.10.33 on a Ubuntu 
8.04 (with no GUI interface but gvim, xpdf, timidity, some makefiles and 
scripts ) to create the sheets for the brass section of my band 
(trumpet, alto, tenor and baritone sax plus chords).

Midi Trumpet Volume
-------------------
The trumpet sound included with timidity is too soft. It's nearly 
inaudible between the saxophones sound (ironically, the real trumpet 
sound cover all the sax :) ).

Luckily i recently read in the docs the lilypond instructions to control 
the midi volume range of an instrument.

So i include in all sax sheet these lines, to half the volume of the 
saxophones and mantain some range for dynamics:

\set Staff.midiMinimumVolume = #0.2
\set Staff.midiMaximumVolume = #0.5

In this way the trumpet sound is audible. But it's not enough. Now the 
chords played by the acoustic piano(default) in the background is too 
loud and cover the instrument armony in most passages.

The question is: how i can decrease the chords volume? (or the opposite, 
how can i increase the trumpet volume instead of lower all the others 
instrument?)
--

Staccato
--------
I want to create midi files that sound exactly how the performers have 
to play the sheet.

To do this i use often "staccato" notes (a4-. a4-. a4-. a4-.).

I expect my midi output sound like (a8 r8 a8 r8 a8 r8 a8 r8) but sadly 
it does not interpret them at all and sound like a simple (a4 a4 a4 a4).

I can simple write (a8 r8) version everywhere but the sheet become 
really difficult to read for the performers.

Is there a way to avoid to mantain a double version of the sheets? (one 
for the performers with a4-. version and one for the midi output with a8 
r8 one?)
--

Thank you in advance for the answers!