Digital BW, The Print

I finally have my initial digital darkroom set up at home after 
following this forum for several months, and started printing some 
images the last few days, I was actually up all last night going 
through the initial learning curve (or curves... new printer, new 
scanner, new image and scanner software etc...)  Glad I'm starting 
with the simple route, with the C84.

I have a few questions concerning printer settings with the C84.  I'm 
using Epson Matte papers to proof my prints.  I did some BO prints 
and some with the EZ Neutral inksets (MIS).  My initila BO prints 
looked pretty good, except for a slight, but very noticeable banding 
problem, even after doing a head alignment.  Then I did some prints 
using the EZ inks and the tones were much smoother with no noticable 
banding, but the prints were much too light as compared to the BO 
prints.  I'm pretty much using the same settings for both types of 
prints, I'm using the "Advanced" tab settings, which are "best 
photo", "Epson matte paper", gamma is set at 1.8 (verse's the 1.5 & 
2.2 setting) I uncheck the "fast printing" and "edge smoothing" 
settings.

I did notice that the BO prints print out much faster than with the 
EZ inks, which may be the cause of the banding when printing BO.

Any comments, suggestions or advice based on your experience with the 
C84 or simuliar printer that might help me in my quest for the 
ultimate print will be appreciated!

Thanks,
Randy Rancier