Cycle through vst sounds using virtual midi keyboard

I like to use Virtual midi keyboard inside reaper to audition sounds from vst instruments. I'm playing the keys on my laptop. I would like to be able to cycle through the sounds with two keys on my laptop (up and down) but without leaving the Virtual midi keyboard (meaning I don't want to click the vst instrument and chose a new sound then go back to VMK). How can I do that?

Really? No way to do this?

This is really iritating. I have tried a lot or things and nothing seems to work. All I end up doing is having a short bit of midi ready for this, and just loop it, and try the presets. Bit lame.....but?

Can't think of a solution I'm afraid. :( You should make a FR for an action to go to next/previous preset for currently focussed VSTi. You could then assign these to buttons on your controller. It would be a pretty useful function.

If your VSTi responds to Program Changes, try the attached. -- unZip it, and put the JS FX in your C:\Program Files\REAPER\Effects folder (it's in C:\Program Files\REAPER\Effects\DarkStar here :)) -- inseret it in the track's FX chain. before the VSTi, -- select two trigger keys from your virtual keyboard on the first two sliders -- when received, a Program Change will be sent to the VSTi.

You can also right click on the Virtual midi keyboard (the empty space at the bottom) and select "send all keyboard input..... This will send all keyboard input to the Virtual midi keyboard as long as the window is open (but it does not need to be in front). You can them use the mouse to control your vst.

.. and there is the v3 option to map PC messages to your VSTi presets: -- click the [+] button

It doesn't send PC messages, so you'll need to use something like my post #5.

No problem: -- add JS: schwa/midi_examine to your FX chain, move it to the start - by default my JS FX uses MIDI notes 41 and 43 (F1 and G1 here) to move the Program down or up by 1. -- pick a couple of keys on the VMK that you will not use for playing notes, -- click them and watch the "data byte 1" value in MIDI_examine, -- in my JS FX, select those numbers in the top 2 drop-down lists. (If you want you can then save this as a Reaper preset, click [...], select Save preset .., enter a name and click [Ok} it will then appear in the Preset: drop-down list whenever you load the plugin) Now, click those two keys on the VMK, you should see the "Program # sent" value go up or down each time. Remember to link your VSTi to MIDI Program Change as shown above. HTH

Thanks DS, it works now. This would be a nice feature to have built into VMK.