Writing Midi commands into a midi track

hey guys. we are practicing on our live playing and using Cubase to control an instrument that contains all our instruments in it (Akai VIP).
in order to navigate between the instruments, our keyboard player is pressing on a midi key on his midi keyboard, but since he has many parts to play he sometimes confuses. I was wondering if there might be a way to write midi commands on a midi track so the patches could switch automatically between one another?

You can use a program change in midi. The Program Change message is used to specify the type of instrument which should be used to play sounds on a given Channel. This message needs only one data byte which specifies the new program number. Basically on that midi channel you can change the program change (switch sounds or patch) 1-128. So you could choose any program that responds to 1 to 128 Program Change messages in Midi.

It might be possible that the Akai is sending the program change messages once you change sound on the akai for that midi channel. Record such a change in midi, and then use the midi or list editor to see how the program change looks like.

It could be also possible to change the Bank of Sounds on the Akai, by - Bank Select. Controller number zero (with 32 as the LSB) is defined as the bank select. The bank select function is used in some synthesizers in conjunction with the MIDI Program Change message to expand the number of different instrument sounds which may be specified (the Program Change message alone allows selection of one of 128 possible program numbers). The additional sounds are selected by preceding the Program Change message with a Control Change message which specifies a new value for Controller zero and Controller 32, allowing 16,384 banks of 128 sound each.

What VSTi does your keyboard player uses?

I think the better idea is to create many instances for every patch and make them all armed for record. So every instance accept MIDI signal and play simultaneously. But then you can automate MUTE parameter so only one instrument could sound at the same time.

I think allowing all of them to work would be a bit heavy on the CPU. Plus, there are some instruments played together on 2 different parts of the keyboard, which is something Akai VIP can do.