program change for selected notes

While it is possible to insert program changes within a track, this is still not easy to do since you have to move around the progam change event on another lane. If you work with many articulations - e.g. with orchestra samples - this is not very intuitive. I would suggest the following improvement: Select the notes that should have a certain sound/articulation. Open bank/program change window over a right click context menue. Select bank and program and click okay. Then Reaper does automatically insert the program change right before the first selected note. You don't have to care about moving it to the right place. Just select your notes, choose bank/program for these notes -> finished.

Orchestra samples don't really use program changes, they use modwheel and keyswitches, you don't need bank/program change. Also your idea is not very good because samples take time to load. Bank/program change should be placed several bars BEFORE any note to ensure that everything was loaded up.

The number of keyswitches is limited therefore the number of articulations per sound/program. The VSL libraries do use bank program changes. Even the old ones. The old Giga-files are basically a sound bank including several instruments that can be accessed via program changes. The whole bank file is preloaded so loading times are not an issue. With linuxsample you could even switch/stream sample programs in real time. Keyswitches are only used in "layout" programs that are useful for quick mockups. After that you'll always finetune with much more articulations. A think this could be also useful with synth sounds. Mostly it would help with tracks with tons of program changes.

I still fail to see the improvement. I can manually decide exactly where I want my program change to be, even if it's on the same track. No confusion whatsoever. Could you please try to make some image mockups to help me see the point? :)