Cordial Welcome, Marty! Many others here best able to get you started and Kenny's tutorials are a great way to begin on sound (no pun) footing. Many prefer to place VST in folders of choice, then make sure Reaper Preferences, VST knows where they are. Default is often C:/Program Files/vstplugins. (yes; /) Then scan the locations and they should appear via Track FX or 'insert virtual instrument on new track', select VST, and all should appear in menu. Thom B

Nice intro - how polite! So welcome and.... didja download the free manual, the getting started bit covers VST and VSTi location very well. And of course since you found Kenny and all the other guys doing tutorials you'll be showing the rest of us stuff before you know it. Welcome! Oh, and if you tell us what interface, operating system etc you are using when asking for help it makes it easier. Re the MIDI device issue that too is covered in the getting started. Briefly, you plug in your interface, go to the options/preferences menu and you'll find a section for setting up all your MIDI devices. Options also include using connected devices for control as well as just entering MIDI notes and control codes. I currently run a couple of Korg Nanokontrols and a Nanopad in reaper

Thank you. 

Will get at it this week. I work Tues through Fri and that job drains my brain so it's as I said a slow learning curve. Thanks for the input. I will let you know how things turn out. Marty

Hi Martin and good luck in your Reaper venture. In order for Reaper to find your effects, you have to let it know where on your computer the plug-ins reside. Go to options -- preferences- select VST(it's under Plug-ins). Add the path(s)to your existing plug-ins and click rescan. It's a good idea to decide where you want any new plug-ins to reside early in the process - make a couple of folders e.g. C:\plugins(32) and C:\plugins(64), and download any new fxs to those. And add the paths to your scan list. That way you don't end up like me with plug-ins in 27(ish)different locations. You don't have to move any of your old stuff if you still use them with your old DAW. Good luck

Hi Martin Welcome to Reaper land. Lots of very clever people around here willing to help and persist if problems arise.

Hi Marty, welcome to Reaper! You'll get the hang of it, if an idiot like myself could do it, then so can you. ;)

Thanks all 

Just now found out how to track down my threads correctly. Sorry I didn't say thanks sooner. Progress Report: Still struggling to get sound from midi. Doing all the things I've been told. click the monitor icon(s), load synths and models when attempting to play the keyboard (is there a specific order by the way? I use trimmer plug ins on my other DAW and am supposed to place them first as a prefader to maintain headroom, but it seems that in Reaper I need to do this differently like after the instruments and/or effects? Am I missing something?) Experimented with the Reaper ReWire weird thing I mentioned previously and managed to record the tracks playing from my other daw to a reaper file I've set up separate for practicing and learning. Have no idea how I managed to do this though. Question: In order to keep it simple while I figure things out... I just "Mixed Down" to wav fomrat a series of tracks I created in my other DAW using their "Omni Sampler" (very cool plug in) and the MT Power Drum Kit that's currently a free download for both my other DAW and Reaper. Saved the tracks as "wav" so I could import via the: insert--> media files menu. Five different times I attempted "shift" and clickig top and bottom of the files (tracks) and no matter how careful I was...each time reaper would load only one track at a time. I could've sworn I saw one of your videos explainging how to load multiple tracks at one time. Did I miss something? And the reaper sofware did not import the sound. Just empty tracks. I know they have sound because I played them back on my computer mp3/wav media player. So each track has recorded sound. It's late and I'm burned out from the work week. Will be hammering away again at this tomorrow. Thanks for the replies and encouragement. By the way (not a plug or spam) I am currently using "Mixcraft 7" as the other DAW so if anyone is familiar with that DAW perhaps they can help me a bit with the transition from that to Reaper? Peace! Marty