It works great on the VL2, but you may want to turn off the aux `output', so that your VLT only hears the backing track, but doesn't send it to the outputs. This way, by using a splitter, you can still send the backing track to your PA directly.
IMHO, this will be much easier for you than using SMP the send the note on/off information. As I mentioned, you just need to create a new MIDI preset in SLM for each of your VLT patches and then add them to your automation track.