If you just want to manually switch between the patches using the up, down and number buttons, you need to copy the patches you want into the User bank. This will overwrite the existing User bank patches, but you can always get those back if you have a computer with a midi port, midi librain software and the patch files from Alesis (all the software you need came with the QS8 and is also available at the Alesis web site).
Saving the patch to the user bank is simple.
1) Select the patch you want
2) Press "Edit Select"
3) Press "Store"
4) Key in the number you want to assign to the patch (e.g. 001)
5) Press Store again
Thats it. Now you can select the User bank and scroll between the patches in the order you stored them, or recall by number.