#Vico Program version 1.2.2

THIS PROGRAM IS NO LONGER IN DEVELOPMENT. NO FURTHER UPDATES! In August 2020 it became clear that the choice of programming languages and libraries lead to grave performance problems. Combined with the fact that this is hardly a unique program, a piano roll midi sequencer, it has been decided that no further development will happen. Here is the original description of the program:

Vico is a minimalistic Midi sequencer that is intended to be used in parallel with other software.

"Vico" (with c like ts in "bats") just means "sequence" or "order" in Esperanto for obvious reasons.

In a loop- or pattern based environment you often want to have a 'free flowing' track in order to create an instrumental solo, for example. Sometimes you just want to record a sketch or an idea quickly and not open or create an entire DAW project.

Vico fulfills these conditions by connecting exactly one source to one output, and records and plays back in between. Or to put it another way: you only get one track, intended for one instrument (but with convenient layers).

Vico has been written primarily for users of Patroneo, but has no closer technical bond. Patroneo is a program characterized by strict repetitions and constant reuse of very short patterns. With this you can quickly create whole arrangements for drums, bass and accompaniment chords, but a beautiful, long melody is extremely cumbersome. Therefore Vico wants to solve this problem.

However, all programs that run as JACK transport masters or JACK timebase masters are suitable as "remote control".

This README is just a short introduction. Consult the manual (see below) for more information.

Contact and Information

• Website https://www.laborejo.org
• Bugs and Issues: https://www.laborejo.org/bugs
• Git Repositories for all programs: https://git.laborejo.org
• Documentation and Manual https://www.laborejo.org/documentation/vico

Installation and Starting

Download

Release Version

If the latest release is not available through your package manger you can build it yourself: Download the latest code release on https://www.laborejo.org/downloads and extract it.

Git Version

It is possible to clone a git repository.

git clone https://git.laborejo.org/lss/vico.git

Dependencies

• Glibc
• Python 3.6 (maybe earlier)
• PyQt5 for Python 3
• DejaVu Sans Sarif TTF (Font) (recommended, but not technically necessary)

Build Dependencies

• Bash
• GCC (development is done on 8.2, but most likely you can use a much earlier version)

Environment:

• Jack Audio Connection Kit must be running
• Agordejo / New Session Manager ("NSM")

Build

./configure --prefix=/usr/local
make
sudo make install

Starting

There are multiple ways to run Vico which should give you the flexibility to configure your system as you want.

We make no distinction if you installed Vico yourself or through the distributions package-manager.

The differences are: With or without Agordejo, with or without sound, installed or from the source dir.

Installed , running through Agordejo (New Session Manager) (recommended)

Starting Vico through Agordejo after you installed vico system-wide is the recommended and only supported way. Start agordejo and load or create a new session. Then use the program launcher to add vico. It should appear with an icon in the list and open its GUI.

Installed without Agordejo

If you start vico directly it will present you with a dialog to choose your session directory.

You can also start vico from a terminal (or create a starter script).

vico --save DIRECTORY

Uses the given directory to save. The dir will be created or loaded from if already present. Use the applications file menu to save (Ctrl+s).

You can use this to load and save the files from an existing NSM session. If you create a new directory you can copy it manually to an NSM session directory, but that requires renaming the directory to append the unique ID provided by NSM.

Sending SIGUSR1 to the program in this mode will trigger a save.

Closing through your window manager in this mode will actually quit the application without a prompt to save changes.

From source directory

You can run Vico after extracting the release archive or cloning from git, without installation.

Calfbox

"Calfbox" is the name of our internal realtime midi/audio python module.

• It is bundled with the application for a normal install.
• Or you could run ./configure and make calfbox without subsequent install, which creates a sitepackages directory in the source dir. You can then run ./vico directly from the source.
• A third option is ./vico --mute which runs without sound at all and does not need calfbox.

From source directory with NSM

The developer uses this way to develop and use the software, so it will always be as stable as the compiled version. But it is a bit less performant than building and installing it.

After extracting the release archive create a symlink from vico into your PATH. e.g. /usr/bin or ~/bin, if that exists on your system.

If you compiled without installing you can also symlink to ./vico.bin

From source dir without NSM

Use ./vico --save (see above). If you compiled without installing you can also run ./vico.bin

No NSM, no Make, No Sound

Combining the above options you can start the program directly after unpacking or cloning from git:

./vico --save /tmp --mute

Or even shorter:

./vico -s /tmp -m

This is the minimal run mode which is only useful for testing and development. But if you only want to look at the GUI and are not in the mood to install anything -including dependencies-, go ahead.