Vico

Vico itself doesn’t create sounds and offers only a single output for JACK midi and organizes all events on up to ten layers, similar to graphics programs.

There is an input for JACK-Midi to which you can connect MIDI instruments or other programs.

At the start you see an empty track. The playhead is always at the point where JACK Transport is located.

The bar lines are also shown in the meter of the JACK master. If none present, there are no bars.

A red playhead indicates that you are in recording mode.

If transport is in progress, a midi keyboard or similar can be used to record events.

With mouse and keyboard all events can be set by hand and changed afterwards. (see below). With the exception of Velocity, all events are displayed in the main track.

To simplify things, you can switch a rhythm grid on and off as well as use a 'snap to grid' functionality.

All editing requires the creation of a selection by using the Shift and the left mouse button to draws a rectangle. A click with the right mouse button ends the selection.

Starting, saving, loading and closing your project is best done through the New Session Manager.

Vico supports all MIDI channel messages:

All messages can either be recorded live or entered manually. Post-production is possible for all channel messages.

The midi channel is discarded during recording. Instead, each layer has the option of setting a channel on which transmission takes place.

All non-musical events (0xF…​) are ignored, including all MIDI transport messages (not JACK transport), tune requests, etc. The same applies to SystemExclusive events.

All keyboard shortcuts can be found in the menus, there are no "secret" keys.

In contrast, mouse commands are not available in the graphical user interface and have to be learned here:

(LM = Left mouse button, RM = Right mouse button, Wheel = Move mouse wheel, MM = Middle mouse button, usually by pressing the wheel itself)

The mouse wheel scrolls the main view up and down. Pressing the Alt key scrolls forwards or backwards (left / right) instead.

The "Navigation" menu offers additional options.

If you hold down Ctrl and turn the mouse wheel, the main view becomes larger or smaller.

If you hold down Shift while turning , only the time axis will be scaled. Notes are compressed or stretched so that you can either see more at once or set more precise start and end positions.

Zooming and scaling is purely visual and has no effect on the music itself.

Notes are not organized in tracks, but in layers. There are ten of them. In the "Layers" menu, or with the function keys F1 to F10, the current layer can be selected.

It quickly happens that you record a plethora of events that make further editing extremely tedious. Imagine, additionaly to a melody there is also MIDI aftertouch on every note, and the Modwheel (CC) is also used. The whole screen will be full of symbols.

In the "Filter" menu are several ways to sort and move events.

The simplest usage is to use a filter for all layers and only set the event type, e.g. aftertouch. Now all aftertouch events will be moved to the current layer.

In addition, you can of course set the target layer yourself. It is also possible to define the respective MIDI bytes as upper and lower limits.

Example: Event type "Note" with Byte1 Minimum 0 and Maximum 59 moves all low notes, e.g. the accompaniment of a piano piece, but all high notes remain on the target layer.

The other menu commands in "Filter" offer variations, but work in the same way.

Vico was constructed with the declared goal of running as slave in a session. If you start it alone you can of course record and use all functions, but you cannot see barlines and it’s a little harder to find the right positions.

If there is a program that acts as JACK timebase "master" Vico will follow its time signature and transport position.

With "Edit"→"Show rhythm lines in grid" (key L) you can switch off bar lines completely.

Vico has no predetermined duration. The main view has practically infinite dimensions, and you always work where all other programs are.

As soon as Transport is running, the main view jumps to Playhead unless Edit→"Follow Playhead" is disabled.

Starting and stopping the transport is possible from any running JACK program, including Vico itself. (space bar)

When the program starts, the mouse pointer is a small rectangle with a text indicating the pitch. This is the mode for entering notes of arbitrary length. By holding down and dragging the left mouse button you can draw notes. You must first move the mouse pointer to the correct pitch. and then start drawing.

Fixed durations are available in the "Input" menu. These can be selected with the number keys. After key "1" a click with the left mouse button inserts a whole note, with key "2" a Half note etc. "0" selects the free mode again.

Dotted note lengths can be switched on and off for all fixed durations.

Inserted notes have an average velocity (median) of all previous notes.

All other events can also be inserted with the mouse. This may not be very convenient or fast due to large amounts of data, but it is at least possible. A live recording is probably preferable.

If no selection exists at the moment, the right mouse button can be used to write a text annotation on an event. It has no effect on the music.

First of all, right-clicking is the best way to deselect your selection.

If you hold down the Shift key, the input-event symbols disappear from the mouse pointer. Instead, you get the normal pointer and can press, hold and drag a rectangle to select events.

Additionally marked events will be added to the existing selection.

The selection can extend over several layers.

The main view scrolls automatically when you move the mouse pointer to the left or right edge. But often zooming out is the better way to mark many events at once.

The "Edit" menu offers the possibility to select the whole layer (Ctrl+A) or even all layers (Ctrl+Shift+A)

By pressing / holding / dragging with the left mouse button, all events can be moved both in their timeline position (left/right) as well as their pitch or event intensity (up/down).

If you hold down the Alt key, events only move to the left/right, no matter if the mouse also moves up and down. This increases control and prevents slips in pitch.

If you hold down the Ctrl key, events only move up/down, no matter if the mouse also moves to the left or right. This increases control and prevents slippage in the Position in time.

You can also use the arrow keys to move events step by step in all directions. This method is sometimes the fastest and most accurate.

The duration of notes in the selection can be changed both to forward and backward. To do this, you can move the mouse to the left or right edge of a note with the left mouse button (push/hold/pull). All selected notes are changed by the same amount.

There is a minimum duration that cannot be shortened. Only one of the selected notes has to meet this minimum duration in order to stop the entire process.

If non-notes are selected at the same time, they are ignored during the process.

The "Snap to Grid" menu allows you to place events on a fixed position. When the program is started, the grid is initially switched off: free positioning at any time position is possible.

Like the number keys set note duration, Shift+numbers set the grid-rhythm for snapping. A quarter note grid allows only events and notes on quarter note positions.

Setting Snap To Grid to eighths or sixteenths notes is usually a good compromise between robust input and rhythmic flexibility.

With free note duration (Shift+0), the beginning is bound to the grid, but the end is free.

When modifying note durations, the grid is active.

In the main view, you can only change the volume of notes using menu commands. Another option is the Velocity View (see below).

The "Edit" menu offers several options: You can increase or decrease velocities step by step. The keyboard shortcuts are + and -.

There is also a command that allows you either to change all notes relatively or to set all notes to a fixed value. If you write a "+" or "-" in front of the value in the input line the change is considered relative.

Example: "+23" increases all velocities by 23, "23" sets all to 23, "-42" decreases all by 42.

Caution! It is technically allowed to have velocities smaller than 0 and larger than 127. This is not musically possible and must be observed and corrected by hand.

A further command is to "compress" velocities. All velocities are compressed proportionally into a new boundary. For example: Velocities 0 (lowest), 64 (middle) and 127 (highest) are compressed to value between 70 and 90. We get: 70 (lowest), 80 (middle), and 90 (highest).

All these commands ignore non-notes.

As in almost all programs there are copy, cut and paste. The usual shortcuts are used: Ctrl+C, Ctrl+X, Ctrl+V.

Selected notes are copied to a background buffer with Ctrl+C; Ctrl+X deletes the original selection. Since the selection can span several layers, one can also copy from multiple layers.

Ctrl+V inserts a copy at the same place. It is possible to change the layer to insert a copy.

If you insert notes on the same layer, the notes overlap initially, so they are "invisible"! But only one set of notes is selected! This means that you can move notes immediately.

Ctrl+Z ("Undo") reverts the last change.

Ctrl+Shift+Z ("Redo") cancels the last undo, i.e. goes back one step (…​forward?). If you have changed something in the meantime, Redo is no longer possible.

Undo is only possible to the state of the program start.

There is no hidden data or settings. Everything Vico sends is also visible to the user. This means above all that there are no default values for a songs beginning.

For example: In a piece for Violin you change the instrument to a Viola (Program Change) at the end of the piece. If played back from the start it will still be the Viola, because the connected JACK-instrument did not receive a message to switch to a Violin.

Therefore you have to set the violin explicitly at the start. The same applies to pitch bend or control changes such as piano pedal, modwheel, expression etc..

Some MIDI parameters are 14bit instead of the usual 7bit. They are built from two values. This is standard midi practice and must be learned from another source. For Vico, these values must also be set as two separate 7bit entries.

The MIDI format does not forbid a Note-On to be followed by another Note-On of the same pitch without a Note-Off having occurred beforehand. It does not make much musical sense in most cases, but it is permitted by the MIDI standard and therefore supported by Vico. In general you should try to avoid overlapping notes of the same pitch (even on multiple layers if they share the same midi channel).

Wise MIDI-owls know: MIDI messages have two parameters (Byte1 and Byte2). For notes, byte1 is pitch and byte2 velocity. For control changes byte1 is the type (e.g. volume) and byte2 the intensity. But in Vico, CCs show Byte2 as pitch, so you can actually shift them up and down.

Mathematics and computing cannot be cheated anymore at some point. With extreme scaling (Ctrl+Shift+Mouse wheel), when notes are very strongly compressed and 64th notes get placed on a 64th grid, rounding errors may occur and thus mispositioning will happen by a few pixels or midi ticks.

Solution: Change the scaling, display notes more stretched.

If you find a bug in the program (or it runs too slow) please contact us in a way that suits you best. We are thankful for any help.

If you want to do some programming and don’t know where to start please get in contact with us directly. The short version is: clone the git, change the code, create a git patch or point me to your public git.

Vico is very easy to translate with the help of the Qt-Toolchain, without any need for programming. The easiest way is to contact the developers and they will setup the new language.

However, here are the complete instructions for doing a translation completely on your own and integrating it into the program. The program is split in two parts. A shared "template" between the Laborejo Software Suite and the actual program.

The process is the same for both parts, but needs to be done in different directories: template/qtgui and plain /qtgui, relative to the root directory, where the vico executable is.

Everytime you see "template/qtgui" below you can substitute that with just "qtgui" to translate the other part of Vico.

You can add a new language like this:

You can also incorporate the translation into Vico for testing purposes. This requires rudimentary Python knowledge.

To test the new translation you can either run the program normally, if your system is set to that language. Alternatively start vico via the terminal: