Claude Ableton

claude-ableton

Make music in Ableton Live 12 by talking to Claude. claude-ableton is a Claude plugin that lets you create tracks, load instruments / drum kits / samples, write MIDI clips and chord progressions, mix, route sidechains, automate parameters, build arrangements, and master — all by chatting.

"Make a lo-fi beat at 82 BPM: Boom Bap drums, a warm Rhodes on
 Cmaj7 → Am7 → Dm7 → G7 with smooth voicing, a sub bass sidechained
 to the kick, and a tape-wobble auto-filter on the keys."

Everything materializes in your open Live set. 139 tools.

A real session, sped way up — Claude building a track hands-free.

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Requirements

• macOS — Windows support is planned.
• Ableton Live 12 — Suite recommended; Intro/Standard ship fewer built-in

instruments.

• Claude Code or Claude Desktop for the one-step plugin install — or any

other MCP client (Cursor, Codex, …) via the manual config below.

• Node 18+ only if you install via the npx path below. Claude Code and

Claude Desktop bundle their own Node, so the plugin install needs nothing extra.

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Install

Claude Code

Add the marketplace, then install:

/plugin marketplace add rohailaltaf/claude-ableton
/plugin install claude-ableton@claude-ableton

Claude Desktop

Use Claude Desktop's Add marketplace feature (in its plugin settings), add rohailaltaf/claude-ableton, then install the claude-ableton plugin.

Cursor, Codex, or any other MCP client

Add this to your client's MCP config:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "ableton": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "github:rohailaltaf/claude-ableton"]
    }
  }
}

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One-time Ableton setup

The first time it runs, the plugin installs the bundled AbletonOSC Remote Script into your Live User Library automatically. You then enable it once:

1. Start (or restart) Ableton Live.
2. Open Settings/Preferences → Link, Tempo & MIDI.
3. Under Control Surface, select AbletonOSC. (Leave Input/Output set to

None.)

That's it. The plugin checks the Remote Script version on every launch and re-installs it if it changed, so you stay in sync.

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How it works

Claude (Code / Desktop / Cursor / …)
   │  MCP (stdio)
   ▼
claude-ableton  ──OSC──▶  127.0.0.1:11000  AbletonOSC Remote Script  ──▶  Live's LOM
                ◀──OSC──   127.0.0.1:11001

The bridge is localhost-only — there is no network listener and nothing is reachable off your machine.

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What it can do (139 tools)

• Tracks & instruments — create/duplicate/delete MIDI tracks; load any

built-in Live 12 instrument (synths, samplers, racks, Drum Synths) or a named preset by browser path.

• Clips & notes — create MIDI clips, read/add/remove notes, rename, loop,

color, quantize, duplicate.

• Chord progressions — parse chord symbols and write block chords with

smooth voice-leading (common tones held) or literal root position.

• Drums & samples — load full drum kits, inspect Drum Rack pads, drop

samples onto pads, load a sample onto a track (Simpler-wrapped), or drop an audio file straight onto the Session grid as a real audio clip.

• Browser — list instruments, drums, audio/MIDI effects, samples, packs,

plugins, sounds, clips, Max for Live, user library, current project — and load from them (presets, sounds, samples, plugins/VSTs, saved racks, pack content, M4L devices).

• Mixing — volume, pan, mute, solo; device parameters; return tracks &

sends; sidechain source/channel routing.

• Mastering — load effects on the Main track (Glue Compressor → Limiter),

read/set master device params and output level.

• Automation — step envelopes for device and mixer parameters (volume / pan

/ sends); smooth ramps via many small steps.

• Scenes & arrangement — list/create/duplicate/rename/delete scenes; stamp

Session clips onto the Arrangement timeline to build a finite track.

• Transport & state — play/stop/continue, fire scenes/clips, set/read

tempo, time signature, playback position.

See [DESIGN.md](DESIGN.md) for conventions (pitch numbering, beat units, the instrument allowlist) and design decisions.

Bundled skills

The plugin also ships [Agent Skills](skills/) — workflow recipes that trigger automatically on matching requests:

• mastering-chain — say "master the track" or "make it louder" and Claude

builds a Glue Compressor → Limiter chain on the Main track with conservative, streaming-safe settings (and won't stack a second limiter on a chain you already have).

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Limitations

• Session-view authoring. Notes and clips are written into the Session grid;

to build a fixed track, stamp clips onto the Arrangement timeline with duplicate_clip_to_arrangement (the only LOM path to a linear arrangement).

• Step automation only. Smooth curves are approximated with many small

steps — Live's API doesn't expose breakpoint curves.

• Live API ceilings (not exposed by Live's scripting API, so not buildable):

grouping tracks, saving/loading/exporting the Set, loading browser clips (.alc from Live's indexed Clips browser) into a Session slot — Live's app.browser.load_item is device-only, no LOM path for clip-type items — freezing/flattening, and clip follow actions (removed from the Clip API in Live 12). (Loading raw audio files does work — load_audio_clip lands any .wav/.aif/.mp3/.flac/.ogg directly on the Session grid.)

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Security

This plugin grants Claude write access to your active Ableton Live session. The OSC bridge is localhost-only (no network port), but treat it like any local automation tool: review what Claude proposes before running it if you have unsaved work. Use Live's Undo (Cmd+Z) freely.

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Development

git clone https://github.com/rohailaltaf/claude-ableton.git
cd claude-ableton
npm install
npm run package      # vendor the Remote Script + typecheck + bundle dist/index.js

• npm run build — bundle src/ into a single dist/index.js (esbuild).
• npm run typecheck — tsc --noEmit.
• npm run vendor — re-vendor the pinned AbletonOSC fork into vendor/.
• node scripts/integration-test.mjs — drive all 139 tools against a running

Live (needs OSC port 11001 free and a scratch set open).

The plugin's server is bundled into one self-contained file with no runtime dependencies, so the committed dist/index.js and vendor/AbletonOSC run directly when the plugin loads.

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License & credits

[MIT](LICENSE) © Rohail Altaf.

Built on AbletonOSC by Daniel Jones / ideoforms (MIT) — an extended fork is bundled here; its license and attribution are preserved in vendor/AbletonOSC/LICENSE.md.

Source & license

This open-source MCP server is cataloged on AgentStack and links to its original source — we do not rehost the code.

• Author: rohailaltaf
• Source: rohailaltaf/claude-ableton
• License: MIT

Install and usage instructions live in the source repository linked above.