Show HN: Ableton Live MCP

bschoepke

Ever wanted to control Ableton with just your voice? Me too! I made this MCP server so I could just ask Codex to do anything in Ableton Live for me, while I was nap-trapped by my baby. The chat messages I sent to Codex to make this: in ableton, make a self reflective song, with audio vocals (via macos say) and chip tunes and 80's drum machines. should be a real edm banger i want midi for everything but vocals please, with ableton devices. not prerendered audio for instruments needs some fills and should hit way harder after "3-2-1 i become the sound" the vocals are squished too much (read too quickly), give them a little more length add some dynamics, the song is basically one volume. and some pumping side chain improve dynamics of the clap, seems a bit flat and indistinguished, want it harder after the 3-2-1 drop introduce a new element on a new track after the 3-2-1 drop, that comes in but then recedes before the final exit doesn't seem like the new thing has any notes the element is a bit muddy/indistinct. perhaps it needs simplification and more space, different instrument choice, i dunno

markalby

is this using M4L or the LOM ?

windowliker

For me, the point of making music is making it myself. If want to have something done for me I could just play someone else's record and pretend like I made it.

robotswantdata

If you’ve gone to the trouble of setting up Ableton MCP, you’ve already worked harder than Suno requires to make a banger

ssalka

Things I would use AI for in music production: 1. Generating track layouts (add tracks + empty audio/midi clips throughout) 2. Generating MIDI sequences 3. Generating Serum patches 4. Extracting stems from existing audio 5. Automating common workflows (eg sidechaining) 6. Semantic search of sample library That being said, I don't think I want a full agentic workflow for vibe-producing. Point solutions seems like a better fit for me, personally.

xrd

Does anyone know of other MCP servers for similar music creative tools? I'm interested in things like sonic-pi, strudel.cc and orcas. But very open to anything. I think there is a good opportunity for kids to learn using these tools, especially if I can wire it into my mycroft.ai/neon device.

jhurliman

Very cool! I posted my own experiments in this area a few months back, which were an iteration on an existing Ableton MCP. It’s great to see more people experimenting in the spaces of interfacing with complex applications and music production. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46428922

breakall

Yes! I want this for MainStage -- this would allow me to automate my weekly template setup for playing at my church. Each week before practicing I look up the songs in Planning Center and create a new MainStage concert file with one patch per song, and add notes to each patch screen with the song's key, etc. Automating this would save me the time of doing the busy work and get right to practicing.

ktbwrestler

this is awesome. Does anyone recommend one for Logic Pro X? I see a few in the wild but would love to help support if anyone is tinkering with one

PaulDavisThe1st

MCP for Ardour was added more than a month ago, thanks to contributor zabooma: https://github.com/Ardour/ardour/commit/d582a0b042a68ccb22c0...