Setup

1. Install deps: yarn cause ableton-js uses it for some build scripts and pnpm.

npm install --global yarn

brew install pnpm

2. Install the midi-script in ableton:

git clone https://github.com/leolabs/ableton-js.git && cd ableton-js && yarn ableton11:start

3. Clone the ableton-vibe mcp server if you havent yet:

git clone https://github.com/androidStern/ableton-vibe.git && cd ableton-vibe && pnpm i

4. Build and watch changes:

npm run build

5. Add mcp config to claude. General instructions here

replace path-to-repo with path to wherever you cloned ableton-vibe

as for where claude's config is: on my machine the mcp config is in ~/Library/Application Support/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json/

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "ableton-vibe": {
      "command": "node",
      "args": ["/ableton-vibe/ableton-mcp.js"]
    }
  }
}

Usage

Make sure you have Ableton running.

Restart claude before trying to use the server.

Try asking claude "Create a midi track at index 0". thats all it can do right now lol.

Supported Ableton versions

I have tested with Ableton 11. Haven't tried with Ableton 12.

Supported OS

I've only tried this on my mac. I suspect you might need to change ablton-mcp.ts line 9 to get the temp directory logic working for windows but I haven't given it much thought yet. here's the relevant line const userTempDir = execSync('getconf DARWIN_USER_TEMP_DIR').toString().trim()

Debugging

you can run the mcp inspector to quickly debug the server: npm run inspect then open the url in the output. Instructions for using the inspector are here

Running Test Add Device Script

test-browser.js is an example script to add a device to your ableton set programaticaly. Ableton must be running and the ableton-js midi-remote script must be installed. Refer to step # 2 of Setup at the top of this file to see how to install midi-remote script.

node test-browser.js

Contributing

Right now everything is in ablton-mcp.ts so if you're adding tools or resources, put it there.

Don't edit the ablton-mcp._JS_ file, you want the _TS_ file.

Next Steps

• get propper build and release setup. should be able to just install everything with a single command.
• add the rest of the ableton api as mcp tools. i dont really want to do this by hand. it would be nice to discover and expose it all programatically.
• add support for ableton 12
• add tests
• add support for other os (windows)
• voice controll