ableton-vibe
If you are the rightful owner of ableton-vibe and would like to certify it and/or have it hosted online, please leave a comment on the right or send an email to henry@mcphub.com.
This document provides a setup and usage guide for the Ableton-Vibe MCP server, which integrates with Ableton Live to automate tasks using the Model Context Protocol.
Setup
- Install deps:
yarncause ableton-js uses it for some build scripts andpnpm.
npm install --global yarn
brew install pnpm
- Install the
midi-scriptin ableton:
git clone https://github.com/leolabs/ableton-js.git && cd ableton-js && yarn ableton11:start
- Clone the ableton-vibe mcp server if you havent yet:
git clone https://github.com/androidStern/ableton-vibe.git && cd ableton-vibe && pnpm i
- Build and watch changes:
npm run build
- 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": ["<path-to-repo>/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
