Ableton mcp

Skill PerIPan/music-workflow-skills/ableton-mcp

Use when controlling Ableton Live through the AbletonMCP server — creating tracks/clips/scenes, pushing MIDI notes, loading instruments or effects, setting device parameters, mixing, automation, or debugging the Live connection. Contains the hard limits and gotchas (note chunking, browser URIs, EQ Eight formulas, index shifts).From its SKILL.md

Install

npx -y skills add PerIPan/music-workflow-skills --skill ableton-mcp

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SKILL.md

7.6 KB, ~2.0k tokens by cl100k_base, as published. Nobody here has run it

Ableton Live via MCP

Claude drives a live Ableton Set through the AbletonMCP server (150+ tools, all prefixed mcp__ableton__).

References (read on demand):

references/setup-install.md — first-time install (Remote Script + server + verify)
references/troubleshooting.md — connection failures, tool errors

For arrangement craft (section design, bass/drum patterns, FX chains) use the ableton-arrangement skill; this skill is the mechanics and the gotchas.

Mental model

Live and stateful. Every call mutates the open Set immediately. No preview/dry-run. Undo is Live's own Cmd/Ctrl-Z.
Single session. Controls one Ableton instance — the frontmost open Set. No diffing two Sets, no background operation. Two clients on one Live collide; work sequentially.
No autosave. Claude can't save/open/new a Set — the USER Cmd-S's. After a Set switch, the server re-attaches to the new frontmost Set.
Deferred tools (Claude Code). Load schemas before first use: ToolSearch select:mcp__ableton__<name>.
Reason in BARS, never seconds. Sizes and positions are bar counts; convert everything to bars up front.

Tool map

Area	Representative tools
Transport	start/stop_playback, start/stop_recording, set_tempo, set_metronome, jump_to_time, capture_midi
Tracks	create_midi/audio/group_track, set_track_name/volume/pan/mute/solo/arm/color, set_track_input/output_routing, delete/duplicate_track, freeze/flatten
Clips	create/delete/duplicate/fire/stop_clip, set_clip_name/color/loop/gain/pitch, get_clip_notes
MIDI notes	add_notes_to_clip, remove_notes (range), remove_all_notes, transpose_notes, quantize_clip_notes, humanize_clip_timing/velocity
Devices / FX	search_browser, load_instrument_or_effect, get/set_device_parameter, toggle/delete_device, move_device_left/right, get_rack_chains
Scenes	create/delete/duplicate/fire_scene, set_scene_name/color, get_all_scenes
Mixing	set_send_level, get/set_return_volume/pan, set_master_volume/pan
Automation	get/set/clear_clip_automation, toggle_session_record, set_overdub
AI helpers	get_scale_notes, generate_drum_pattern, generate_bassline

Most tools take (track_index, clip_index) — both 0-based (Live's UI is 1-based: "track 3" in the UI = index 2).

Capabilities vs hard limits (all observed in testing)

Reachable: Session-view clip CRUD + MIDI editing, track/scene CRUD, device loading + any device parameter on regular tracks, transport, mixing/sends, clip automation, humanize, generative helpers.

Not reachable — plan around:

❌ Effects on the Master track — user adds limiter/EQ manually.
❌ Stamping clips into Arrangement — only real-time recording reaches Arrangement (and session-fire→arrangement-record produced an empty arrangement). Bounce loops via Resample into a session audio clip, or drag manually.
❌ Firing an empty slot to record — "click empty slot to record" is UI-only.
❌ Render/export audio — user does File → Export.
❌ Return-track device parameters — rejected ("Track index out of range"). Use set_return_volume/pan, or move the FX to a regular track.
⚠️ Per-clip mute — no clean toggle; set_clip_gain 0 (reversible) or UI Deactivate.
⚠️ Follow Actions unreachable — use launch quantization for count-ins/progressions.
⚠️ set_clip_automation "Volume" works on simple instrument tracks; rack-based tracks (drum racks, amp racks) often reject it → fall back to per-note velocity or a Utility device.
⚠️ No visual feedback — no screenshot tool. Workaround: macOS screencapture + Read the PNG.

Hard rules (gotchas that bite)

Load with load_instrument_or_effect, not load_item_to_track (errors "Unknown command"). URIs are HTML-encoded: query:AudioFx#EQ%20Eight.
Instruments/presets live under the sounds browser category, not instruments (returns nothing). Pianos: query:Sounds#Piano & Keys; guitars: query:Sounds#Guitar & Plucked. Use search_browser(query, category="sounds").
Chunk note pushes ≤140 notes per add_notes_to_clip (larger has failed silently). Never two pushes to the same clip in one parallel batch — they race. Sequential per clip; parallelize only across different clips.
Reading a big clip can exceed the response token limit. Generate notes in a script → save JSON → push from that. Don't round-trip 500 notes through a read.
remove_notes(from_time, time_span, from_pitch, pitch_span) for surgical edits — prefer over remove_all_notes. Always assume the user hand-edited the clip — read or remove-by-range rather than wiping.
Effects load at the END of the chain. Build in order or reorder with move_device_left/right.
EQ Eight freq is normalized 0–1: value = log10(freq/20) / 3 (1 kHz ≈ 0.566, 250 Hz ≈ 0.366, 130 Hz ≈ 0.271). Band N (A-set) param indices: On 4+(N-1)*10, Type 5+…, Freq 6+…, Gain 7+…, Q 8+…. Filter types: 0=HP48 1=HP12 2=LowShelf 3=Bell 4=Notch 5=HighShelf 6=LP12 7=LP48.
Distortion: Overdrive — Drive/Tone/Dry-Wet on 0–100. Saturator — Drive/Output/Dry-Wet on 0–1, Type 0–7 (hard curve = fuzz). Pedal/Amp are Suite-only — Saturator/Overdrive are the universal fallback.
Creating a track/scene at a low index shifts everything after it. Re-check indices (get_session_info) or append at the end (index = -1).
Humanize in layers — humanize_clip_velocity(~0.08) + humanize_clip_timing(~0.04); apply twice if it still sounds programmed.

Session-jam patterns (song-agnostic)

One scene per feel/groove; launching a scene starts all its clips bar-quantized.
Shared click track (Simpler + clave at one pitch), a click clip per scene; mute to toggle.
A REC audio track per live instrument — armed, monitored, for takes.
A muted NOTES track whose clip names carry tips/roadmaps.
Count-in without Follow Actions: click-only clip + 1–2-bar launch quantization; fire the groove during the count bar, it drops on the next downbeat.
Odd meters via clip length, not global signature: 5/4 = 5-beat clips, 7/8 = 3.5-beat clips — same length for every clip in the scene including the click.
Whole song in one scene (through-composed): full-song-length clips per track with an energy arc; leave a track empty for a live player (e.g. no bass clip for a bassist).
Label everything: chords/patterns in set_clip_name, matching clip colors, paste-ready "Edit Info Text" blocks for the user.

Working method that scales

Generate notes in a script → save JSON → push in ≤140-note chunks (deterministic, reviewable, revertible). High-pass synths/keys so a live bass owns the lows. Test one section, get direction, then propagate.

Local environment (this machine)

.mcp.json already configured in /Users/peripan/dev/abletonAI/ (server ableton via uvx ableton-mcp); Remote Script installed.
Recording session output to audio: empty-slot record needs a UI click — use Resample workflow instead.
Source doc (read-only): /Users/peripan/dev/abletonAI/audio-analysis/WORKFLOW-ableton-mcp.md.

What ships with it: 2 files

4.9 KB alongside SKILL.md

references/

setup-install.md3.4 KB
troubleshooting.md1.5 KB

Gives 0 of the 12 instructions most mcp tooling skills give in ~2.0k tokens

Counted across 638 of the 750 authors here whose files we hold, read 2026-08-07

Create ten complex or independent read-only evaluation questionsin 69 of 638, across 15 files
Test servers using MCP Inspectorin 61 of 638, across 19 files
Provide actionable error messages with specific next stepsin 54 of 638, across 12 files
Prioritize comprehensive API coverage over specific workflows or workflow toolsin 54 of 638, across 12 files
Use TypeScript and Streamable HTTP for remote servers or clientsin 54 of 638, across 8 files
Define structured output schemas where possiblein 50 of 638, across 8 files
Use Zod or Pydantic for input schemasin 47 of 638, across 5 files
Fetch MCP specification pages with markdown suffixin 46 of 638, across 4 files
Load framework documentation using WebFetchin 45 of 638, across 3 files
Verify each evaluation answer independentlyin 45 of 638, across 3 files
Implement API client with authentication and paginationin 45 of 638, across 3 files
Define input schemas with validationin 27 of 638, across 9 files

Said here and by no other author read

Reason in bars not seconds
Load deferred tool schemas before first use
Use 0-based indices for tracks and clips
Use load_instrument_or_effect to load devices
Find instruments and presets under the sounds category
Chunk MIDI note pushes to 140 notes maximum

Grouped from the skills themselves: near-identical wordings counted once, and counted by distinct author, so one author publishing three of these counts once. Length counted with cl100k_base; the agent that loads this file may tokenize it differently.