ableton-live-mcp-server

Ableton Live MCP Server

📌 Overview

The Ableton Live MCP Server is a server implementing the Model Context Protocol (MCP) to facilitate communication between LLMs and Ableton Live. It uses OSC (Open Sound Control) to send and receive messages to/from Ableton Live. It is based on AbletonOSC implementation and exhaustively maps available OSC adresses to tools accessible to MCP clients.

This project consists of two main components:

• mcp_ableton_server.py: The MCP server handling the communication between clients and the OSC daemon.
• osc_daemon.py: The OSC daemon responsible for relaying commands to Ableton Live and processing responses.

✨ Features

• Provides an MCP-compatible API for controlling Ableton Live from MCP clients.
• Uses python-osc for sending and receiving OSC messages.
• Based on the OSC implementation from AbletonOSC.
• Implements request-response handling for Ableton Live commands.

⚡ Installation

Option 1: Install with UV (Recommended)

• Install UV if you don't have it already:

  pip install uv
  

• Install directly from PyPI:

  uv install ableton-live-mcp-server
  

• Or install from GitHub:

  uv install git+https://github.com/mrmos/ableton-live-mcp-server.git
  

Option 2: Manual Installation

• Install uv

  pip install uv
  

• Clone the repository:

  git clone https://github.com/your-username/mcp_ableton_server.git
  cd mcp_ableton_server
  

• Install dependencies:

  uv install python-osc fastmcp
  

• Install the MCP Server This assumes that you're using Claude Desktop

  mcp install mcp_ableton_server.py
  

• Install AbletonOSC Follow the instructions at AbletonOSC

🚀 Usage

Running with a Single Command (Recommended)

The easiest way to start the Ableton Live MCP Server is with the included launcher script:

# Basic usage (runs both components with default settings)
ableton-mcp-start

# Show debug output from both components
ableton-mcp-start --debug

# Customize ports if needed
ableton-mcp-start --osc-port 65432 --mcp-port 8000 --ableton-port 11000 --receive-port 11001

The launcher automatically:

• Starts the OSC daemon first
• Verifies that it's running properly
• Starts the MCP server
• Monitors both processes and shuts them down gracefully on exit

Manual Starting (Advanced)

Alternatively, you can manually start each component in separate terminal windows:

Step 1: Run the OSC Daemon

First, start the OSC daemon to handle OSC communication between the MCP server and Ableton Live:

ableton-osc-daemon

This will:

• Listen for MCP client connections on port 65432.
• Forward messages to Ableton Live via OSC on port 11000.
• Receive OSC responses from Ableton on port 11001.

Step 2: Run the MCP Server

In a separate terminal window, start the MCP server to enable LLMs to control Ableton:

ableton-mcp-server

Example Usage

In Claude desktop, ask Claude: Prepare a set to record a rock band Set the input routing channel of all tracks that have "voice" in their name to Ext. In 2

⚙️ Configuration

By default, the server and daemon run on localhost (127.0.0.1) with the following ports:

• MCP Server Socket: 65432
• Ableton Live OSC Port (Send): 11000
• Ableton Live OSC Port (Receive): 11001

To modify these, edit the AbletonOSCDaemon class in osc_daemon.py or use command-line parameters:

ableton-osc-daemon --socket-port 65432 --ableton-port 11000 --receive-port 11001

Claude Desktop Configuration

To configure Claude Desktop to use Ableton Live MCP Server:

• Edit the Claude Desktop configuration file:

  • macOS: ~/Library/Application Support/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json
  • Windows: %APPDATA%/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json

• Add the following to your configuration:

"mcpServers": {
  "Ableton Live Controller": {
    "command": "ableton-mcp-start",
    "args": []
  }
}

• For debugging with visible output:

"mcpServers": {
  "Ableton Live Controller": {
    "command": "ableton-mcp-start",
    "args": ["--debug"]
  }
}

• Restart Claude Desktop

Contributing

Feel free to submit issues, feature requests, or pull requests to improve this project.

Publishing Updates

To publish new versions using UV:

• Update the version in pyproject.toml
• Build the package:

  uv build
  

• Publish to PyPI:

  uv publish
  

License

This project is licensed under the MIT License. See the LICENSE file for details.

Acknowledgments

• Model Context Protocol (MCP)
• python-osc for OSC handling
• Daniel John Jones for OSC implementation with AbletonOSC
• Ableton Third Party Remote Scripts
• Julien Bayle @Structure Void for endless inspirations and resources.

TODO

• Explore resources and prompts primitives opportunities.
• Build a standalone Ableton Live MCP client.