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/yourusername/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 ServerThis assumes that you're using Claude Desktop
```
mcp install mcp_ableton_server.py
```
Install AbletonOSCFollow the instructions at AbletonOSC

🚀 Usage

Running the OSC Daemon

The OSC daemon will handle OSC communication between the MCP server and Ableton Live:

# If installed via UV:
ableton-osc-daemon

# Or if running from source:
python osc_daemon.py

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.

Running the MCP Server

Start the MCP server to enable LLMs to control Ableton:

# If installed via UV:
ableton-mcp-server

# Or if running from source:
python mcp_ableton_server.py

Example Usage

In Claude desktop, ask Claude:Prepare a set to record a rock bandSet 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 Configurations

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

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

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.

Ableton Live MCP Server