LiveSession MCP

An AI production assistant for Ableton Live. Compose, arrange and mix with Claude (or any MCP client), with real measurements instead of guesses — and work with your Live Sets even when Live is closed.

LiveSession MCP is an independent project. It is not affiliated with or endorsed by Ableton AG; Ableton and Live are trademarks of Ableton AG. It started as a fork of ahujasid/ableton-mcp (MIT).

What it does

148 tools in 10 groups, 6 workflow prompts, server instructions for the model. Load only the groups you need (LIVESESSION_TOOLSETS=core,compose,mix,listen) — fewer tools means better tool choices.

Requirements

• Ableton Live 12 (recommended) or Live 11 — Suite, Standard or Intro
• Windows 10/11 or macOS 12+
• Python 3.10+ and uv (recommended)

Install

1. Add the server to your MCP client. For Claude Desktop / Claude Code, in the MCP config:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "livesession": {
      "command": "uvx",
      "args": ["--from", "livesession-mcp[all]", "livesession-mcp"]
    }
  }
}

[all] adds listening (loudness analysis) and plug-in scanning. Without extras the core still works.

2. Install the Remote Script into Live (once, and after each upgrade):

uvx --from livesession-mcp livesession-mcp install

3. In Live: restart Live, open Settings → Link, Tempo & MIDI, choose AbletonMCP as a Control Surface (Input and Output: None).

4. Check everything:

uvx --from livesession-mcp livesession-mcp doctor

doctor checks Python, the installed script version, the connection to Live, the optional extras and your folders, and tells you how to fix anything that isn't right (--json for scripts).

On macOS, allow your MCP client (Claude, Terminal...) in System Settings → Privacy & Security → Accessibility so menu commands and window pictures work.

Try it

• "Start a mizrahi pop song in A minor at 96 BPM."
• "Give me a sad progression for the pre-chorus and write it on the piano with rootless voicings."
• "Take the melody in slot 1 and make a sequence a step higher in the next slot."
• "I exported the mix — how does it compare to this reference? Fix the tonal balance."
• "Lint my project folder before I send it to the mixing engineer."
• "What changed between today's version and the backup from this morning?"

Prompts ready to use: start_a_song, make_a_beat, mix_and_master, analyze_and_improve, prepare_for_collaboration, sound_design.

Configuration

livesession-mcp config show
livesession-mcp config set listen_dir "D:/Bounces"
livesession-mcp config set toolsets core,compose,mix,listen
livesession-mcp config set backup_before_destructive false

Tool groups: core, compose, arrange, sound, mix, audio, listen, studio, files, advanced.

What Live's API can't do (and what LiveSession does instead)

• Export: no API. prepare_export sets the range and opens the dialog; listen_latest analyses the result.
• Save, freeze, bounce, group: no API — run through Live's own menu. Grouping several tracks needs them selected by mouse first (the API selects one track).
• Third-party plug-in parameters: only those exposed in Live (Configure). The catalogue knows every parameter, and process_audio_with_plugins renders audio through any plug-in offline.
• Arrangement automation and tempo automation: not reachable — use clip automation.
• Detaching a groove from a clip: not possible through the API; prefer swing_clip.
• Open dialogs in Live (including trial reminders) block the script until closed.

Privacy and security

Nothing leaves your computer: no usage data is collected (see TERMS.md). The Remote Script listens on 127.0.0.1:9877 only and has no authentication — never forward that port. Your MCP client and model provider handle your prompts under their own terms. See SECURITY.md.

Development

pip install -e ".[dev]"
pytest
ruff check .
python -m MCP_Server.remote_script_install --sync-bundle   # after editing AbletonMCP_Remote_Script/

The Live-side studio_ext.py hot-reloads without restarting Live (copy it next to the installed script and send ext_reload_studio). See CONTRIBUTING.md and CHANGELOG.md.

License

MIT — see LICENSE. Original work © Siddharth Ahuja; LiveSession MCP © Uri Rosen.