Control Ableton Live with Natural Language (MCP Setup)

Today, I stumbled across an Ableton Live MCP server that lets AI agents like Claude or Codex control Ableton using natural language.

For example, you can ask things like:

• Create a MIDI track with a drum rack
• Add a reverb to the current track
• Launch scene 3

The project lives here:

GitHub - ahujasid/ableton-mcp

Contribute to ahujasid/ableton-mcp development by creating an account on GitHub.

GitHubahujasid

I’m not sure if this is a limitation of the software, but I need to investigate why it can find and configure Ableton’s built-in plugins and instruments but not third-party plugins.

Below are the commands I used to install it on macOS.

1. Install uv (required)

This project uses uv to run the MCP server.

If you don’t already have it installed, this script installs it automatically.

if ! command -v uv >/dev/null 2>&1; then
  echo "uv not found — installing..."
  curl -LsSf https://astral.sh/uv/install.sh | sh
  export PATH="$HOME/.local/bin:$PATH"
fi

2. Install the Ableton Remote Script

mkdir -p "$HOME/Music/Ableton/User Library/Remote Scripts/AbletonMCP"

curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/ahujasid/ableton-mcp/main/AbletonMCP_Remote_Script/__init__.py \
  -o "$HOME/Music/Ableton/User Library/Remote Scripts/AbletonMCP/__init__.py"

3. Register the MCP server

I use Claude and Codex so set them both up.

claude mcp add --scope user AbletonMCP -- uvx ableton-mcp
codex mcp add AbletonMCP -- uvx ableton-mcp

4. Configure Ableton Live

Launch Ableton Live, then go to:

Settings → Link, Tempo & MIDI

Set:

Control Surface: AbletonMCP
Input: None
Output: None

Windows note

If you’re on Windows, you may want to review this issue before installing.

The Remote Script path may differ, and installing into the User Library may not work on some systems.