daw

DAW MCP turns Claude into a bridge for your DAW workflow. It lets you converse with Claude to read, create, and modify MIDI clips in real time, enabling you to sketch ideas from scratch, expand existing ideas, and apply harmonic or rhythmic variations directly within your preferred DAW (Bitwig or Ableton via the provided extensions). The system supports cross-DAW transfer, so you can read notes from one DAW and write them into another to compare ideas quickly. Typical usage involves starting Claude, opening a MIDI clip in your DAW, and asking Claude to perform actions like extending a loop, adding a chord progression, creating a counter-m melody, or generating Euclidean rhythm patterns. The prompts shown in the README illustrate common tasks such as generating a 4-bar chord progression, extending a 2-bar loop to 8 bars, or creating multiple variations for quick comparison. The underlying MCP server translates Claude requests into DAW-specific commands via the Bitwig/Ableton extensions, enabling a hands-off, AI-assisted music production workflow.

Prerequisites:

• Node.js 18+ installed on your machine
• Claude Desktop or Claude Code (for interacting with the MCP server)
• Bitwig Studio and/or Ableton Live (optional if you only explore via the included demonstrations)

Step-by-step:

1. Download and extract the DAW MCP package for the project (daw-mcp).
2. Locate the mcp-server.js file in the extracted folder. Note its full path, as you will point Claude to it.
3. Ensure you have Node.js installed and accessible from your command line.
4. Run the MCP server locally to verify it starts without errors:

node /full/path/to/mcp-server.js

5. Configure Claude to connect to the MCP server:

• Claude Desktop (macOS/Linux): add an entry under mcpServers with command: "node" and args: ["/full/path/to/mcp-server.js"], transport: "stdio".
• Claude Desktop (Windows): set command to "cmd" and args to ["/c", "node", "C:\path\to\mcp-server.js"], transport: "stdio".
• Claude Code: add a similar entry in your claude.json with command: "node" and args: ["/full/path/to/mcp-server.js"], transport: "stdio".

6. Restart Claude after adding the MCP server configuration.
7. Open your DAW (Bitwig or Ableton) and ensure the DAW extensions are installed if you plan to use full bridge features. You can still start interacting with Claude to test the basic translation layer even without the DAW extensions installed.

Optional: If you plan to run in a different environment, update the mcp-server.js path in the configuration to point to the correct location. For production usage, consider packaging the server or running it behind a process manager like pm2 for reliability.

Tips and common considerations:

• The MCP server operates on a local bridge between Claude and your DAW extensions; port references in the README indicate how the bridge maps to DAW environments (Bitwig on one port, Ableton on another).
• Ensure the DAW extensions (BitwigMCP, AbletonMCP) are installed in the correct locations for stable communication.
• The current limitations emphasize that this setup is clip-based (Session/Launcher view) and not real-time audio processing. Plan your workflows accordingly.
• If Claude cannot reach the MCP server, verify that the path to mcp-server.js is correct and that Node is accessible from your terminal. Also confirm that the transport is set to stdio in Claude’s configuration.
• Firewall settings may be needed on Windows when using local network bridges; allow private network access for the local host as indicated in the instructions.
• The system supports cross-DAW operations, enabling you to read content from one DAW and write to another for quick experimentation. When troubleshooting cross-DAW transfers, confirm both DAW extensions are loaded and the MCP server is reachable from Claude.