Claude Code

Use Producer Pal with Anthropic's command line coding assistant.

Requirements

Download Max for Live DeviceProducer_Pal.amxd — add it to a MIDI track in Ableton Live

• Ableton Live 12.3+ with Max for Live. Live 12.4 or later is recommended — some features don't work on older versions of Live. Use the version of Max bundled with Live, or make sure your standalone Max is up to date.

• Node.js 20+

• Claude Code (requires Anthropic account, and a paid subscription at time of writing)

Installation Steps

1. Install the Max for Live Device

Download Producer_Pal.amxd, the Producer Pal Max for Live device, and add it to a MIDI track in Ableton Live:

It should display "Producer Pal Running" or something isn't working.

2. Configure Claude Code

Option A: With npx (recommended) - Allows flexible startup order and auto-reconnection:

claude mcp add producer-pal npx producer-pal

Scripting or building against Producer Pal?

If you'll have the agent write code that generates or parses Producer Pal data — building MIDI programmatically, or piping tool output through JSON tooling — add --format json --notation midi-json (the -- separates them from claude mcp add's own options):

claude mcp add producer-pal -- npx producer-pal --format json --notation midi-json

--format json returns standard JSON instead of the token-optimized compact form, and midi-json represents notes as a JSON array the agent can generate and read directly.

For a normal music-making conversation, keep the defaults (compact output, bar|beat notation) — they use fewer tokens and the agent reads them fine.

Both are global device settings, so they also change what the chat UI and any other connected clients see.

Option B: Direct HTTP - Requires Ableton running first, no auto-reconnection:

claude mcp add --transport http producer-pal http://localhost:3350/mcp

3. Start Claude Code

Run claude in an empty folder (so it can focus on Producer Pal instead of coding)

4. Verify Tools

Run /mcp in Claude Code to confirm the Producer Pal tools are available:

5. Start Using Producer Pal

1. Start a conversation with "connect to ableton"
2. Allow Producer Pal tools to be used when Claude tries to use them:

Troubleshooting

If it doesn't work, see the Troubleshooting Guide.