LM Studio

Use Producer Pal completely offline without an Internet connection.

Experimental

This requires a relatively new machine with decent specs (Apple Silicon with lots of RAM or PCs with Nvidia 4080+ graphics cards). It requires more technical know-how to setup and debug. The online options work significantly better and faster at the time of writing. However, completely offline and private usage is compelling.

Requirements

• Ableton Live 12.2+ with Max for Live
• LM Studio

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. Enable Small Model Mode (Optional but Recommended)

In Producer Pal's "Setup" tab, enable "Small Model Mode":

This option is disabled by default and must be enabled each time you add Producer Pal to Live.

3. Install a Compatible Model

Install a compatible model in LM Studio, such as:

• Qwen 3+ (4b-2507, 4b-thinking-2507)
• OpenAI GPT-OSS (20B)
• Mistral AI Magistral (small-2509)
• Granite 4+ (4.0-h-tiny)

4. Configure LM Studio

Setup Producer Pal in LM Studio Settings → Program → Integrations → edit mcp.json:

Option A: With npx (recommended):

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "producer-pal": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "producer-pal"]
    }
  }
}

Option B: Direct HTTP:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "producer-pal": {
      "url": "http://localhost:3350/mcp"
    }
  }
}

Option C: Download portal script:

Download producer-pal-portal.js and configure:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "producer-pal": {
      "command": "node",
      "args": ["/absolute/path/to/producer-pal-portal.js"]
    }
  }
}

5. Verify Tools

Confirm the Producer Pal tools are listed under Settings → Program:

See below for tips on using a subset of tools.

6. Start Using Producer Pal

1. Start a conversation with Producer Pal MCP active and say "connect to ableton"
2. If you didn't enable "Allow all" under Settings → Program, then allow Producer Pal tools in the conversation:

Local Model Tips

• A context length of about 8k (8000) is needed to start a conversation with Producer Pal and send a few messages.

• A context length of 16k (16000) or higher is recommended for achieving useful results, but higher context lengths can make the model run significantly slower, especially as the conversation grows. Experiment to find the right balance.

• To help the model make good tool choices and get more out of the limited context length, disable some of the Producer Pal tools. To focus on MIDI clip generation, a good minimal toolset for experimentation is:

  • ppal-connect
  • ppal-read-live-set
  • ppal-read-track
  • ppal-create-clip
  • ppal-delete
  • ppal-playback

  Try disabling all the other tools and add back when you miss features.

• Experiment with empty or extremely simple Live projects

• Only work with very simple material (e.g. basic MIDI patterns in clips 4 bars or shorter)

• Note that small models are guided to delete and start over rather make edits (other than simple additions)

• If the AI struggles and makes mistakes, don't hesitate to delete recent messages from the chat, edit your last message, and try again. Don't waste tokens correcting the LLM. Back up and avoid the issue or try something else.

• Shut down every other app you don't need to be running

• Consider running Ableton Live on a different machine on the local network

• When using a model with the GGUF engine, try enabling the advanced/experimental settings for Flash Attention and setting the K/V caches' quantization to Q8 or Q4.

• Research how to optimize for your specific machine / GPU hardware

Advanced: Customizing Skills

Local models vary widely in capabilities. First, try enabling "Small Model Mode" in Producer Pal's Setup tab (see installation step 2 above) - this uses a simplified instruction set designed for smaller models.

If Small Model Mode isn't working well for you, or you want to experiment further, you can customize Producer Pal's behavior for your specific model:

1. Download this repository and follow the dev setup and build instructions in DEVELOPERS.md
2. Edit src/skills/basic.js - the skills file used by Small Model Mode (or edit src/skills/standard.js to adjust regular mode)
3. Experiment with instruction wording, remove features your model struggles with, or adjust the guidance
4. Rebuild with npm run build
5. Use the development version of Producer_pal.amxd in Ableton Live
6. Reload your Producer Pal MCP server in LM Studio and start a new conversation

Share your findings: If you discover configurations that work well for specific models, please share in GitHub Discussions. The community benefits from learning what works with different local models.

Troubleshooting

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

Note: You can also use LM Studio with Producer Pal's built-in chat UI.