iltempe/openband

🇬🇧 English · 🇮🇹 Italiano · 🌐 Website · 💡 Suggest a feature
An open-source, GarageBand-style music studio that runs in your browser — and that your AI can play too, through the Model Context Protocol (MCP).
Ask your AI (Claude, ChatGPT, Gemini, or a local model) “make a lo-fi beat at 82 BPM in D minor with drums, bass and Rhodes, then loop it” and watch the tracks, notes and mixer move in real time. Or just play: tracks, piano roll, step sequencer, 15 synthesized instruments, mixer, effects, plugins, microphone recording.
## Get started
Pick the way that suits you. None of them needs a clone or a build.
| | You have | Do this |
| 🎹 Just try it | a browser | Open the live demo and press 🎲 Surprise me |
| 🖥 Desktop app | macOS, Windows or Linux | Download it: the studio in its own window, connected to Claude in one click |
| 🤖 Claude Desktop | Claude Desktop | ⬇ Download openband.mcpb, double-click it, choose Install |
| 💻 Claude Code, Cursor, VS Code | Node 18+ | Run the command below |
| 🔑 An AI of your choice | a browser | Demo → AI panel → AI model: Claude, OpenAI, Gemini with your key, or a free model on your computer with Ollama |
The command (Claude Code, Cursor, VS Code, or Claude Desktop without the extension) — it finds the AI clients on your computer and adds OpenBand to them, asking first and keeping a backup of each file it changes:
bash
npx -y --allow-remote=all https://github.com/iltempe/openband/releases/latest/download/openband.tgz setup
Then restart your AI client and ask it for a song: the studio opens in your browser by itself. Prefer to do it by hand? For Claude Code it is claude mcp add openband -- npx -y --allow-remote=all https://github.com/iltempe/openband/releases/latest/download/openband.tgz mcp; the JSON for other clients is in docs/CONNECT.md. The same command without setup just opens the studio, and with doctor checks that everything is in place.
> Why not npx openband? The npm name openband belongs to someone else, so OpenBand is installed from its GitHub Releases. --allow-remote=all lets npm 12 (Node 26) download a package from a URL; older npm versions ignore it.
Any AI. In the page the chat runs Claude, OpenAI's models, Gemini or a local model with Ollama, with the same tools MCP clients get; the key stays in your browser and requests go straight to the provider. Over MCP, OpenBand works with Claude Desktop, Claude Code, Codex, Gemini CLI, Cursor, VS Code, claude.ai and ChatGPT's developer mode: see docs/AI-MODELS.md.
## Your first song
1. Start from music. On the first screen press 🎲 Surprise me (an 8-bar loop with drums and bass, no AI needed), 🎤 Hum an idea (sing 4 bars, get a melody with chords and a beat) or pick one of 8 Example songs. A 5-step tour shows you around, and ? lists every shortcut.
2. Ask your AI. Try:
> Make a lo-fi beat at 82 BPM in D minor with drums, bass and Rhodes, then start the loop.
> Add a warm tube overdrive to the bass and a wide reverb to the pad, then open the overdrive so I can tweak it.
> Give me 4 bass lines as takes and start a blind test.
3. Change anything by hand. Drag regions, edit notes in the piano roll (E), mix (X), add effects (F). Everything the AI did for one request is a single undo step.