Space Dust connector

Lets someone shape Space Dust presets by describing the sound they want, instead of by turning knobs or editing files. They say "make the bass darker and give it more bite"; Claude reads the preset, changes the right parameters, and tells them what it did.

Space Dust is a subtractive synthesiser plugin (VST3 / AU / standalone, built with JUCE). This is a companion, not part of the plugin — install the synth first.

Works with the Space Dust you already have installed. Presets are plain XML files, so nothing here needs the plugin's source code or a rebuild.

Install

Requires Space Dust and uv.

git clone https://github.com/jwang47/Space_Dust_Synthesizer_MCP.git
uv tool install ./Space_Dust_Synthesizer_MCP

Then add it to Claude Code:

claude mcp add space-dust -- spacedust-mcp

For the Claude desktop app, add it under Settings → Developer → Edit Config:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "space-dust": { "command": "spacedust-mcp" }
  }
}

Restart Claude afterwards. Nothing leaves the machine — the server only reads and writes files in the user's own preset folder.

Related MCP server: MCP Synth Controller

What the user can do

• "What have I got in Space Dust?" — lists their presets

• "What's going on in Dub Mew Bass?" — reads a preset back in plain language

• "Make me a bass like that one but darker and punchier" — creates a new preset

• "Too muddy, back off the low end" — adjusts what they're currently playing

• "Actually, undo that" — restores the previous version

• "What's different between these two?" — compares presets

Changes to the preset the plugin currently has loaded are picked up on their own within a second, so the user can keep playing while iterating. A newly created preset still has to be selected once from the preset menu.

Live adjustment needs a plugin build that includes PresetHotReload — it publishes the current sound to ~/Library/Application Support/Space Dust/current.sdpreset and watches the loaded preset for external edits. Against older builds every other tool still works; the user just re-selects the preset to hear a change.

Tools

The server's instructions teach Claude the synth's signal flow and how to translate musician language ("wobblier", "more space", "punchier") into parameter moves, so the user never has to learn a parameter name.

Safety rails

These exist because the model, not the user, is choosing the values:

• Unknown parameter ids are rejected with close matches, never silently ignored.

• Out-of-range numbers are clamped to the plugin's real range and reported.

• Switch and menu parameters only accept their actual values (on/off, Low Pass).

• Preset names can't contain path separators, so writes stay in the preset folder.

• create_preset refuses to overwrite an existing preset.

• Every adjust_preset snapshots the previous version first — up to 30 per preset, in ~/Library/Application Support/Space Dust/history/.

• Presets are always written with all 206 parameters. APVTS::replaceState leaves omitted parameters at their current value, so a partial preset would inherit whatever the plugin happened to have loaded.

Keeping the schema current

Parameter ranges, defaults and choice names live in data/schema.json, generated by parsing createParameterLayout() in the plugin source. Regenerate it whenever the plugin's parameter list changes:

uv run python -m spacedust_mcp.source_parser /path/to/Source/PluginProcessor.cpp

The default path assumes the two repos sit side by side; SPACE_DUST_SOURCE overrides it.

End users never run this — they get the generated file in the package. Longer term the plugin should export this itself at build time, so the two can't drift.

Tests

uv run pytest