ismail

A DAW built to be operated by an AI agent. Everything goes in as text (notes, instrument patches, effect chains, automation) and everything comes back as text: levels, spectra, drum patterns, piano rolls, chords, vowels, song structure, and structured comparisons against a reference track. The agent never needs ears or images to work (a spectrogram PNG is there if you want one).

One set of operations, three ways in:

• MCP server for Claude Code, Cursor or any MCP client: python -m ismail.mcp_server (stdio, about 70 tools)

• CLI: python -m ismail -p <project> <op> [args]

• Python: from ismail import api

Install

Python 3.10 or newer.

git clone https://github.com/newsbubbles/ismail
cd ismail
pip install -e .                      # engine, analysis, CLI, MCP server
pip install -e ".[perceptual]"        # optional: CLAP perceptual metric (torch + transformers, model about 600 MB)
pip install -e ".[separate]"          # optional: demucs stem separation for reference tracks

If demucs fights your torch install, use pip install --no-deps demucs and then pip install dora-search einops julius lameenc openunmix.

MP3 previews need ffmpeg on your PATH (or set ISMAIL_FFMPEG to the binary).

Related MCP server: opendaw-mcp

Use it with Claude Code

1. Tools. Open Claude Code in this folder and the bundled .mcp.json registers the server; the tools show up as mcp__ismail__*. To use ismail from any folder instead:

   claude mcp add -s user ismail -- python -m ismail.mcp_server

2. Skill (recommended). skills/ismail teaches the agent how to compose with ismail: plan a Session Sheet before writing notes, write a Listening Report after every render, and judge reference matches with the comparison tools instead of by feel. Link it into your skills folder:

   # macOS / Linux
   ln -s "$(pwd)/skills/ismail" ~/.claude/skills/ismail

   # Windows
   New-Item -ItemType Junction -Path "$env:USERPROFILE\.claude\skills\ismail" -Target "$PWD\skills\ismail"

3. Ask for music. For example: "make a 16 bar deep house loop in F minor in songs/demo and render an mp3". The agent calls guide once for the conventions (it is a tool and a CLI op), then works through the tools.

Use it with Cursor

1. Tools. Opening this folder in Cursor picks up .cursor/mcp.json. To use ismail in other projects, add the same entry to ~/.cursor/mcp.json:

   {"mcpServers": {"ismail": {"command": "python", "args": ["-m", "ismail.mcp_server"]}}}

2. Skill. .cursor/rules/ismail.mdc is an agent-requested rule that points Cursor's agent at skills/ismail/SKILL.md. Copy that rule (and the skills/ismail folder) into another project to use it there.

Any other MCP client works the same way: run python -m ismail.mcp_server over stdio.

Quick start (CLI)

Every tool is also a CLI op. Arguments are key=value pairs (values parsed as JSON when they can be) or one JSON object.

python -m ismail guide                                # read first: workflow and conventions
python -m ismail ops                                  # list operations
python -m ismail help notes_write                     # one op's arguments and docs
python -m ismail -p songs/demo project_new bpm=124 length_bars=8
python -m ismail -p songs/demo track_add name=bass instrument='"preset:acid_bass"'
python -m ismail -p songs/demo notes_write '{"track": "bass", "bar": 1, "notes": "0 E2 0.5 110; 0.5 E3 0.25", "repeat": 8}'
python -m ismail -p songs/demo render stems=true out=v1 mp3=also
python -m ismail -p songs/demo analyze_melody source=track:bass bars=[1,2]

render writes renders/latest.wav (every analysis tool reads it), plus renders/<out>.wav when you name the render. mp3='also' adds renders/<out>.mp3 for listening; mp3='only' writes the named render as mp3 only.

Keep your projects under songs/ (git-ignored) or anywhere else; a project is just a folder.

Concepts

• Project: a folder with project.json (tempo, grid offset, tracks, buses, master, sound bank, reference) plus sounds/, renders/, cache/, history/ (undo snapshots) and comparisons/.

• Time: bars are 1-indexed; note times are beats relative to the bar you write at. offset_sec is the time of bar 1, so a project can sit exactly on a reference recording's grid.

• Notes: '<beat> <pitch> <dur> [vel]', one per line or ;-separated. Drum and step patterns: pattern_write with strings like X...x...X...x... (X 127, x 100, o 70, - 45, _ ties).

• Instruments: synth (saw, square, pulse, triangle, sine, additive, wavetable and noise oscillators, unison, FM, drive, SVF and ladder filters, envelopes, LFOs, mono glide), sampler, drum synths (kick, snare, hat, clap, tom, noise_hit), kit (pitch to instrument map) and code (a Python voice function for anything else). presets_list has starting points.

• Effects: eq, filter, distortion, bitcrush, compressor (with sidechain), duck, gate, delay, reverb, chorus, flanger, phaser, tremolo/autopan, width, limiter, vocoder, formant. Tracks, buses and the master fader can be automated.

• Voices: engineered instruments kept as Python modules, so a project stores a name instead of code (see below).

• Sound bank: sounds made from any instrument and effect chain (sound_make), speech (sound_speak), imported files, and averaged events cut from a recording (sound_extract). Bank sounds work as sampler sources, wavetables, vocoder modulators and audio clips.

• Undo and batch: every edit snapshots the project (undo); batch applies a list of ops atomically.

Voices: instruments as code

Some instruments are easier to write than to patch: a measured grand piano, a dubstep bass whose note velocity picks the articulation, a set of sound effects. These live as voice modules, Python files that define voice(freq, t, vel, gate, sr) and return a mono or stereo array.

Use one with instrument={"type": "code", "voice": "grand_piano", "tail": 4.0} or "preset:grand_piano". voices_list shows what is available and voice_help(name) explains a voice's velocity mapping, functions and parameters.

Voices are looked up in this order:

1. <project>/voices/<name>.py: the song's own. Same name as a built-in overrides it; a song voice can also extend one (from ismail.voices.growl import *, then add words or articulations).

2. Each folder in $ISMAIL_VOICES (a path list): your personal library, outside any repo.

3. ismail/voices/: the built-ins.

A voice function may take extra keyword arguments: bpm is passed automatically, and the track's "params" dict is passed as keywords ({"type": "code", "voice": "mine", "params": {"brightness": 0.3}}). A module-level INFO dict documents it for voice_help. Data files sit next to the module (grand_piano.json) and are found through __file__. Editing a voice file invalidates the render cache for the tracks that use it.

To add a voice to the library, move it from a song's voices/ folder into ismail/voices/, give it an INFO dict, and add a line to the test that renders every built-in.

Hearing: audio as text

Sources are render, track:<name> (after render(stems=True)), ref, ref:<stem>, sound:<name> or a file path.

Recreating a reference track

Bring your own reference audio (project_new(..., reference=<file>)); none is included here.

1. analyze_grid(source='ref'), then align a rendered drum track against ref:drums and correct offset_sec.

2. separate(source='ref') (demucs) and read analyze_structure(source='ref').

3. Transcribe with notes_from_audio_loop. It keeps only notes that recur across repetitions of the loop, because raw transcription copies echoes, leakage and distortion partials as hard notes. If the song alternates versions of its loop, transcribe each from its own repetitions and pass base_bars so the shared notes stay identical.

4. Design sounds: sound_extract a repeated hit or stab, then instrument_fit (evolution strategy over instrument and effect parameters, scored on spectrum, envelope, width and pitch clarity). track_fit tunes a part in context against the reference stem.

5. stem_map_set, render(stems=True), cmp_run, then drill down: cmp_summary, cmp_arrangement, cmp_sections, cmp_worst, cmp_bars, cmp_zoom(bar). cmp_list tracks progress across runs.

How comparisons score

Every metric sits between two baselines computed from the reference alone: the reference against itself one loop later (its own natural variation, closeness 1) and against itself half a loop out of place (plausible but wrong, closeness 0). Metrics are grouped, and the groups count equally:

• notes: F1 of sounding notes per 16th step, exact pitch and pitch class

• rhythm: F1 and precision of note starts, drum lane hits

• clean: clutter (attacks sharper than the reference), loop self-consistency, loudness share of extra note starts

• sound: band levels, level, transient sharpness, level contour inside the bar

• perceptual: CLAP audio embedding similarity per 2-bar window

The perceptual group exists because the others can all look fine while the result still sounds different, and the clean group exists because note metrics reward clutter. Use cmp_run(stems='demucs') at checkpoints so your render goes through the same separation as the reference. Any change to the scoring should be checked against a known-bad and a known-good draft before you trust it.

Tests

python -m pytest tests -q

Round trips: write known material, render it, read it back through the analysis tools.

Layout

ismail/
  notation.py    note text, step patterns, piano roll
  dsp.py         oscillators, filters, dynamics, delay lines, reverb (numba)
  instruments.py synth, sampler, drums, kit, code
  fx.py          effects
  render.py      project to audio, dependency ordering, per-track cache, wav/mp3 writers
  analysis.py    audio to text (grid, bars, chords, melody, drums, timbre, formants, compare)
  features.py    16th-step feature grid shared by structure and comparisons
  structure.py   arrangement map, sections, loop detection
  cmp.py         stored comparisons and their views
  perceptual.py  CLAP similarity
  sounddesign.py one-shot rendering, sound distance, parameter fitting
  trackfit.py    in-context fitting against a reference stem
  voices/        voice modules: grand_piano, additive_piano, growl, sfx
  api.py, api_cmp.py, api_sound.py   the operations (CLI and MCP tools)
  mcp_server.py, guide.py
skills/ismail/   the agent skill (SKILL.md + references)
.mcp.json, .cursor/   MCP and rule config for Claude Code and Cursor
songs/           your projects (git-ignored)

License

MIT, see LICENSE.