sonovault-mcp

MCP server for the SonoVault music metadata API. Gives Claude, Cursor, and any MCP client search across 93M+ tracks, artists, labels, and releases, with full metadata per result: genre, BPM, musical key, label, release dates, artist credits, ISRC and ISWC codes, and cross-platform IDs (Spotify, Apple Music, Tidal, Beatport, Discogs, MusicBrainz, YouTube).

Ask your assistant things like:

• "What releases did mau5trap put out this year?"

• "Find Daft Punk's Veridis Quo and give me its genre, label, and ISRC"

• "What key and BPM is One More Time, and which tracks on Discovery mix well with it?"

• "Show me the tracklist of Discovery with ISRCs"

• "What's the Spotify and Beatport ID for ISRC GBDUW0000053?"

• "Resolve this play log to ISRCs and labels" (paste up to 100 lines)

• "List every recording of ISWC T-071.020.439-9"

Setup

You need a SonoVault API key. The free tier is 1,000 requests/month, no credit card: get a key.

Claude Desktop

Add to claude_desktop_config.json:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "sonovault": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "sonovault-mcp"],
      "env": { "SONOVAULT_API_KEY": "svk_live_..." }
    }
  }
}

Claude Code

claude mcp add sonovault -e SONOVAULT_API_KEY=svk_live_... -- npx -y sonovault-mcp

Cursor

Add to ~/.cursor/mcp.json (or .cursor/mcp.json in your project):

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "sonovault": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "sonovault-mcp"],
      "env": { "SONOVAULT_API_KEY": "svk_live_..." }
    }
  }
}

VS Code (GitHub Copilot)

Add to .vscode/mcp.json:

{
  "servers": {
    "sonovault": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "sonovault-mcp"],
      "env": { "SONOVAULT_API_KEY": "svk_live_..." }
    }
  }
}

Windsurf

Add the same mcpServers block as Claude Desktop to ~/.codeium/windsurf/mcp_config.json.

Other MCP clients

Any client that speaks MCP over stdio works. Command: npx -y sonovault-mcp with the SONOVAULT_API_KEY environment variable set.

Related MCP server: Verified Human MCP Server

Tools

All tools are read-only. Most work on the free tier; browse_tracks needs a paid plan.

Example workflows

Enrich a radio play log for royalty reporting

Paste a play log with just artist and title, and ask: "Resolve these to ISRC, album, and label, and give me a table I can map onto a SoundExchange Report of Use." The assistant calls resolve_tracks once per 100 lines and returns the identifiers collecting societies match on. Works the same for PPL, Sena, GVL, and Re:Sound reporting.

Clean up a DJ library

"Here are 50 tracks from my rekordbox export. Find the canonical version of each, flag duplicates that share an ISRC, and tag each with its genre, BPM and key." The assistant combines resolve_tracks with the genre, tempo and key fields on each result.

Bridge recordings to compositions

"I have ISRCs from my distributor. Which musical works do they belong to, and what other recordings exist of each work?" The assistant chains get_work_codes and get_recordings_of_work. Useful for publishing administration and cover/version research.

Check cross-platform availability

"Is this Beatport exclusive on Spotify yet? Beatport ID 6014288." One get_platform_links call answers it, with deep links per platform.

Research a label

"Summarize what Anjunabeats released in the last six months, grouped by subgenre." The assistant pages through get_label_releases and pulls genre from the tracklists.

FAQ

Is there a free tier?

Yes. A free SonoVault key includes 1,000 requests/month with no credit card. Every tool except browse_tracks works on it.

What metadata does each track include?

Title, artist credits (with primary/remixer flags), ISRC, duration, BPM, musical key, genre and subgenre, and per-release album title, label, and release date. ISWC work codes come from the dedicated work-code tools.

Does it return BPM or musical key?

Yes. Every track carries bpm (full tempo, up to 2 decimals, so 174 rather than 87) and its musical key in three notations:

• key_alphanumeric: 1 to 12 plus A for minor or B for major, e.g. 10B. Neighbouring numbers and the same number with the other letter mix harmonically.

• key_musical: standard notation, e.g. D, Am, F#m, Ebm.

• key_open: Open Key notation, lowercase, e.g. 3d, 1m.

keys lists every key held for the track, one entry per source. Key comes from OpenKeyScan and BPM from the Lexicon DJ beat detector (trusted by 100k+ DJs), both run by SonoVault on the audio. Daft Punk's One More Time comes back as 123 BPM, 10B / D / 3d. All of these are null (and keys empty) for a track that has not been analysed yet. Other audio features such as energy or danceability are not exposed.

Where does the data come from?

Aggregated and deduplicated from MusicBrainz, Discogs, Spotify, Apple Music, Tidal, and Beatport, with ISWC links from The MLC. Details: sonovault.now/data-sources.

How is this different from a Spotify API integration?

Single-platform APIs return their own IDs only. SonoVault resolves one recording to its IDs on all seven supported platforms, keyed by ISRC, and adds identifiers (ISRC, ISWC) that platform APIs don't expose. Comparison: sonovault.now/compare/spotify-api.

Is my API key sent anywhere besides SonoVault?

No. The server runs locally over stdio and sends your key only to api.sonovault.now as a request header. The code is small and auditable: src/server.ts.

Agent Skill

Not using MCP? skill/SKILL.md is an Agent Skill that teaches any agent to call the SonoVault API directly over HTTP: search rules, ISRC/ISWC recipes, bulk resolution, and error handling.

Related

• SonoVault API docs

• sonovault-js and sonovault-python, the client SDKs (this server is built on sonovault-js)

License

MIT