| name | produce-beat |
| description | Produce a beat in Ableton Live via kbot. Use when user says "make me a beat", "produce a [genre] beat", "build a track at [bpm]", or mentions trap, hip-hop, soul, drill, lo-fi, house, drum, 808, bpm, produce, kick pattern, hi-hat roll. Pipeline goes idea → progression → drum rack → MIDI → fire. |
produce-beat
What this is
The end-to-end "produce me a [genre] beat at [bpm]" workflow. Composes kbot's music tools
with the ableton_* bridge into a single pipeline. The user gets a playable session, not a
plan.
Pre-flight
Same as the ableton-control skill — Ableton Live 12 open, kbot-control.amxd loaded on a
track, TCP bridge running. If any of those are missing, surface that first.
The pipeline
For a typical request like "make me a 90s soul beat at 88 BPM in C minor":
mcp__kbot__music_idea — generate the conceptual brief (drum feel, instrumentation,
key/tempo confirm, reference tracks). Pass genre, bpm, key. Output is a dict the
next steps consume.mcp__kbot__ableton_transport with bpm=88 — set the session tempo before any
clips are written.mcp__kbot__ableton_create_progression on a new MIDI track — write the harmonic
bed (key=Cm, quality=min7, bars=8).mcp__kbot__ableton_build_drum_rack on a second MIDI track — load samples that
match the genre. The tool picks from the user's library
(reference_ableton_library_inventory.md documents 9000+ presets, 7300+ samples).mcp__kbot__generate_drum_pattern — produce a MIDI pattern the genre expects (trap
hi-hat rolls, soul break, drill skips).mcp__kbot__ableton_midi — write that pattern into clip slot 0 of the drum track.mcp__kbot__ableton_clip action=fire on both tracks — start playback.
The user hears the beat at this point. Subsequent edits (swap snares, raise the hat density,
add a bass) are individual ableton_* calls.
Concrete invocation
music_idea genre=soul bpm=88 key=Cm
ableton_transport action=set_tempo bpm=88
ableton_create_track type=midi name=keys
ableton_create_progression track=keys key=Cm quality=min7 bars=8
ableton_create_track type=midi name=drums
ableton_build_drum_rack track=drums style=soul-vintage
generate_drum_pattern style=soul bars=4
ableton_midi track=drums clip=0 pattern=<from above>
ableton_clip track=keys clip=0 action=fire
ableton_clip track=drums clip=0 action=fire
Genre presets that work
The following styles have tested templates in packages/kbot/src/knowledge/:
- trap (140–170 BPM) — 808 bass + sparse kick + dense hi-hat rolls
- hip-hop boom-bap (85–95 BPM) — sampled drums, swung hat, deep kick
- soul-vintage (75–95 BPM) — Mark1 Stage piano, breakbeat drums, FX chain on drums
- drill (140–150 BPM, half-time feel) — sliding 808s, skip hat patterns
- lo-fi (75–90 BPM) — vinyl noise, jazz chords, soft kit
- house (118–128 BPM) — four-on-the-floor, off-beat hat, plucky bass
Output expectation
A playing Ableton session, not a description. If a tool fails (preset not found, sample
missing), surface the failure with the exact tool error. The user fixes it (add the
preset / install Splice pack) and re-runs the failing step.
