resolve-audio

name	resolve-audio
description	Audio and Fairlight work in the DaVinci Resolve MCP. Apply when setting audio properties, syncing audio, isolating voice, generating subtitles, planning Fairlight track/bus layouts, checking loudness, routing buses, or splitting/trimming/converting audio — live in a running Resolve OR offline. Routes to the live audio tools, the offline audio planning/bus-routing tools, and the Fairlight kernel.

Resolve Audio / Fairlight — Claude Code Skill

Thin router; depth stays in the kernel.

• Live tool mechanics — docs/kernels/audio-fairlight-kernel.md (the timeline audio/Fairlight boundary).
• Offline planning + bus routing — resolve-advanced/README.md → audio_plan, fairlight, audio.

Two servers — plan/measure offline, apply live

Job	Server	Tools
Audio on a running timeline	davinci-resolve (Python, live)	timeline (`probe_audio_item
Plan tracks / route buses / edit audio files with no Resolve open	davinci-resolve-advanced (Node)	audio_plan, fairlight, audio

Offline

• audio_plan (pure Node) — list_templates, select_template, track_plan, analyze_coverage, check_loudness (R128 −23 / ATSC −24 / streaming −14 targets). Plan the layout before building it live.
• fairlight — bus routing has no scripting API; it patches the FLStudioModelBA blob. read_buses_from_blob (offline); read_buses_from_db, expand_buses, export_template/import_template, backup, restore (DB path — needs better-sqlite3; project CLOSED + quit/relaunch like other DB patches).
• audio — offline ffmpeg: split (silence/TC/intervals), trim, convert (needs ffmpeg on PATH — GPL, not bundled). Align/loudness-measure not yet vendored.

Live: loudness contracts and the silence gate

• Named loudness standards live with the delivery targets, not here: render(action='list_loudness_standards') → web, podcast, ebu_r128, atsc_a85, ott_dialogue_gated. Attach one to a delivery target and hand the emitted loudness_target.target to advanced loudness_qc. See the delivery skill for why dialogue-gated standards assert true peak only.
• plan_silence_ripple calibrates its own gate. Omit threshold_db and the threshold is measured from that clip's own dynamics (astats trough vs peak), per item, reported in calibrations[]. A fixed −30 dB under-detects on quiet location sound and over-cuts a noisy room.
• When trough and peak are not separated, no threshold distinguishes speech from room: the item is kept whole and the reason surfaced, rather than stripped against an unvalidated gate. A −30 dB default applied to a −33 dB programme reads as silent end to end and would remove the entire clip.
• Pass threshold_db explicitly to override; it is honoured untouched.

Gotchas

• Timeline audio SetProperty (e.g. Volume) can return false for some generated item types; AutoSyncAudio depends on media + Resolve's sync engine.
• The public API does not expose Fairlight mix automation curves or plugin graphs — use fairlight for bus structure, not automation.
• The whole-mix preset workaround is version-gated, and it is the only write path there is. Per-parameter Fairlight control does not exist at any version; what exists is GetFairlightPresets + ApplyFairlightPresetToCurrentTimeline, which apply a saved mix wholesale. Both require Resolve 20.2.2+ and are absent on 19.1.3 (confirmed live). So on an older build the per-parameter gap is the entire story and there is no workaround to offer — check with resolve_control check_version_support before proposing one, and say the build is too old rather than suggesting a call that will not be there.
• The AI Audio Assistant (one-click auto-mix) is not scriptable on any build — no method exists on Resolve, Project, Timeline or TimelineItem (issue #128). Presets cover the repeatable-template case, never the content-adaptive one.

Never modify/transcode/derive source media (AGENTS.md) — the offline audio ops write NEW files to scratch, never over source.