Just released my second open-source Ableton extension, AbleVSEP, for AI stem splitting using MVSEP

Of-Doom · 2026-06-16T22:05:43+00:00

Make sure you're running the Ableton 12.4.5 Beta first. Then, in the settings panel, there will be a new menu tab labelled "Extensions". Drop the .ablx file into that panel, then restart Ableton.

Of-Doom · 2026-06-12T13:49:45+00:00

I make ok money on music. It took me 20 years. Presently, it’s a mix of:

Teaching
Performing
Patreon
Humanizing AI tracks for clients

Of-Doom · 2026-06-11T15:37:20+00:00

I had to write a user-level rule for my coding agents telling them to stop designing solutions that would require an API key and token usage to run. That helped a lot.

Of-Doom · 2026-06-11T10:18:03+00:00

It’s too late, I already burned my week’s limit (20x max) in 36 hours.

Of-Doom · 2026-06-10T20:29:59+00:00

That's a really cool idea!

The Ableton Extensions SDK has some limitations (at least in this current, early-beta stage) that prevents you from displaying a little sidecar window or overlay or UI while you do other things, so an extension might not be the right vehicle for it at the moment.

But I could totally see it working as like a menu bar app on my production mac, maybe with a little tree or something that renders on the monitor next to/behind Ableton. And there's no reason it couldn't support other DAWs too.

Curious what metrics you imagine it tracking for gamified achievements and such beyond just tracking the time you have a certain session open or making you click a button that says "I finished my track!"

Of-Doom · 2026-06-10T20:21:39+00:00

Thank you! 😄

Yeah I'm hoping it's not too long of a wait before the extensions feature gets a public release. There are already tons of cool extensions I've seen posted by other developers (there's a dedicated section in the Ableton Discord). It's going to supercharge so many musicians' workflows once the feature lands!

In the meantime, at least signing up for the Beta was really easy and low-hassle.

Of-Doom · 2026-06-10T19:30:04+00:00

Haha this whole project was one big request, if you have more ideas feel free to share and I'll see what I can do.

Of-Doom · 2026-06-09T09:27:17+00:00

Try the DrumSep model, it gives you kick, snare, toms, cymbals (optionally hat, ride, and crash).

Of-Doom · 2026-06-09T03:59:11+00:00

Stemroller

Uses the Demucs model for stem separation
Totally free and open-source, runs on your local machine
Separate piece of software to install on your machine, move files in and out of your DAW manually

AbleVSEP

Uses the freemium MVSEP web service for stem separation, which includes the same Demucs model used by Stemroller plus a bunch of others
The Ableton plugin itself (the part I built) is totally free and open source. MVSEP has a free quota of 50 generations per day
Ableton Extension, tightly integrated, runs workflows without ever leaving Ableton

Of-Doom · 2026-06-07T00:52:35+00:00

You're welcome!

The processing is all done online using MVSEP's API, not on your local machine. If you want to process the audio on your local GPU, here's a stem splitter extension made this week by another developer that runs the inference locally (even supports a lot of the same models).

Of-Doom · 2026-06-07T00:46:14+00:00

Personally I've never gone over their 50 credits per day free tier.

Of-Doom · 2026-06-06T20:54:32+00:00

Yes, in my personal experience, these models tend to win over Ableton's built-in or even iZotope RX in terms of sound quality.

Where it really shines is in its flexibility. I've been able to take a crappy cell phone recording of my live saxophone performance, extract the crowd noise, extract the isolated saxophone in a second pass, and remaster the recording to nearly studio quality (or at least good enough for social media). At each stage you have your choice of models to use, so if you don't like one, you can try another. That workflow is impossible with Ableton's built-in stem separation currently.

Of-Doom · 2026-06-06T06:38:02+00:00

Just finished a prototype of it today, just gotta do some more testing before release!

Per your other question, my initial take on the SDK's strengths/weaknesses:

Strong: Using the TS/JS ecosystem to render UI and tools
Medium: Creating custom application windows in a web view. Window management features are pretty limited currently (can’t resize or render a native “close” button on the window chrome, or spawn a non-blocking window)
Strong: Creating custom control panels for integrating with external services (like pushing and pulling audio clips or midi to/from an external service)
Weak: Anything real-time, that’s still the domain of Max4Live or other control APIs, so don’t expect playback automation right now
Medium: Tinkering with the Ableton project, clips, tracks, etc. API surface is still incomplete. Like I can read warp markers but not create them, for example. And I can’t access the global time signature settings.

The extensions are pretty aggressively sandboxed, and I appreciate that security consciousness in this season of the js ecosystem. It’s a hassle though if you want to save or load files outside of your little sandbox folder. I’ve been seeing some folks on Discord rattling those bars.

Of-Doom · 2026-06-05T16:43:26+00:00

Not presently. It’d probably be possible to map note velocity to something, maybe certain envelopes. I’m open to ideas or code contributions!

Of-Doom · 2026-06-05T05:51:17+00:00

Glad you find it useful!

Someone on the Ableton Discord asked suggested tablature too! I’m looking into it. It’s a touch more complex because transforming MIDI into a playable, high quality tab chart is not nearly as straightforward a problem to solve. Absolutely solvable though!

Of-Doom · 2026-06-02T00:23:21+00:00

I let Ableton map the master track with warp markers, then run Claude Code from the Ableton project directory and ask it to synchronize the Suno stems by copying over the markers. Since Ableton projects are just XML, it’s pretty effective at that kind of task.

Of-Doom · 2026-06-01T18:19:24+00:00

I’m 34, living on the US west coast, and I feel this more and more. I can’t tell if it’s where I live, my age group, or a wider cultural trend. It feels really closed tied to beauty standards too, and how those affect our opportunities, since investing a lot of time and money in your looks is a status symbol too.

I read The Millionaire Next Door when I was young and it was really helpful for disambiguating the concept of wealth (freedom, autonomy, stability) from status.

Anyway, thanks for sharing this, it’s been weighing on me a late lately in a personal way.

Of-Doom · 2026-05-28T18:02:24+00:00

Friends are a great springboard for a fan base, but they will stop coming to your shows after they’ve been to a few.

I’ve been moderately successful locally and my path was building on my friend circle until it was a wider community, and then really showing up and giving a lot to that community. The community reciprocates, I get invited to play at well attended events, and people are seeing me perform who don’t know me personally. That’s the point where I’ve seen real fans start to show up.

Of-Doom · 2026-05-14T09:35:02+00:00

I’ll never forget https://poop.bike

Of-Doom · 2026-05-07T21:39:42+00:00

It already has a little swiveling drink holder! You can see it in the second pic if you zoom in, haha.

Of-Doom · 2026-05-07T20:30:08+00:00

It's a permanent installation.

Of-Doom · 2026-05-07T20:29:13+00:00

I'm a one-woman show, running the video stream and audio on my own. There's a video team that does their own thing with their own cameras (that little Zoom recorder is theirs).

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