How to use Mixroadie with Claude or ChatGPT

Mixroadie’s panel can’t sign in with a Claude or ChatGPT subscription. Claude Desktop, Claude Code and Codex (in the ChatGPT desktop app) can use Mixroadie, though, and they run on your plan. Your AI app makes the decisions, so you don’t need an AI model in Mixroadie or the panel open.

Other AI apps that can run a local MCP server work too, such as Google’s Gemini CLI, GitHub Copilot in VS Code and Cursor. They’re set up by hand, see other apps.

Quick setup

Connect Mixroadie for me. Follow the instructions at https://mixroadie.com/connect.md

This also connects Claude Desktop if it’s installed. The instructions are plain text if you want to read them first.

The Claude Desktop chat can’t run commands. If that’s all you use, follow the manual setup.

Use it

Open the song in REAPER and ask your AI app, with the song’s full path:

• “Run a health check on /Users/you/Music/Song/Song.rpp”
• “Mix this song for me”
• “Is the master loud enough for streaming?”
• “Measure the WAV files in /Users/you/Music/Bounces” (no project needed)

Mixroadie measures the song and asks your AI app what it needs to know: which instrument each track is, how much to cut, how hard to compress. Your AI app answers in a few rounds, then shows you the plan as numbered moves. Tell it which ones to apply. Mixroadie backs up the project first.

If it gets a track wrong, say so (“track 7 is a bass, not a guitar”) and it corrects it.

It has the same checks and plans as the panel: health check, “mix this for me”, mastering, mix and reference checks, and the single tools. Full list.

Privacy

Your AI app gets measurements, track names, file paths and plans, never audio, and sends them to Anthropic or OpenAI as part of your chat. Mixroadie itself sends nothing anywhere.

Limits

• REAPER only.
• Same licence as the panel: the health check is free, plans need the trial (one song) or a licence.
• Named checks only. Free-text requests like “make the bass less boomy” work in the panel, not from the chat.
• A full mix takes a few rounds of questions, a minute or two.
• One request per song at a time.
• On a Mac, REAPER comes to the front while mastering and mix checks render.

Updates need nothing from you. Your AI apps use the new version on their next start.

Manual setup

Only needed if you don’t use the quick setup.

One command

From Mixroadie 0.1.3. Mac (Terminal):

~/.mixroadie/venv-audio/bin/roadie connect

Windows (PowerShell):

& "$env:USERPROFILE\.mixroadie\venv-audio\Scripts\roadie.exe" connect

It connects every one of Claude Desktop, Claude Code and Codex it finds and leaves their other settings alone. Restart the app afterwards.

By hand

For older versions, or to set up one app yourself.

1. Install the MCP library. Mac:

~/.mixroadie/venv-audio/bin/python -m pip install "mcp>=1.2,<2"

Windows:

& "$env:USERPROFILE\.mixroadie\venv-audio\Scripts\python.exe" -m pip install "mcp>=1.2,<2"

2. Add Mixroadie to your app. Use the full path with your user name instead of you; apps don’t expand ~ in config files. On Windows the path is C:\Users\you\.mixroadie\venv-audio\Scripts\roadie.exe.

Claude Desktop: Settings › Developer › Edit Config. Add this to claude_desktop_config.json (next to any servers already there), then restart Claude Desktop. On Windows, double the backslashes.

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "mixroadie": {
      "command": "/Users/you/.mixroadie/venv-audio/bin/roadie",
      "args": ["mcp-server"]
    }
  }
}

Claude Code:

claude mcp add --scope user mixroadie -- ~/.mixroadie/venv-audio/bin/roadie mcp-server

Codex / ChatGPT: add this to ~/.codex/config.toml. The timeout is needed for mastering; the default is 60 seconds.

[mcp_servers.mixroadie]
command = "/Users/you/.mixroadie/venv-audio/bin/roadie"
args = ["mcp-server"]
tool_timeout_sec = 600

Other apps

Any app that can run a local MCP server works, on that app’s own plan. We’ve tested Claude and Codex; the others below should work the same way. Use the full path to roadie as above.

Gemini CLI (Google):

gemini mcp add -s user mixroadie /Users/you/.mixroadie/venv-audio/bin/roadie mcp-server

GitHub Copilot in VS Code: run “MCP: Open User Configuration” from the command palette and add:

{
  "servers": {
    "mixroadie": {
      "type": "stdio",
      "command": "/Users/you/.mixroadie/venv-audio/bin/roadie",
      "args": ["mcp-server"]
    }
  }
}

Use it from Copilot Chat in agent mode.

Cursor: add the same entry as for Claude Desktop to ~/.cursor/mcp.json.

Anything else: add a local (stdio) server that runs roadie with the argument mcp-server.

Web chats (claude.ai, chatgpt.com, Gemini on the web) and the ChatGPT app’s normal chat can’t run a local server, so they can’t use Mixroadie.

Troubleshooting