2  Start here: three things to say

You need Live open on a new Set (⌘N), Claude Code with Sideman installed, and ten minutes. Type each of these, wait for Claude to finish, and watch Live.

2.1 1. A loop from nothing

Give me a 4-bar house loop at 122 BPM: three MIDI tracks named Chords, Bass and Drums, coloured differently. Drift on Chords and Bass, a 909 kit on Drums. Write chords, a bassline and a kick-and-hats pattern, then play scene 1.

What happens in Live: three coloured tracks appear, instruments load from the browser, three clips land in scene 1, the transport starts. Claude will tell you what it wrote — how many notes, which kit.

Check: press ⌘Z once. The three track names and colours go together, because Claude set them as one undo step. Press ⌘⇧Z to get them back.

2.2 2. Automation, not a knob

Open the bass filter over the loop — closed at the start, wide open by bar 4 — as clip automation, and show me the envelope.

What happens in Live: the Clip View switches to the Envelopes tab on the bass clip, labelled Drift / LP Freq / Automation, and a four-step staircase is drawn — one step per bar. The bass opens up as the loop plays.

Check: ask “what’s the envelope on the bass clip?” — Claude reads it back from Live rather than from memory.

2.3 3. It saw what you did

Drag the Chords fader down by hand while the loop plays. Then:

I just moved something on the mixer — what changed?

What happens in Live: nothing — that’s the point. Claude names the track and the move, because it watches the Set, not only its own actions.

Check: move a different fader and ask again.

That is the whole idea. The ten lessons that follow build a full track the same way: you say it, it lands in your Set, and you can always check.