The Assistant

Before your first question, the Assistant pane says what it does in one line, Ask about this song, or have a part written., and shows a short loop of one real request: the words sent, ghost notes in brass where they would go, then accepted. ❙❙ holds it and × puts it away for good; it goes by itself after your first request on this device.

Under it, Try one lists a few requests for the song you have open, filled with its own names, each with what it is and about what it costs: Add ghost notes to the snare in the chorus, Drums · bars 25–32 · an edit, about 40 credits. Clicking one puts its words in the box, outlined in brass, for you to send or change first. Nothing is sent until you press Send. An empty song suggests songs to write instead: A 12-bar slow blues in G, with a guitar solo the second time, a new song, about 150 credits. Only requests the Assistant has done well in our own tests are suggested.

See what people ask › opens a page of real requests, what each changed and what it cost.

Under them, Or connect your own AI app opens Settings › Editing at Connect an AI app: with a Stab licence or Stab Cloud, an AI app on this computer can do the same with no credits (below). While Connect an AI app is on and no app is connected yet, the pane lists things to ask it: clicking one copies it, to paste in your AI app.

The Assistant’s own answers need a free Stab Cloud account and credits. Until you’re signed in, the pane says Credits need a free Stab Cloud account, with what a question, an edit and a new song usually cost, and Send reads Sign In to Send: it opens the credits sheet at its account step, and what you typed stays in the box.

The first time you send a request, the Assistant asks before anything goes: a card in the pane, Use the Stab AI Assistant?, says that what you type, and what it needs from the song, goes to our AI provider in the United States, isn’t used for training and is deleted after 30 days, and that conversations are saved in the song, so anyone you share it with can read them. It has the Help improve the Assistant switch (below) and links to Privacy and this page. Use the Assistant sends your request; Not Now sends nothing and leaves your words in the box. Your answer is your account’s, on every device, and asked again only if these words change. If you open Get Credits first, the same words come before any purchase.

With no credits yet, the pane says You have no credits yet, the chip at its top reads 0 credits · Get Credits, and Send reads Get Credits to Send: the credits sheet opens with your request kept. Once you’ve bought a pack, the sheet’s Send sends it. The chip at the top of the pane shows your balance as a button, 1,600 credits ›: clicking it opens the sheet, and holding the pointer over it says how the balance splits, Stab Cloud’s credits this month and the ones you bought. On a narrow pane it shortens to 1,600 ›, and just after you sign in it reads Credits › until Stab Cloud says the balance. With Stab Cloud, its monthly credits are counted in it and spent first. The balance is also on the Assistant’s pill when it’s pinned to a song’s bar, under Ask the Assistant on the home, in Assistant credits in the Cloud pane with your recent uses, the first row of your account’s menu (the face at the top right), and in Settings. Credits has the packs, where each is sold, and Stab Cloud’s 600 credits a month.

Before you send, the chip under the box says what the request is likely to cost, Auto · ~40, and the chip’s list says the most it can cost. A request is charged what it used, never more than that. One that fails is not charged; one you stop with Stop is charged only what it had used. A new song is a big job: over an empty song the estimate is a new song’s, Auto · ~150, and the pane asks once more before sending it. When your balance is less than the estimate, the line beside the chip says Not enough for this · Get Credits, and the chip at the top of the pane turns orange.

Click or tap the chip to choose how the Assistant answers. A list opens over the box, each choice with a line on what it’s for and its estimate at the right: Auto, the default, Chooses for each request; Fast, Quick answers and small edits; Standard, Edits and new parts; Best, Longer, for the parts you care about. The one chosen has a tick, and its line says the most a request on it can cost, Never more than 100 (Auto’s says which it runs now, Now Standard · never more than 100). A choice your balance doesn’t cover stays there, its price dimmed over Not enough. Your balance is at the list’s foot, with Get Credits…. Auto never picks Best, and a request on Best always shows its estimate and asks once more before it’s sent. The pane keeps your choice until you change it. On an iPhone, the chip is under the box beside Send, in the Assistant’s full screen, and its list opens across the screen above it.

While the Assistant answers, its steps and words come into the thread as they arrive, and Send becomes Stop. You can keep working on the song meanwhile. If the connection drops, the thread says Couldn’t reach the Assistant and nothing is charged; the chip says Offline until the connection is back.

If the Assistant itself is off for a while on our side, the pane says The Assistant isn’t available right now and its chip Not available now. What you type stays in the box, nothing is sent or charged, and nothing is offered for sale until it’s back; send again later.

On a phone, the page has the apps’ tools tray, and its Ask tab in the Editor, the Score or the Chart: with the tray put away, tap its button on the Transport strip, then Ask. On a computer, View › Assistant opens the Assistant pane beside the song.

Choose Assistant in a pane’s view picker (The Song group). On the web, View › Assistant opens it beside the pane you’re working in, or goes to it if it’s already open. Like other panes it takes a link colour: linked, it’s about the pane of its colour (its track, its selection, or the bars on screen); unlinked, about the pane you last worked in. The chip at its top says which: Bass · bars 25–32.

The pane shows a thread, newest at the bottom: what you asked, in a bubble on the right; each step the Assistant took, one line each (Read bars 25–32); its answer; and what each answer changed, as an entry. A thread is saved in the song, so anyone you share the song with can read it.

The Assist workspace sets the window up for it: the Editor over the Score on the left and the Assistant on the right, the three in step. Choose it in the workspace menu, under Add Built-In.

Open the command palette (⌘KCtrl+KCtrl+K (⌘K on a Mac)) and type ? then your question: ?why does the D/F♯ work here. The first row asks it, Ask: why does the D/F♯ work here, and says what it’s about (this song and its bars, or Stab itself), where the answer opens and about what it costs; the commands your words match are still listed under it. Signed out it ends Sign in to ask ↩, and with no credits Get credits to ask ↩: Return opens the credits sheet with your question kept. ? alone still lists every command; until your first question it starts with a hint and three requests for the open song, one click putting it after the ?.

A search that finds no command ends with Ask the Assistant about ”…”; press Tab on it to turn your words into a question you can edit first.

The answer opens in the Assistant pane when the window has one, or in its popup under the title bar, so your panes stay where they are.

While an AI app is connected, the row says Ask in and your app’s name: choosing it copies the question, to paste in the app, which answers it.

What the Assistant changes goes into your song when its answer ends, as one step: Undo takes it back. A connected AI app’s changes go in as it makes them. Nothing is lost: each answer that changed the song is kept in the thread as an entry, like a version, to hear, to compare with the song before it, and to revert whenever you like.

The changes stay marked in your views until your next edit, until you play, or until you click × on their chip: added notes ringed in green, changed ones in blue, removed ones shown in red where they were, and the Score’s changed bars tinted. The chip at the top right of each view says Changed · Drum part: click its words to see the entry in the thread (the Assistant opens where no pane shows it).

The entry, under the answer, gives its title, what changed in short (+ 1 track · + 112 notes · bars 9–12) and when:

• Hear loops the changed bars, with a bar before. A/B swaps the song before and after the change at the same place, so you can judge it by ear; Stop ends it. Doing nothing keeps the change.
• Revert takes the change back. The revert is an entry of its own, Reverted “Drum part”; the change stays in the thread, struck through, with Restore to put it back, which is a new entry too. The history only grows, and Undo still undoes.
• When Undo takes a change out, its entry says undone, with Show Changes and no Revert: Redo puts it back, and the entry is as before.
• ⋯ has Show Changes, Take Back a Part… (the change’s list, grouped as in the Changes pane, with Take Back on each row) and Copy.
• An earlier answer’s entry has Show Changes and Revert…: Revert Only Its Changes keeps what came after, when later changes don’t touch them; Go Back to Before This returns the whole song to that moment, your later edits included, all of it kept in the history.

Between two answers, a dim line counts your own edits: You edited · 6 changes.

For a song in Stab Cloud, the Cloud pane’s Version History lists one row per answer, named by what it changed; clicking one opens the same strip.

Each answer reads the whole thread again, so a question deep in a long thread costs more than the same question in a new one. The thread’s size shows at its top, such as 18k tokens, and the estimate before you send counts it: about 52 credits, with longer thread once it’s long.

• An answer always finishes its first step, even past its limit. One that reaches its limit after that pauses: Paused at this answer’s limit, and what it had done so far is in the song (its entry says so far). Continue, under it, carries on in a new answer; its estimate is beside it. An answer stopped before it changed anything costs no more than its estimate.
• In a long thread, Summarise and Continue has the Assistant write a short summary of the thread so far, charged like any answer. The next answers read the summary and the last two requests instead of everything. The whole thread stays in the song and on screen, and a line marks Summarised here. A thread can be summarised again later.
• New Thread starts afresh at no cost: the long thread stays in the song.
• When a thread gets very long, the next question is summarised first by itself, and the line says so.

Stab saves a version of the song before and after each answer that changes it: on this device, or for a song in Stab Cloud in its Version History. The history’s entries read them back, so you can hear, compare and revert after you open the song again.

A song in Stab Cloud gets a new version only when the song itself changes. When the Assistant or an AI app only reads it, its thread is saved with the song on this device and goes up with the song’s next version.

To have the Assistant start from music you already have, keep a file with the song as a reference: choose File › Add Reference… and pick a MIDI, MusicXML or Guitar Pro file, or a recording, such as a voice memo of a tune you hummed. The reference is kept inside the song’s file. It doesn’t play, and it isn’t in what you export.

Then ask, for example, A theme like the reference, in D minor, or Make a ballad from my hummed idea. The Assistant reads the reference’s tempo, key, chords, tune, rhythm and form, and can start a part from its tune, from its rhythm with new notes, or from its chords, moved to your song’s key. A recording is listened to first, which takes a few seconds; the Assistant says which notes it wasn’t sure of, so check those by ear.

File › Add Reference…, to keep a file with the song for the Assistant to start from, is in Stab for Mac in this version.

An AI app you connect can add a reference too, from a file in your Desktop, Documents, Downloads or Music folder, the song’s own folder or your library, never from a website. A reference is your file to use as you like; the Assistant still won’t write out a known song from memory.

More › shows them all, with filters for what each shows and its style. Once the shelf is hidden, See all › in the Assistant’s first questions still opens that page, with Show on the Home.

With Connect an AI app on, Try This Prompt makes the song and copies the words, to paste in your AI app.

When it’s on, Stab keeps what you ask the Assistant and its answers for 30 days to find where it goes wrong, without your name or email: your words, what it read and wrote while answering, and whether you kept, undid or reverted what it changed. After 30 days only the counts stay (how long it took, what it cost, which tools it used). A line over the field says so before your first request, with a link to the privacy page, and the consent’s card has the same switch.

It starts off for a new account. To change it, go to Settings › Editing and turn Help improve the Assistant on or off. It’s your account’s setting, so it’s the same on all your devices. Turning it off deletes what was kept: only what each request cost stays. An AI app you connect never sends anything to Stab.

An AI app on this computer can work in Stab: read your songs and change them, its changes coming to your views and the Assistant pane like the Assistant’s own, kept in the history to hear, compare and revert. It connects through Stab’s own helper, on this computer only, never over the network, and uses no credits.

Connect an AI app comes with a Stab licence or Stab Cloud, whichever you have. On the free version, the switch in Settings › Editing is greyed, with Unlock… beside it, and an AI app that tries to connect is told it needs one.

It works with the whole app, not one song. It sees the songs open in Stab and, when you ask, your library: the songs on this computer and, when you’re signed in, in Stab Cloud. When you name a song, it works on that one; when you don’t, on the only song open, or the one in front. It can open a song from your library, or make a new one, and you see its window come up with the Assistant pane showing what it does (in the Assist workspace when the window has no Assistant pane). It can’t delete, rename or move your songs.

Besides the notes, it can work on a track’s sound: choose a preset, change the Synth’s settings, and add, set or remove devices such as a drive, a compressor, a bitcrusher or a duck keyed by the kick, each kept in the history. It can also measure the mix and each track (loudness, peaks, the balance of lows and highs) to check that a change did what it meant.

It works with any app that supports local MCP servers: Claude Code, Claude Desktop, Cursor and others, including apps that run models on your computer. The results depend on the model you choose in that app: the more capable the model, the better it reads music and writes parts. Stab tells the app how its tools work, and checks every change it proposes. Apps that only accept remote MCP servers, reached over the internet, can’t connect to it.

1. In Settings › Editing, turn on Connect an AI app. The status under it says Waiting for an AI app.

2. Add Stab’s helper to your AI app. Each app has its own way; these are some of them, and any app that supports local MCP servers can use the same helper and the same settings:

   • Claude Code: in a terminal,

     claude mcp add -s user stab -- /Applications/Stab.app/Contents/Helpers/stab-mcp --live

   • Claude Desktop: click Copy Configuration in the same Settings, open Claude Desktop’s Settings › Developer › Edit Config, and paste it into claude_desktop_config.json:

     {
       "mcpServers": {
         "stab": {
           "command": "/Applications/Stab.app/Contents/Helpers/stab-mcp",
           "args": ["--live"]
         }
       }
     }

     Then quit Claude Desktop and open it again.

   • Cursor and other apps: paste the same configuration where the app keeps its MCP servers (in Cursor, Settings › MCP, or its mcp.json), then restart the app if it asks.

3. Ask the app about your song. Settings says Connected to and the app’s name, and the title bar shows the app: click it to open the Assistant pane (the Assist workspace when the window has none).

1. In Settings › Editing, turn on Connect an AI app. The status under it says Waiting for an AI app.

2. Add Stab’s helper, stab-mcp.exe, which sits beside Stab.exe in the folder Stab is installed in:

   • Claude Code: in a terminal, with the helper’s full path,

     claude mcp add -s user stab -- "C:\Path\To\Stab\stab-mcp.exe" --live

   • Claude Desktop: click Copy Configuration in the same Settings (it names the helper for you), open Claude Desktop’s Settings › Developer › Edit Config, and paste it into claude_desktop_config.json:

     {
       "mcpServers": {
         "stab": {
           "command": "C:\\Path\\To\\Stab\\stab-mcp.exe",
           "args": ["--live"]
         }
       }
     }

     Then quit Claude Desktop and open it again.

   • Cursor and other apps: paste the same configuration where the app keeps its MCP servers (in Cursor, Settings › MCP, or its mcp.json), then restart the app if it asks.

3. Ask the app about your song. Settings says Connected to and the app’s name, and the title bar shows the app: click it to open the Assistant pane (the Assist workspace when the window has none).

While an AI app is connected, the Assistant pane shows Connected to the app’s name · it drives this thread where you’d type: you ask in the AI app, and the pane follows it, step by step, its changes as entries with Hear, A/B and Revert. Nothing is charged: the model is the app’s. Its conversation is kept in the song, so the pane shows it again when you open the song later, connected or not.

The AI app you connect sees what it asks for: a song’s notes, chords, words, sounds and mix, and your library’s song titles. What it does with them is between you and that app. A song you can only view, or one past the free songs, it can read but not change. Turn Connect an AI app off and every connection closes.