How to Make Music with Claude Code or Codex

Claude Code and Codex can help you make music by turning your description into instructions that software uses to produce sound. Soundroo connects those steps: a coding agent writes a score, and Soundroo’s audio engine uses it to make a stereo track. A score is a structured set of instructions for tempo, instruments, notes, rhythms, and song sections.

You describe what you want, listen to the result, and tell the agent what to change. Soundroo is free and open source. Coding agents are separate services and may have their own costs.

How the music gets made

With Soundroo, the agent saves each track as a JSON score. Its drum patterns use step strings: X marks a loud hit, x a normal hit, o a soft hit, and . a rest. Melodies use note lines, such as G4/.5 Bb4 C5/1, where the letters and numbers specify pitches and note lengths.

Soundroo’s JavaScript engine creates the sounds electronically from scratch and mixes them into a stereo track. It uses no music-generation AI model or recorded instruments, so the same score renders the same way each time. Available sounds include guitars and basses, drums, piano and organ, synths and strings, plus bells and marimba. Piano and strings are synthesized approximations.

You can edit the musical instructions as well as listen to the finished audio file. Soundroo does not make sung vocals or accept audio uploads. It also has no drag-and-drop editor. Short spoken phrases can become rhythmic snippets or sound textures. A vocoder effect can turn them into a robot-like voice.

Make a track with Claude Code or Codex

Claude Code and Codex can read files and run commands on your computer. That lets them use Soundroo’s toolkit installed on your computer. The toolkit requires Node.js. Once set up, it makes music without a Soundroo account or API key. You also do not need music software, a GPU, or an internet connection. See the Claude Code overview and the Codex project for information about the agents.

Paste this prompt into your agent and replace the bracketed description:

Make me a track: [what it should sound like, or "surprise me"]. Use Soundroo for it. If you have Soundroo tools, use them. If you can run commands, clone https://github.com/vincentsch/soundroo, read its AGENTS.md and follow the steps. If you can't do either, send me to https://soundroo.com/connect

For example, replace the bracketed text with: “a relaxed instrumental with warm bass, crisp drums, and a melody that gradually builds.” You can also use Soundroo’s custom prompt builder to choose styles, number of tracks, length, and spoken words.

The agent creates the score and renders the track. It checks for clipping, which happens when audio levels are too high, and for silence. It also checks whether limiting is excessive, since too much limiting can flatten volume changes. Finally, it checks for sudden level changes. But the agent cannot hear the music. Listen yourself, then ask for a specific revision, such as “faster,” “less piano,” or “keep the bass line.” The agent updates the score and makes another version; older versions remain available.

Listen, revise, and export

The toolkit opens a listening studio in your browser. The studio includes a player and generated cover art, along with favorites and notes tied to moments in the track. It also has a mixer and earlier versions. You can export WAV audio, the score, MIDI, separate instrument stems, or an offline listening page. MIDI is a file of musical note instructions that compatible music software can use or edit.

Give feedback about one musical element at a time. “Keep the melody, but make the drums less busy in the second half” gives the agent a clearer target than asking it to make the whole track better.

Share only if you choose

Sharing on soundroo.com is optional. At the end, the agent asks whether to put the music there. For a first share, no account is needed: Soundroo creates an artist page with a generated name, and the music is unlisted, meaning anyone with the link can listen. An unclaimed page holds up to 10 tracks. Confirming an email address lets you keep the page and list music publicly; throwaway email services are not accepted.

You can set a shared track to public, unlisted, or private. An “open” track can be downloaded as WAV, MP3, MIDI, and a score, and remixed with credit under a Creative Commons Attribution license. “Listen only” tracks cannot be downloaded or remixed through that option. Soundroo refuses exact copies of other artists’ tracks.