The Aphelion Natural Language Interface
Say what you want. Then listen.
An AI assistant on your computer that speaks MCP (the Model Context Protocol), such as Claude, drives the Aphelion plug-ins running in your DAW. It turns their controls by name, writes their patterns, and reads any value back to you as text.
Windows In Dropforge, Turbofan and TitanframeNot downloadable yet
The ANLI window, captured as it ran and not retouched. It opens at an assistant's first command, names the plug-ins listening, and logs every command and its answer. Here an assistant reads Dropforge's song and looks through Titanframe's controls. The plug-ins show as numbers because the DAW gave their tracks no names.
ANLI is running
Aphelion Natural Language Interface: what an assistant asks of your plug-ins, and their answers.
Listening: Dropforge 2312.1, Titanframe 2312.1.
05:15:21 Dropforge 2312.1 read_pages {"page":33,"count":16}
-> The song is 72 pages long. (8 ms)
05:15:21 Dropforge 2312.1 read_pages {"page":49,"count":16}
-> The song is 72 pages long. (21 ms)
05:15:21 Dropforge 2312.1 read_pages {"page":65,"count":8}
-> The song is 72 pages long. (19 ms)
05:15:44 Titanframe 2312.1 list_params
-> 339 controls. Ask with a query (words of the name) to see them: (11 ms)
05:15:47 Titanframe 2312.1 list_params {"query":"env","limit":30}
-> 26 controls match 'env': (25 ms)
05:15:48 Titanframe 2312.1 list_params {"query":"osc","limit":60}
-> 51 controls match 'osc': (17 ms)
05:15:48 Titanframe 2312.1 list_params {"query":"filter","limit":30}
-> 27 controls match 'filter': (19 ms)
05:15:48 Titanframe 2312.1 list_params {"query":"fx","limit":30}
-> 30 controls match 'fx': (21 ms)
05:15:58 Titanframe 2312.1 list_params {"query":"vca"}
-> 3 controls match 'vca': (6 ms)
05:15:58 Titanframe 2312.1 list_params {"query":"assign"}
-> 1 control match 'assign': (19 ms)What it is for
Who it helps
ANLI doesn't replace the panel. It is another way in, for when the panel is in the way.
SEEING THE PANEL
The panels are drawn pixels, and a screen reader finds no words in them. With ANLI, a blind or low-vision musician can ask what a control is set to, set it by name, and have a pattern read back as text.
SMALL LETTERING
In the beta, "hard to read" was one of the things we heard most about the panels' small lettering. Ask, and the value comes back as text in your assistant, at the size you read everything else.
HANDS
Dragging a small knob, or placing steps a sixty-fourth of a bar apart, asks a lot of a hand and a mouse. With a motor impairment or RSI, describe it instead, typed or spoken through your computer's own dictation.
FINDING IT
Titanframe alone has hundreds. Ask for the one you mean by the words of its name, "filter cutoff" or "seq swing", and learn where it stands before you change it. The learning curve is shorter when you can ask.
BIG EDITS
Copy four bars over the next four, clear a page, lengthen a sound's release: what takes a run of clicks and drags on the panel is one request, and "undo that" takes it back.
YOU LISTEN
Your assistant reads and writes settings and notes; it never hears the result. Whether it sounds right is yours to judge, and if it doesn't, say so, or say undo.
Example commands
There is no command language to learn. These are the kind of thing you can say, and what the plug-in does with each.
“Write a four-on-the-floor kick with off-beat hats on page 1.”
DropforgeWrites the KICK and hat lanes onto the song's first page.
“Copy pages 1-4 to 5-8 and put a fill at the end of bar 8.”
DropforgeCopies four pages over the next four, then writes the last beat of page 8.
“Load this kick.wav into Turbofan's bay 1 and play it on every beat.”
TurbofanLoads the file into a sample of bay 1 and writes a hit on each beat.
“Load a pad preset in Titanframe and make the release longer.”
TitanframeFinds a PAD in the bank, loads it, and turns the release up.
“Write a two-bar C minor arpeggio into Titanframe's roll and make the last note brighter.”
TitanframeWrites the notes into the ROLL and gives the last one a cutoff of its own.
“Program a 16-step bassline in the sequencer.”
TitanframeWrites the steps into the sequencer and sets it to play sixteen.
“What is the filter cutoff set to?”
Any of the threeReads the value back as text, with its unit.
“Undo that.”
Any of the threeTakes back the last change, up to 50 back.
The plug-ins
Each has an AGENT PORT key on its panel. It is off until you click it, and each plug-in remembers its own.
Finally, drums that keep up with your ideas.
Not yet: the synth's and the sampler's songs.
AGENT PORT In the header, left of the LCD.
Eight songs at once, and every hit its own.
AGENT PORT In the header, left of the LCD.
Every note is a different synthesizer - literally.
AGENT PORT In the header's second row, between IMPORT and PANEL SIZE.
How it works
A small bridge program carries your assistant's requests to the plug-ins, and their answers back. Every change is logged as it happens, and the last 50 can be undone.
A plug-in answers only once its AGENT PORT key is lit. The switch covers every copy of that plug-in, and is remembered.
The bridge reaches each plug-in through a local pipe that only your own programs can open.
Every change is made the way the panel makes it. A control turns through your DAW, so it can be recorded as automation, and everything is saved with your session.
Each plug-in's undo takes back the assistant's changes, up to 50 of them.
The ANLI window logs each command and its answer as it happens, and never takes the focus from your DAW.
Availability
ANLI works today in Dropforge, Turbofan and Titanframe on Windows. The bridge program has no installer yet, so there is nothing to download; this page will say when there is. The Mac comes later.
When it ships, starting takes three steps:
Click the key on the plug-in's panel. Its light shows the port is open.
Once, in your assistant's settings, the way any MCP tool is added.
Then listen, and judge.