Sidekick

sidekick_promo.mp4

Sidekick is an AI-powered music production companion for Audiotool.

It helps producers move from a blank project to a workable musical idea by combining two complementary workflows:

1. Generate inspiration — create MIDI-based melody, chord, and bass ideas using a rule-based engine.
2. Learn from references — upload a reference song, analyze its musical characteristics with an LLM-powered (Gemini 3.1 Flash) assistant, and translate those insights into actions inside an Audiotool project.

Sidekick is designed as a creative assistant, not an autopilot. It gives you musical starting points, explains production ideas, and helps shape them into your own track.

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Why Sidekick?

Music producers often get stuck at two points:

• Starting from nothing: finding a hook, chord loop, bassline, or groove that feels worth developing.
• Learning from references: understanding what makes a reference track work and turning that knowledge into a project-specific action.

Sidekick addresses both.

It can generate track ideas quickly, but it can also listen to a reference track and help you understand its BPM, groove, structure, energy, and production direction. From there, its assistant can suggest what to add, modify, or try inside your Audiotool project.

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Core Features

1. Idea Generation with MotifMachine-Inspired MIDI Logic

Sidekick can generate short musical ideas for different electronic and beat-based styles. Depending on the selected mode, it can create:

• Lead motifs
• Chord progressions
• Basslines

The generation engine is inspired by the original MotifMachine project, a real-time MIDI generator for evolving EDM/house-style musical patterns.

Sidekick adapts that concept for Audiotool by turning motif generation into a browser-based creative workflow.

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2. Reference Song Learning

Upload a reference track and Sidekick analyzes it to extract useful production guidance such as:

• Approximate BPM and rhythmic feel
• Energy profile
• Structural sections
• Style and arrangement cues
• Suggested production steps

The goal is not to copy the reference track. The goal is to understand its musical and production logic, then apply those learnings to your own idea.

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3. AI Assistant for Audiotool Projects

Sidekick includes an assistant that helps bridge the gap between analysis and action.

You can ask it questions such as:

• “How can I make my current loop sound more like this reference?”
• “What should I add after this section?”
• “Can you suggest a bassline direction?”
• “How should I arrange this into an intro and drop?”

The assistant is designed to help translate musical observations into project-level suggestions.

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How the Generative Engine Works

Sidekick’s music generation is based on the idea that useful musical creativity comes from structure plus variation, not pure randomness.

The engine uses several layers:

Style / Genre Preset
        ↓
Scale + Mode Selection
        ↓
4-Chord Progression Engine
        ↓
Motif Generation or Motif Recall
        ↓
Harmonic Snapping
        ↓
Bass, Chord, and Drum Generation
        ↓
Audiotool / MIDI Output

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Motif-Based Melody Generation

A motif is a short musical idea, usually one or two bars long. Instead of generating completely new notes every time, Sidekick creates, stores, recalls, and transforms motifs.

This gives the music:

• Recognition
• Repetition
• Variation
• A sense of identity

The generator creates motifs using controlled randomness:

• Notes are chosen from the selected scale or mode.
• Melodic motion is biased toward stepwise movement.
• Rhythmic positions are selected from a musical grid.
• Swing and groove settings shift certain notes for feel.
• The motif is cleaned so the lead remains monophonic.

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Harmonic Snapping

After a motif is generated, Sidekick checks it against the current chord progression.

Certain structurally important notes are snapped to chord tones:

• First note of each bar
• Last note of each bar
• Strong beats such as beat 1 and beat 3

This keeps the melody connected to the harmony while still allowing weaker beats to use passing tones and scale notes.

In practical terms: the melody does not just wander around the scale. It lands on notes that make sense against the chords.

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Chord Progression Engine

Sidekick uses genre-aware 4-chord loops as a harmonic foundation.

For example:

• Major: I – V – vi – IV
• Minor: i – VI – III – VII
• Dorian: i – VII – IV – i
• Harmonic minor: i – VI – III – V

These progressions loop while the motif engine generates or recalls melodic material above them.

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Motif Memory and Transformations

Sidekick stores generated motifs in memory. Later, instead of always creating something new, it may recall a previous motif and transform it.

Transformations include:

• Transpose: shift the motif up or down within the scale
• Rhythm nudge: move selected notes slightly earlier or later
• Ornament: add a short approach note before a strong beat

This creates evolving patterns that feel intentional rather than random.

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Bass and Chord Generation

When full arrangement mode is enabled:

• Chords are generated from the progression engine.
• Bass follows the chord root.
• Lead remains monophonic.
• Bass remains monophonic.
• Chords remain polyphonic.

This creates a usable sketch that a producer can edit, replace, or build upon.

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Genre and Style Control

Sidekick uses presets to control musical behavior.

A preset may define:

• BPM range
• Scale or mode
• Note density
• Swing amount
• Rhythmic bias
• Motif reuse probability
• Transformation weights
• Chord progression behavior
• Bass relationship

Supported style directions may include:

• Afro House
• Melodic Techno
• Amapiano
• Reggaeton
• Brazilian Funk
• UK Garage
• Drum & Bass
• Trap / Hip Hop
• Lo-fi Hip Hop
• Phonk

The goal is not to perfectly recreate each genre, but to give each preset a distinct musical behavior that can spark a production idea.

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Audiotool Integration

Sidekick is built for Audiotool workflows.

It can run as a sidebar-style production helper and interact with an Audiotool project through integration adapters. The project uses a local mock-first architecture so it can run even when Audiotool, Gemini, or other external services are unavailable.

Typical workflow:

1. Open Sidekick.
2. Choose a style or generate an idea.
3. Add generated material into the Audiotool project.
4. Upload a reference track if needed.
5. Ask the assistant for next steps.
6. Continue shaping the project manually.

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Quick Start

1. Install dependencies

npm install

2. Start the development server

npm run dev

3. Open the local app

Usually:

http://localhost:5173

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Optional: Audiotool and Gemini Configuration

Create a local .env file based on .env.example.

Important values:

VITE\_SIDEKICK\_MODE=auto
VITE\_AUDIOTOOL\_CLIENT\_ID=replace-with-audiotool-application-client-id
VITE\_AUDIOTOOL\_REDIRECT\_URL=http://127.0.0.1:5173/
GEMINI\_API\_KEY=replace-with-server-only-secret
GEMINI\_FLASH\_MODEL=gemini-flash-latest

Keep API keys server-side. Do not expose Gemini keys in client-side code.

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Available Scripts

npm run dev

Start the local development server.

npm run build

Type-check and build the app.

npm run test

Run tests.

npm run test:watch

Run tests in watch mode.

npm run lint

Run lint checks.

npm run audit

Run dependency audit.

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Project Architecture

Sidekick is organized around a few core modules:

src/
  core music types and schemas
  style and genre registries
  motif-inspired generation logic
  MIDI writing / export helpers
  Audiotool NEXUS adapters
  Gemini / assistant adapters
  UI components
  tests

The project follows an adapter-based design so external services can be mocked locally and swapped for real integrations later.

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Relationship to MotifMachine

Sidekick builds on ideas from MotifMachine, originally developed as a real-time MIDI motif generator.

MotifMachine focused on:

• Real-time MIDI generation
• Style presets
• Motif memory
• Harmonic snapping
• Chord and bass generation
• DAW-oriented workflows

Sidekick extends this direction by integrating motif-based generation into an Audiotool-focused assistant experience and adding reference-song learning with LLM support.

Original repository:

https://github.com/hemanth-rj/motifmachine

Credit: Sidekick’s motif generation concepts are inspired by and adapted from MotifMachine.

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What Sidekick Is Not

Sidekick is not intended to fully produce a finished song automatically.

It is not a replacement for a producer’s taste, arrangement decisions, or sound design.

Instead, it is a creative companion that helps with:

• Starting ideas
• Understanding references
• Translating analysis into production direction
• Generating editable musical material

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Roadmap

Possible future directions:

• More genre-aware rhythm templates
• Better Audiotool timeline editing
• Transformer-assisted motif generation
• Chord extensions such as 7ths, sus chords, and add9s
• Energy curve generation across 8-bar and 16-bar sections
• More detailed reference-track analysis
• User taste memory and feedback-driven personalization
• Exportable MIDI packs
• Real-time parameter controls

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Credits

Sidekick was developed as a music production assistant for Audiotool by Hemanth & Carlos during the 2026 Lisbon Music Hackspace Hackathon.

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License

This project is licensed under the MIT License.