Getting Started

Getting Started

The one-step path

Double-click theDAW.bat. It checks the machine, installs anything missing after one quick confirmation, and opens theDAW in the browser. The Stable Audio model downloads on its own the first time a track is generated, so a first run needs nothing else.

.\theDAW.bat

The launcher checks prerequisites, bootstraps dependencies when the tree is fresh (uv sync --group dev, npm install), clears stale processes on ports 5173, 8600, and 5187, then runs the backend, Vite, and an optional tunnel together in one console and opens http://localhost:5173.

Manual launch

uv run uvicorn backend.server:app --host 0.0.0.0 --port 8600 --reload   # backend
cd frontend && npm run dev                                              # frontend

Dependencies install with uv sync and cd frontend && npm install. On Windows, uv sync installs CUDA 12.8 torch and torchaudio plus the pre-built Flash Attention wheel automatically.

Prerequisites

theDAW.bat installs these automatically the first time a tool is missing.

Tool	Role
uv	Python environment and package manager.
Node.js 20.19+ or 22.12+	Frontend dev server and the VJ sidecar.
FFmpeg on PATH	Every audio path: effects, exports, library ingest, MIDI conversion, import.
Git	Clones the repo; --recurse-submodules brings in the Magenta sidecar source.
NVIDIA driver 550+	Runs the Medium model and Magenta. The Small model runs on CPU.

Next

• Windows setup guide for CUDA, Flash Attention, and soundfile details.
• User Guide §3 Installation for the full walkthrough.
• Models for how model loading and local-only mode work.