How Downstage works
Why it is safe to put between you and an audience — what it does, what it cannot do, and where your data lives.
Downstage 0.9.0 · updated 13 Oct 2026You are being asked to trust this on stage. This page says exactly what Downstage does to your Live set and your computer, so you do not have to take that on faith.
The shape of it
iPad or phone ⇄ your Wi-Fi ⇄ Downstage on the Mac ⇄ the connector inside Live- Downstage on the Mac is the one source of truth. It knows the songs, the setlist and where Live is.
- The connector is a control-surface script running inside Live. It reports locators, tracks, tempo and the playhead to Downstage, and carries out what Downstage asks: jump, play, stop.
- The screens are web pages showing what Downstage knows. They hold no state of their own, which is why any number can connect and they all agree.
It is never in the audio path
Audio goes from Live to your interface, as it always has. Downstage does not touch it, route it or process it. Take Downstage away at any moment — quit it, pull the network cable, drop the iPad — and Live keeps playing exactly as it was.
Timing lives inside Live
Downstage never tries to do something at the right moment over the network. It tells Live what you want, and Live does it on its own bar line.
That matters because a network is not a metronome. A tap takes a moment to reach Live — usually well under a fifth of a second, sometimes longer on bad Wi-Fi. If Downstage timed jumps itself, that delay would be audible. Because Live does the timing, the only effect of a slow network is that a jump asked for very late in a bar lands on the following bar line. It is always on a bar line.
The same goes for moving on at the end of a song: Downstage asks during the song's final bar, and Live makes the jump on the downbeat.
What it does to your Live set
It never opens, reads or writes your .als file. Everything goes through Live itself, in the
set you have open, and almost all of it is reading. These are the only things it changes:
| What | When | Is it kept? |
|---|---|---|
| The playhead and transport — jump, play, stop | When you tap | No. |
| Click and cue track levels and mutes | When you move the fader or press Mute in the panel | They are your tracks' real faders, so yes, if you save the set. |
| The arrangement loop | While you hold a loop | No. The loop brace is put back when you release. |
| Locators for sections | Only when you press the button in Backstage › Sections, and only while stopped | Only if you save in Live. ⌘Z undoes them. |
It does not rename or move anything of yours, and it does not add anything you did not ask for.
Where your data lives
| What | Where |
|---|---|
| Setlists and song notes | .downstage/show.json, in the same folder as your Live set. |
| Song tempos it has learned | .downstage/tempo.json, in the same place. |
| Which Live set you chose, the passcode, your license | ~/Library/Application Support/Downstage on the Mac. |
| Lock, and "don't show this again" | In the browser on each device. |
| The connector | ~/Music/Ableton/User Library/Remote Scripts/Downstage. |
Because setlists sit beside the Live set, copying or backing up the project folder takes them with
it. The .downstage folder is hidden in Finder by its leading dot; press ⌘⇧. to see it.
To remove Downstage completely, delete the app, the Application Support folder and the connector
folder above. Your Live sets are untouched; delete their .downstage folders too if you want the
setlists gone.
The network
Everything stays on your local network.
- Downstage serves its screens on the Mac's normal web port (80), so there is no port to type. If something else is using it, it takes the next free one and the menu bar shows the address.
- It talks to the connector inside Live over the Mac's own loopback, never across the network.
- It answers to the name
downstage.localso you do not have to know the Mac's address. - It never contacts the internet. There is no account, no analytics and no licence server. It works the same with the Wi-Fi router unplugged from the wall.
If you are on a network you do not control, set a passcode so only your devices can connect.
Built on AbletonOSC
The connector is AbletonOSC by Daniel Jones and contributors, used unmodified under its MIT licence and installed under the name Downstage. It is what makes all of this possible without Max for Live.
Ableton and Live are trademarks of Ableton AG. Downstage is an independent product and is not affiliated with or endorsed by Ableton.