Song end and stop markers

Two locator names — SONG END and STOP — that tell Downstage where a song finishes and where the show can go silent.

Downstage 0.9.0 · updated 13 Oct 2026

By default a song lasts until the next song's locator. Two special locators let you say something more precise.

SONG END

A locator named SONG END marks where the song before it finishes.

SONG END

Use it when there is something after the last bar of a song that is not part of it — a gap, a click-only count for the next song, a spare take you park in the arrangement.

With a SONG END in place:

The song's bar count and time left are measured to the marker, not to the next song.
When the song is in a setlist, Downstage knows when to move on. As the playhead enters the song's final bar it asks Live to jump, and Live makes the jump on the bar line — to the next song in your setlist, wherever that is in the arrangement.

Put SONG END on a bar line. The jump is made at a bar line, so a marker placed a beat or two into a bar ends the song at the bar line before it, cutting those beats off. Downstage warns you when a marker is off the grid and says by how much.

A song with no SONG END simply ends where the next one begins.

STOP

A locator named STOP is somewhere silent for Live to go.

Put it in a few empty bars — after the last song is the usual place — with nothing on any track.

Live cannot be told to stop on a bar line: a stop happens the moment it is asked for. So when a song is set to stop at its end, Downstage does it in two moves. In the song's final bar it asks Live to jump to STOP; Live lands there on the bar line, into silence; and then Downstage stops the transport, where being a few milliseconds late cannot be heard.

STOP is used:

at the end of any song marked Stops after in a setlist, and
at the end of the last song in the setlist on stage.

Without a STOP locator, Downstage has nowhere clean to stop into. "Stops after" cannot be chosen, and the show plays on past the end of the last song until you stop it yourself. Backstage tells you when the set has no STOP.

If there is more than one STOP locator, the earliest in the arrangement is used.

What happens at the end of a song

The song is…	At its last bar
In the setlist on stage, Runs on	Live jumps to the next song in the setlist on the bar line. If that song already follows it in the arrangement, nothing is needed and Live just plays on.
In the setlist on stage, Stops after	Live jumps into `STOP` on the bar line, then stops.
The last song in the setlist	The same as Stops after.
Being looped	Nothing — the loop holds until you release it.
Not in a setlist	Nothing. Live plays on through the arrangement.

Moving on by itself needs launch quantisation to be on. With it set to None, Downstage does not send these jumps at all, because they would cut the song short instead of landing on the bar.

Next steps

Runs on or stops afterChoosing, for each song in a setlist, whether the show carries straight on or stops.Songs from locatorsHow Downstage turns the locators in your arrangement into a list of songs.Cheat sheetEvery name Downstage understands in your Live set, on one page.