user guide
Install it, point it at your projects, keep working. ARMED records every save that changes it, and can put two versions of one song back together. Ten minutes, start to finish.
notice. read this first.
Records a version of your Live project every time you save something that changed it.
Writes a sentence saying what changed: reverb decay 1.2s → 2.4s.
Merges two versions of one song into one, field by field.
macOS 14 or later. Intel or Apple Silicon.
Ableton Live, .als projects.
No account. No network. No subscription.
Restoring is forward-only: it adds a version rather than rewinding, so the restore itself can be undone.
A save ARMED can't parse is stored whole, and still restores.
If Live has the project open when you switch or restore, ARMED tells you straight after, because Live still holds its own copy in memory.
Your history is plain git, written inside your own project folder.
Audio is left alone. ARMED versions the .als project file, not your samples.
Delete the app and the history stays. It was never ours.
01overview
ARMED is version control for Ableton Live. A small background process (the daemon) watches your project folder. When you press Command-Sin Live, it reads the file you just saved and works out what actually changed: tracks, clips, automation, and the parameters of Ableton's own devices. Then it writes the version, with that summary attached.
Saves with no musical change are skipped, so scrolling around and saving out of habit doesn't pollute the history. Nothing is uploaded. The daemon never talks to a server.
One pass, on every save that changed something. Two versions of one song can be spliced back together later (see 05).
02installation
- Download the DMG and drag ARMED into Applications.
- Open ARMED. A menubar icon appears. macOS asks you to confirm the first launch: press Open.
- Click the menubar icon and choose the folder where your music projects live.
- Your projects appear as albums. Open one to see its songs.
- Go back to Live. Change something. Press Command-S. The version appears in ARMED within seconds. You're armed.
Close nothing, move nothing. ARMED reads your projects where they already are and writes its history alongside them.
No sign-up, no licence key. Choosing the folder is the whole setup.
03the popover
ARMED sits in the menubar. Everything starts in the popover that hangs off the mark, and open puts the same work in a standalone window.
wide plate · drag to pan ▸
- 01lives in the menubar
- no dock icon until the window opens
- 02armed
- the mark carries a square while the song has changes that are not in a version yet
- 03click the mark
- the panel drops
- 04one panel
- changes, save, merge, versions, variations. open puts them in a window.
- 05daemon
- watching the folder, writing the history. all of it local, all of it yours.
- 06scale
- menubar 24 pt tall · one panel, 360 pt wide
- Every album ARMED watches, with its songs underneath.
- A lit mark means the daemon is running and watching.
- Song rows show the last save and whether anything is pending.
- Click a song to open its panel.
One panel. Behind the gear: folders, discovery, autosave, start at login. Nothing has to stay open while you work.
Closing the popover doesn't stop anything. The daemon keeps watching whether the panel is open or not.
04the song panel
One song, its whole history. Versions run newest first, and each row is one save with the sentence that says what changed.
wide plate · drag to pan ▸
- 01song · variation
- everything below is scoped to the variation you're in
- 02changes
- every change since the last version, in a sentence
- 03save
- names this version
- 04merge
- the control your daw doesn't have
- 05versions
- named saves, newest first. any one restores the file
- 06variations
- other takes of the same song. filled dot = open in live
- 07delete
- moves the song to the trash
- 08daemon
- local. the history is plain git in your own project folder
- ↺
- restore this version
- +
- new variation
- ✎
- rename
- ✕
- delete variation
- Command-S
- in Live, writes the next row
4.1go back to a version
Press ↺ on any version to restore it. Restoring is forward-only — it writes the old state as a new version rather than rewinding, so nothing is overwritten and the restore itself can be undone. The version you left is still in the list when you want it again.
4.2name a version
Good take? Name it. A named version pins the exact state of the song so you can find it in a month. Automatic saves keep flowing underneath, unnamed.
4.3variations
A variation is a parallel line of work on the same song: a different drop, a radio edit. Press + to create one, switch between them, rename with ✎, delete with ✕. Each keeps its own history, and any two can be merged.
4.4read what changed
Every version carries a human summary: track added "Vocal Chops" · reverb decay 1.2s → 2.4s · drop moved bar 8 → 12. Read a session back like a logbook instead of guessing which file was the good one.
05the merge
Made changes in two variations of the same song? ARMED splices both sets of changes into one version, field by field. Live cannot do this, and neither can copying files around.
wide plate · drag to pan ▸
- 01a preview
- nothing is written to the file until you press apply
- 02source variation
- pick what to splice from
- 03auto
- applied without asking
- 04review
- removals and overwrites you tick by hand
- 05picks
- the decisions only you can make: keep one side, or take the other
- 06apply
- writes the splice, then names the version
Most of it is automatic: the two sides touched different tracks, so both survive. Every splice is listed.
Where both sides touched the same field, ARMED stops and puts the decision in front of you: keep yours, or take theirs. Nothing is written until you apply, and the result is a normal version that restores like any other.
- Close the song in Live.
- Open the song panel, pick the variation to merge in.
- Read the review. Resolve anything marked.
- Apply.
06your data
Your history sits in your own project folder, in plain git format. If ARMED disappeared tomorrow, every version would still open with any git tool. The layout is written down, commands included.
ARMED versions the .als project file. Your samples and recordings are left where they are and are not copied into the history, which is why the history stays small. Back them up as you already do.
Nothing leaves your machine. No account, no telemetry, no upload. Cloud sync will be optional, and paid, if it ever arrives.
07troubleshooting
Still stuck? Write to us. A human answers.
08uninstall
- Quit ARMED from the menubar.
- Delete ~/Library/LaunchAgents/io.armed.daemon.plist. This is the file that starts the engine at login; leave it and the system goes on trying to start something that is no longer installed.
- Drag the app from Applications to the Trash.
- Delete ~/.armed to remove ARMED's own settings, or keep it if you might come back. Your project history lives in the project folder and is untouched either way.
The history in your project folders. It's yours, in the open git format, and removing ARMED doesn't touch it.