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Updating devices in existing Sets

Every new version of Beam comes with its own set of devices, which may or may not contain fixes or new features. Here is how to deal with existing Live Sets after you downloaded and installed a new version of Beam.

info

Beam uses the following versioning scheme: major.minor.patch. For example, 1.2.3.

  • Every major version may contain breaking changes for prior existing devices. This means that replacing older devices in existing Live Sets with the newer ones may cause incompatibilities and loss of automation envelopes. We will explicitly mention changes like these in release notes.
  • Every minor version may contain new features or fixes, but should not contain breaking changes or change the output of existing devices. This means that you can safely use devices from different minor versions in the same Live Set with the latest version of the Beam application.
  • Every patch version contains mainly bug fixes and does not create a new Devices folder in the User Library. If the User Library installer is launched after updating to a new patch version of Beam, it instead overwrites the newest minor version Devices folder. Patch versions should never change the output of devices in existing Live Sets.

Note that although we obviously want you to always enjoy the latest Beam features, never update Beam if you are in the middle of a tour. See using a separate partition for tips to ensure a working performance setup.

Rule of thumb​

After updating Beam, you don't need to update the devices in your existing Live Sets, unless

  • A later version of a device has new features or fixes that you need, or
  • The newer Beam app shows an error that the old devices are no longer compatible (this rarely happens, and if so, only with major version updates, for example from 1.# to 2.#).

In other words​

When you update Beam, it will create a new Devices folder in your User Library, containing all the latest devices. The previous versions will remain available in the older Devices folder and your existing Live Sets will now contain devices from an older version of Beam. This is ok!

You can selectively update devices to newer versions or add devices from a new Devices folder to your existing Live Set if you want. This means that your Live Set might contain devices from different Beam versions. It is our responsibility that the latest version of the Beam app always keeps supporting all older device versions.

For tips about cleaning up Live Sets that contain multiple versions of devices, see Cleaning up.