Sync on DISCO: your quick start guide

A practical overview for publisher, label and agency sync teams pitching to music supervisors. It covers getting your catalog in with metadata that clears, finding the right track when a brief lands, building and tracking pitches, setting up your team, and where the Discovery Suite and DISCO Catalogs fit.

CONTENTS

Getting your catalog in

Sync teams usually start with a backlog, not a single release. Choose the route that matches where your music lives now:

Drag and drop - drop files into the Playlist Creator for a release or a batch of new signings.
Bulk Uploader - for a hard drive or a large archive, use the Bulk Uploader. Each lowest-level folder of files becomes a Playlist.
Inboxes - writers, artists and labels send new material, including writing camp submissions, to an Inbox. Share the link and the files land in your DISCO. Custom Inboxes for a particular camp or brief are on Pro plans and above.
Save to DISCO - when a partner shares a Playlist with you, save the files into your own account.

Metadata that clears

A music supervisor can love a track and still drop it if they can’t work out who controls it. Your metadata does the clearance groundwork before anyone has to email you.

Every track you pitch needs:

clean Title and Artist fields
writers and splits in the Comments field, with publisher and PRO for each writer
your contact details in the Comments field, so whoever hears the track knows who to call

The Writers tab is for your own records. That information doesn’t travel with the file and isn’t visible to other DISCO accounts, so anything a music supervisor needs to clear the track goes in Comments.

On Pro plans and above, Custom Fields hold sync-specific information such as one-stop status, territory control and agreement dates. Internal Notes keep context that shouldn’t go to the client, like a previous placement or a clearance condition. For the basics, see How to manage and edit track info and metadata.

Have every version ready

Music supervisors and editors come back for the instrumental, a cutdown or the stems, sometimes weeks after the pitch. If the music supervisor saved your Playlist to their own DISCO, they may already have what they need. Either way, the request is quick when every version is already in DISCO, labeled and attached to the main track, rather than on a drive someone has to go looking for.

Nesting - nest up to 20 versions under each main track, such as Instrumental, A cappella, Clean, Cutdown and Mix, plus up to 100 stems. They travel with the pitch, so recipients open them from the same link.
Full-resolution files - upload WAV or AIFF masters. DISCO creates the MP3 for streaming, and recipients can download either.
Missing versions - with the Discovery Suite, Instant Instrumentals and Instant A Capella generate a vocal-free or vocal-only version and nest it under the original, for when you don’t have the stems.

Nesting is a way of working, not a requirement. Some teams keep alternates in their own Section at the bottom of a Playlist, and that works too.

Finding the right track when a brief lands

Search covers every metadata field, including tags, notes and transcribed lyrics.

Keywords combine with AND by default. Use a minus sign to exclude a term, for example driving -vocal.
Add filters for BPM, year or any other field to narrow down a long result.
Search doesn’t include content in your DISCO Inboxes by default. To search submissions that haven’t been filed yet, add your Inboxes in the filters.
Lyrics are searchable once they’re transcribed, and lyric themes come up in a lot of briefs.
Your shortlists become your search history. Drag the tracks you like into the Playlist Creator and save them as a Playlist named by the job or production. On the next brief, search for those Playlists to pick up where you left off, and open any track to see every other Playlist it’s been included in.

With the Discovery Suite, Similarity Search finds the closest-sounding tracks in your catalog from a reference track, a YouTube link or one moment in a track. Only auto-tagged tracks appear in results.

Building and sending a pitch

A pitch on DISCO is a Playlist. Recipients stream and download from one link, with no account needed. To present it well:

Sections split a pitch into groups, such as by budget or genre, or to keep instrumentals together. Recipients can download a whole Section at once.
Playlist Messages add a short note at the top of the page, such as clearance notes, one-stop status or a deadline.
Themes apply your logo and branding to every pitch.
Alias Metadata (Plus plans and above) changes what the recipient sees, such as a pseudonym or a different contact, without touching your real metadata.

What music supervisors say they want from a pitch: around 10 tracks per brief, a line on why each one fits and where the usable section starts, budget and one-stop status up front, and nothing with an uncleared sample. Many decide in the first few seconds, so put your strongest track first.

How you send decides what you know afterward:

Copy link is the fastest, but it doesn’t tell you who listened.
Email from DISCO or Assign a URL to a contact gives you recipient-level stats: which tracks each person streamed and downloaded.
Every Playlist streams and downloads by default. Switch it to stream-only in Content Settings if you don’t want files taken.

For unreleased material, add a link expiry or password (password protection is on Artist and Pro plans), or use Watermarking, a paid add-on. Watermarking only gives each recipient a unique watermark when you email from DISCO or assign a URL.

Responding to briefs from DISCO

Music supervisors on DISCO can send briefs from their account. The brief arrives by email with a link to a submission page and a closing date, after which the page stops accepting submissions. Your submission lands in the music supervisor’s DISCO as a Playlist inside their brief, and you get an emailed receipt.

Treat a submission the same way you treat a pitch: clean metadata, the right versions nested, and only the tracks that fit.

Tracking what you pitched

Pitch reporting works best when you build it into how you send, not when you reconstruct it at the end of the quarter.

Turn on Client Version when you save any Playlist that goes out, to separate real pitches from internal shortlists. Filtering by Client Version in Reports is on Plus plans and above.
Keep a Pitch Log Channel, with Folders by month or client, for every pitch you send.
Add Playlist tags for client, project, media type and territory.
Use Reports to answer questions such as “everything we sent this agency this year” or “all film pitches this quarter”, and export to CSV.

Contacts hold each music supervisor’s activity history and your notes. On Plus plans and above, the Email Creator sends new-music mailers to a Mailing List and shows which tracks each recipient played.

Setting up your team

Everyone on the team has access to the Team Inbox, so submissions are visible to whoever needs them. One person, usually a catalog manager, should own the structure everyone else works in:

setting up and maintaining Channels, and keeping the Catalog current as it changes
keeping metadata consistent, so search and pitches work the same way for everyone
getting artists and songwriters to submit through Inboxes rather than email attachments or file links

DISCO has two permission levels, Admin and User, so the catalog manager is usually an Admin.

A Channel structure that works for most sync teams:

one Catalog Channel with a Folder per artist or writer
a Pitch Log Channel for sent pitches
a Submissions Channel, or custom Inboxes on Pro plans and above, for incoming material
a Briefs Channel with a Folder per live brief while you work it

For more layouts, see Channel organization examples and tips.

Discovery Suite and DISCO Catalogs

The Discovery Suite is a paid add-on with two sides, and you can use either without the other.

AI tools help your own team work the catalog. Auto-tagging uses the vocabulary music supervisors use in briefs, and powers Similarity Search. Lyric Transcription, Instant Instrumentals and Instant A Capella cover the rest.
DISCO Catalogs give clients and music supervisors a branded, searchable site they can browse without you, with a license request form so inquiries arrive with project type, budget and duration filled in.

If you set your Primary Catalog to Easy Access, music supervisors on DISCO can find your tracks through search and Discover Music. Write a specific Catalog description before you opt in, because music supervisors search by it. Appearing in results raises the chance of being heard but doesn’t guarantee a placement. Music supervisors still need to like the track, clear it and reach you quickly, and relationships, fast replies and steady outreach still do most of the work. The internal workflow is the main value, and discovery is a bonus on top. More in Promote your Catalog to music supervisors.

The Discovery Suite is priced by the number of tracks connected at one time, separate from your base plan’s track allowance. Teams already using AIMS can also run AIMS search inside DISCO, a separate add-on enabled on request.

Common limitations and workarounds

Copy link pitches have no per-recipient stats. Use Email from DISCO or Assign a URL when you need to know who listened.
Link expiry applies to the whole Playlist, not to individual links. Duplicate the Playlist if two recipients need different deadlines.
Embedded players don’t record Playlist stats. Send the share link when you need the data.
Watermarking is audio only. Video isn’t watermarked.

Resources and case studies

Wrap up

Clean metadata, every version in place, and pitches sent in a way that shows who listened. With one person owning the Catalog and Channel structure, the rest of the team spends its time on briefs rather than looking for files.

Questions answered

How do sync teams use DISCO?
What metadata do music supervisors need to clear a track?
Where should writers and splits go so a music supervisor can see them?
How do I send an instrumental or stems with a pitch?
How do I search submissions that are still in my Inbox?
Can I see whether a music supervisor listened to my pitch?
How do I stop recipients downloading a pitch?
How do I respond to a brief sent from DISCO?
How do I report on everything we pitched to a client?
Who should manage Channels and metadata on a sync team?
Does a DISCO Catalog get my music placed?