How to send loops to producers (and get them used)

Producers are sent more loops than they will ever open. The ones that get used are rarely the cleverest; they are the ones that sound good in the first ten seconds, drop into a session without fixing, and come with a clear answer to "what do you want for this?"

This guide covers all three: making a loop someone else can build on, exporting and naming it properly, and sending it in a way that gets a reply. It is written for the producer making the loop. If you are the one looking for loops to build on, start with collaborating with producers online.

Make a loop someone else can build on

A loop is half a track by design. The best ones leave obvious room for the other half:

• Leave the drums out, usually. Most producers want to program their own drums and bass, because that is where their sound lives. If a loop needs its drums to make sense, say so in the title.
• Leave space in the low end and in the vocal range. A loop that already fills every frequency gives the collaborator nowhere to go.
• Write for the genre's tempo. A loop far outside the tempo producers in that genre work at is harder to find and harder to use. The BPM guide has the usual ranges.
• Make it loop. Four or eight bars, starting on the downbeat, with no click or gap where it wraps round, and no reverb tail cut off at the end.

Export it properly

• Send a WAV. An MP3 is fine for a preview but not for building on. Export at the sample rate and bit depth you worked in; 24-bit at 44.1 or 48 kHz is the everyday choice.
• Leave headroom. Don't put a limiter on the master bus to make it loud. A loop that already clips leaves the collaborator nothing to mix.
• Say whether it is mixed. A loop that is mixed and ready to write over, and one that is raw with all its headroom left, are both useful. They are useful to different people, so say which one you are sending.
• Bounce it at the project tempo. A loop exported at exactly 140 BPM sits on a 140 BPM grid. One that drifted by a fraction of a beat does not, and nobody enjoys fixing that.

Name the file so it explains itself

A filename is the first thing a producer reads, often before they press play. Put the useful facts in it:

Night Drive - F# Minor - 142 bpm - YourTag.wav

That tells them the key, the tempo and whose it is, and it survives being dragged into a DAW, a folder or a chat. Use the key the loop is actually in: the compatible keys guide explains why that matters to whoever layers something over it. ColabLoop reads the tempo and key from a filename like this when you upload, and fills them in for you.

How long a loop should be

Long enough to feel like a part, short enough to repeat without wearing out. For most genres that means four or eight bars, which lasts a different amount of time depending on the tempo. Here is what each works out to, and whether it would pass ColabLoop's upload checks as a 24-bit, 48 kHz stereo WAV:

Two things stand out. A four-bar loop at a fast tempo is only a few seconds long, so at trap and drill tempos eight bars is the safer length. And a long loop at a high resolution hits the file size limit well before it reaches a minute, so a sixteen-bar loop at a slow tempo is better exported at 16-bit, or cut to eight bars.

Sending loops directly

When you send loops to a producer yourself, by email or in a message:

• Send a few, not a folder. Three to five of your best, chosen for that producer, get more attention than forty. Nobody opens a pack from a stranger to find the one good loop in it.
• Make them easy to hear. One link where each loop can be streamed before anything is downloaded. A producer deciding in ten seconds will not download a zip to do it.
• Write two lines, not ten. Who you are, why these loops suit them, and what you want in return.
• Say your terms upfront. If you want credit and a split on anything built from them, say so in the first message, not after the beat is placed. The loop maker splits guide covers what that usually looks like.
• Keep a record. Note what you sent, to whom and when. If a beat built on your loop turns up later, that record is how you show it was yours.
• Follow up once. A single, friendly nudge after a week or two is normal. After that, move on.

Publishing loops on ColabLoop instead

Sending loops one producer at a time works, but most of the effort goes on people who were never going to open them. On ColabLoop the direction is reversed: you publish a loop once, producers looking for exactly that sound find it, and they come to you. Nothing is sold; every loop is the start of a collaboration, and you are on the split for whatever is built from it.

• Every producer is reviewed by a person before they can publish, against a real selling profile of their own.
• Each loop is one WAV, 10 to 60 seconds and up to 10 MB, published from your upload quota. You tag its genre, style, mood, the sounds in it, whether it has vocals, and whether it is mixed or unprocessed.
• You say what it is still looking for: vocals, a rap verse, drums, bass, melody, guitar, keys, arrangement, or anything at all. Producers can search by exactly that.
• Every upload is checked against released recordings, and you attest that you made the loop yourself, that it is not AI-generated and that it is not someone else's copyrighted loop.
• Anyone can listen to a short preview, at most 20 seconds and in lower quality, with no account. The full WAV only ever goes to a producer whose request you accept.
• You choose who builds on it. Requests come to you, you accept or decline, and you can close your door when you are busy. The first download in a room exchanges your credit and contact details with your collaborator, and the split is attested by both of you when the beat goes out.

For producers has the rest, including what publishing costs.

Keep track of your loops

However you share them, keep a simple log: each loop, where it went, and who has it. When one turns up in a released beat, you will know whether it was agreed, and you will have the date and the conversation to hand when it is time to register your share.