How to get your beats heard

The biggest names get the most beats and have the least time. You’ll usually do better with artists whose recent music sounds like what you make and who are still building, because they’re more likely to be listening.

Make a short list, and for each name check what they’re asking for. On Stems, browse the artists receiving beats on Discover and read the “Send me:” line on their page. If an artist says they want R&B at 90 BPM, a 160 BPM drill beat is a wasted send, however good it is.

It’s tempting to send everything and let the artist pick. Don’t. Thirty beats is homework. Two beats is a listen.

• Pick the one to three that fit this artist, not your favourites.
• Put the strongest first. Some people only play the first one.
• Leave space for a voice. A beat that fills every second can be impressive and still be hard to write to.

A beat that turns up as “untitled 4.mp3” loses before it plays. Make sure the artist can tell what it is and who made it at a glance.

• Title. A real name, not a version number.
• You. Your producer name, spelled the way you want to be credited.
• Tempo and key. In the title or the notes, so an artist can tell at a glance whether it suits a song.
• Co-producers. Credit them when you send. On Stems, tagged co-producers get credit for the beat too.

If you use a producer tag, keep it short and away from where a hook would go.

Every extra step costs you listens. Download links expire, zip files need unpacking, and “DM me for the link” rarely gets a DM. Send the beat somewhere it plays straight away.

That’s the idea behind Stems: an artist’s page at sendstems.io/name takes your beat and puts it in their beat inbox, where it plays in one tap next to everything else they’ve been sent. The step by step is in how to send beats to artists.

One follow-up after a week or two is reasonable. A new beat that fits them is a better follow-up than “did you hear it?”, because it gives them something to play.

It helps to know whether the first one got played. On Stems, beats you’ve sent show their plays and saves, counting the artist and anyone who found them on Discover. Saves are a reason to send more of the same. No plays at all after a couple of weeks is a reason to try a different artist rather than send the same one again.

Note what you sent, to whom and when, so you don’t send the same beat twice or lose track of who asked for stems. Your Sent list on Stems does this for you: every beat you’ve sent and who it went to.

When you send a beat on Stems you can also let it appear in the public Discover feed, which anyone can browse and play. It still goes to the artist you sent it to. If you’d rather it didn’t, untick the box and it stays between you and them.

Artists and A&Rs looking for a better way to take beats in can read about a beat submission page.