How To Send Beats To Artists (The Right Way)

Find the right people before you send anything

Sending beats means nothing if they land in the wrong inbox. Step one is building a list of people actually connected to the artist you want.

Go to Genius. Pull up the artist you're targeting, open their last 10 or so releases, and hit "view all credits" on each one. You'll see producers, co-producers, engineers, songwriters, session musicians, everyone who touched the song. A lot of them list their social contacts right there. Save the ones who are connected but not so famous they'll never see your message. The giant names won't respond. The engineer or the co-producer two rungs down might.

Second move: open the artist's Instagram following list. The accounts they follow that only have a few thousand followers are often videographers, managers, A&Rs, and friends. Those are the exact people who can play your beat in the room. Build the list, don't just DM one person and wait.

You can also find artists themselves this way. Scroll TikTok and YouTube for upcoming artists getting 10k to 100k views who still have a small social following. Those people are grinding, they're reachable, and they need beats. Smaller artists that a bigger artist just co-signed are gold too.

Match the genre and do your homework

Personalization is the first foot in the door. If you make boom bap, don't send to a drill artist. If you make trap, keep the slow jams and jazz beats out of that pack. One off-genre beat tells the artist you don't actually know their music, and they'll assume you can't make for them.

Spend five minutes listening before you send. Pull up their last project or a playlist of their biggest songs. Mention something real in your message. That tiny bit of effort beats a perfect-looking spam email every time, because it shows there's a human on the other end who wants to help their career, not just cash a PayPal.

Here's where your actual material matters. To send with intent you need a pile of strong, varied ideas ready to go, not three old beats you recycle for everyone. If you're short on starting points, grab free hand-played melody loops at ndacompany.de. No login, no subscription, just loops you can flip into finished beats and build artist-specific packs around. Good loops in means better beats out, and better beats are the only thing that makes any of this work.

Name and format your files so they get played

Never send a file called "final_car_mix_v8." It tells the recipient nothing. Use a clean format: artist type, key, and BPM. Something like "Travis Scott Melodic C Minor 140 BPM." Now the engineer knows the tempo and key before they even open it, which saves them time in Pro Tools or FL.

On file type there's a real split among producers, so here's the honest version. Several say send MP3 only, because WAV files are huge, slow to download, and a pain to open on a phone. If someone gets a 20-beat WAV pack, they won't download all of it, so nothing gets heard. Others say send both WAV and MP3 so the artist can preview the MP3 fast and drag the WAV straight into their session.

The safe play: if you're sending straight to an artist, lead with MP3 so they can tap and listen instantly. If you're sending to an engineer who's going to record on it, include the WAV too, since they want the quality in the DAW. When in doubt, MP3 wins because it's the one that actually gets opened.

Put your info on everything

Assume they have no idea who you are, now or three months from now. Artists and their teams sit on hundreds of beats. They are not holding a mental note that says "hit this guy up if we use it." So make it impossible to lose you.

Put your name, Instagram, email, and phone number in the email body. Then put it in the folder title and in the file names too. If they open that folder two months later and the beat is a hit, your contact is right there and you get the call.

Make it clear they need to contact you to use the beat. Most major artists won't just steal it and vanish, but spell it out so the conversation about a buy or royalties actually happens. Clean names plus your info everywhere is what turns a forgotten folder into a placement.

Write the message that gets a reply (email vs the Reddit debate)

Don't write five paragraphs about your journey since you touched a church keyboard at age five. Also don't send a one-word message or just an emoji. Somewhere in the middle is the whole game. Say hi, say who you are, where you're from, and what you produce. Then say you cooked up a few beats you think fit their next session. Short, clear, respectful. That's it.

No emojis in the subject line or body. A subject stuffed with fire and kissy faces reads as spam. A simple "beats for you" or "[your name], beats for your next project" does more. Drop the artist's name into the pack title too, so they know it was built for them and not blasted to 50 people.

Search Reddit and you'll see producers argue forever that cold emailing beats is dead. They're half right. Cold emailing with a coupon code and a "25% off lease, bulk deals" pitch is dead. Nobody cares about your discount when they don't know who you are or why you'd help their career. The version that still works is a short, personal note to the right person, with your best beats attached, treating them like a human. That's the real answer the threads keep dancing around.

On the email side specifically: a huge chunk of searches are people wanting the exact email approach. Keep it tight. Use a tool like Mailtrack to see when your email gets opened, so you know whether you're even being read or wasting your time. And never scrape random emails off the internet and dump them into a marketing list. Cold-blasting people onto an email list without consent is illegal, so reach out one to one instead.

Email, text, or DM: how to actually deliver

There are three real channels: email, phone number, and DM. Which one depends on who you're sending to.

If you're sending straight to an artist, a lot of placed producers prefer their number. Artists live on their phone, not a laptop. In the studio they'll play beats straight off their phone through the speakers. A text with a few MP3s is the easiest thing in the world for them to tap in the car or on the couch.

If you're sending to an engineer, go email to their laptop. They want to pull the file straight into Pro Tools or FL and lay vocals down, so a Dropbox or Drive folder makes sense there.

For email, don't dump six-plus files or a stack of Dropbox links into one message to an artist. Past a certain point the inbox shoves it into a separate Drive view they have to open in another app, and that kills your open rate. Three to four of your best in a single email is the sweet spot. Use Dropbox or Google Drive for bigger engineer packs since most people have accounts. Avoid broken zips, weird links, and jumbled names. You can even add a short doc listing each beat with its vibe, key, and BPM. It shows you care about presentation, not just sound.

For a DM, don't be stiff and don't write an essay. Wait until a producer posts session footage or asks for loops on their story, then hit them with something like "yo I've got a lot of samples that sound like [artist], can I send them through?" and attach a short snippet. The snippet is the key. They can hear it in two seconds and decide if you're worth a reply.

Offer value and play the long game

With no followers and no credits, your name alone won't move people. Give them a reason to work with you. That can be amazing melodies, a live instrument that makes you sound different from everyone, or a cut of the deal. Offer a bigger producer a 70/30 split, or tell a videographer or A&R you'll give them a slice of the publishing if they place your song. Some producers get creative and send a gift to stand out and get a reply.

Then be patient. This is the part nobody wants to hear. An artist can take one to three months to tell you they even used something. Some of the best placements come from beats you forgot you sent. Don't trip when a reply doesn't come the next day.

Keep sending, keep posting your beats and loops online every single day, and keep building the list. A spreadsheet tracking who you contacted, what you sent, and what value you offered keeps you organized while you wait. Consistency plus genuinely good music is what pays off. If you want a steady source of ideas to keep that pipeline full, the free loops at ndacompany.de refresh your pack so you always have something fresh to send the right person at the right moment.

What NOT to do

Don't send 20 beats at once. It's overwhelming, not impressive. Pick your best three to seven that fit the artist and make each one feel intentional, like it could go straight on their album.

Don't lead with prices and coupon codes. You're a business providing value, and value comes before the sale. The moment your opener is a discount, you've lost.

Don't send off-genre beats, don't stuff the email with emojis, and don't rely on giant WAV packs that nobody downloads. Don't scrape and spam email lists. And don't start any of this until your music is genuinely ready. Placed producers will block you or ignore you forever if the first thing they open from you is weak. Burning that bridge is worse than not sending at all.

Keep every send clean: clean sound, clean file names, clean delivery, right person, short message. Treat each one like it could change your career, because one day the right folder opened at the right time just might.