A guided walkthrough, with screenshots

Three things, in the order most people do them: put a song up, go and look at what everyone else is working on, and ask for the part you cannot play yourself. Each one stands alone — skip to whichever you need.

Everything here is free. Nothing in this guide needs Pro, and nothing needs a card.

1. Start a Session

A Session is one song’s home — every version, every file, every contribution, in one place. You start one with whatever you already have. A voice memo is enough.

1. Press Start for free in the header, or go straight to Start a Session.
2. Sign in if you have not already. This is the only wall in the whole flow, and it is here so your drafts survive closing the tab.
3. Choose what you are starting from: Audio, Lyrics, Video, or Import project for a Logic or GarageBand project. Drag a file in, or pick one.
4. Fill in Session details. The title is filled in from your filename, so most of the time there is nothing to type. Genre is how people find it later.
5. On Review, check who can reach it. Sessions are public unless you say otherwise — public is what lets anyone hear it and offer to help. Add artwork if you want, and confirm you have the rights to the audio.
6. Press Start Session. Your files upload at this point, not before, so stay on the page until it finishes.

What you end up with is the Session page: the current version at the top, its history underneath, and the controls for inviting people in.

2. Find music and people on Explore

Explore is where you hear what other people are part-way through. It opens on Browse, which is a page you read; the Discover toggle beside it is a full-screen feed you swipe instead.

Working down the page:

• Search — one field for songs, artists, genres, tags and BPM. Useful when you know roughly what you want.
• The chips — For You, Open Sessions, Staff Picks, Recently updated, All, and Genres. Each one narrows the page rather than taking you somewhere else.
• Featured and Open Sessions — Sessions worth a listen, and Sessions whose artists have said they want contributors.
• Wanted — specific asks with a specific song attached, and the amount if there is one.
• Browse by genre and Artists to discover — for when you are not looking for anything in particular.

Open Sessions and Wanted are different invitations, and it is worth knowing which is which. An open Session is a door left ajar — send something if you hear something. A Wanted post is somebody asking for a named part, and naming what it pays.

3. Ask for what a song needs

A request is how you ask for a part you cannot play. There are two kinds, and the difference is who can see it.

• Open — public. Anyone can read it, hear the song, and put themselves forward. You pick who gets it.
• Private — addressed to one person, inside your conversation with them.

Posting an open request

1. Open your Session and press Ask for help. The song is attached for you.
2. Say what you need — one or several of drums, vocals, mixing, and so on — and describe it in your own words. That description is the deal, so be specific.
3. Set an amount, or leave it free. If you set one, choose when it pays: when the work is sent, after several sends, or only if the part makes the record. The amount and its condition always travel together.
4. Post it. Your request gets its own page, and Copy link on that page is how you send it to people. It also appears under Wanted on Explore.

Open requests only work on public Sessions — the whole point is that strangers can hear the song before they offer.

Answering someone else’s

1. Find one under Wanted on Explore, or from a link somebody sent you, and open it.
2. Listen to the song on that page, then press I’ll try for this. You can attach a contribution you have already made to the song.
3. The person who posted it sees everyone who tried and presses Give it to them on one. That opens a conversation between you and starts the agreement.

Keeping track

Requests holds every request you have sent and received, under Received, Sent, Accepted and Closed. Each row says whose move it is. Clicking one opens where it lives — its public page if it is open, the conversation if it is private — and paid agreements show a Pay button as soon as both sides have agreed.

To be paid, set up payouts once from the banner on that page. Money is held until the work is delivered, and the 8% service fee (minimum $1.50) is added to what the payer pays rather than taken out of what you receive.

Where to go next

• Create your first Session — the same ground in more detail.
• Requests and paid collaboration — terms, counters, delivery and disputes.
• Copyright and rights — what you may upload, and what happens if something is matched.