How Pulse’s A&R team uses DISCO for cross-team collaboration and maximizing opportunities

Pulse Music Group is an LA-based music publishing, management, and music services company founded by Josh Abraham and songwriters Scott Cutler and Anne Preven in 2007.

With two recording studios in the LA area and a team that includes 25 executives, Pulse represents creators like Run the Jewels, Muna, Gallant, James Blake, Ty Dolla $ign, and dozens more.

We spoke with A&R Coordinator Shannon Choi about her process and how the Pulse team uses DISCO in their day-to-day workflow.

It’s all about the playlists

The Pulse A&R team’s primary use for DISCO is creating playlists to pitch to record labels. Shannon shared, “songwriters and producers send me files in batches via text message sometimes, and I don’t have the time to listen to them as they come in. Our creative admin coordinator creates a playlist on DISCO for me so I can access and listen to them later. That’s how things don’t get lost in the cracks.” With DISCO, Shannon doesn’t have to worry about “missing out on an amazing demo because I didn’t have the software to put it in.”

Shannon’s playlists aren’t limited to the artists and labels she has relationships with. If her colleague needs a hook for a pop artist, she’ll see what Shannon and other team members have to offer and vice versa. They share playlists when not looking for something specific as well, in case it sparks an idea for a project. Additionally, each A&R coordinator can cross-reference each other’s DISCO playlist when working with the same client. This streamlines communication and time going back and forth.

Listening on the go

Shannon not only uses the DISCO mobile app out of convenience — she’s found it to be a fun discovery tool. She said, “I sometimes go into phases where I won’t listen to any new music because I’m only listening to demos. I listen in the car when I’m driving or walking around Silverlake Reservoir. I don’t even click on Spotify. Instead, I’ll listen to a playlist that I just got from one of my clients, or I’ll make one of my own. I use it like my streaming service. I’ll be like, this song is dope. I found so many songs like that.”

Organization leads to ideation

Having the ability to listen to playlists of client demos on the go and in her leisure time frees up much mental space for Shannon to spark ideas and think of new producer-artist connections.

“When I go in and listen, I make notes in DISCO’s comment section. Things like, ‘Wow, this sounds like it’s like a Young Thug/Don Toliver song,’ and tag it accordingly. That way, if an artist’s manager hits me up wanting some cool songs or ideas, I can go into DISCO and find that song even if I don’t remember the name or artist. That’s the most helpful, the space to pull ideas for clients while listening to their tracks.”

“It saves us anywhere between 20 to 40 hours/week, to be honest”

Before DISCO, it’d take the Pulse team 5–10 minutes to upload a track using Harvest. They spent hours uploading files, oftentimes going into the office long before working hours to prepare tracks before a publishing meeting. “Uploading a track literally takes seconds on DISCO. It saves us anywhere between 20 to 40 hours/week, to be honest. Now, in those meetings when we want to listen to demos, we pull up the DISCO playlist and all the metadata is there,” she continued.

Capturing lost gems and missed opportunities

When working with so many people on both sides of the equation — producers making beats and the artists needing them — it would be easy to miss out on opportunities without the right system. Shannon illustrated, “A lot of our A&R reps have 30+ people on their roster who are texting them files at like 4am when they’re leaving the studio. We can’t always get to them right away; that’s where we start losing track and potentially missing out on gems. So DISCO is important for cataloging everything we receive from them.”

She continued, “For example, the other day, one of our A-level producers, sent us a pack of beats that were just laying around. I put those sounds in a playlist to listen to when I had the right speakers and a chance to focus. There was one song that I couldn’t believe was collecting dust in a folder. It was gold. We’re pitching it around now so it will finally land somewhere great.”

“Beyond time, DISCO saves us probably 2–3 missed opportunities per week.”

Then there are the opportunities to sell those beats. She said, “We get hit up for songs last minute all the time. Easy and fast access to our library is crucial. Beyond time, DISCO saves us probably 2–3 missed opportunities per week.”

That’s not the only way DISCO helps Pulse capture income for their artists. Shannon went on, “So much of our Creative Admin Coordinator’s job used to be uploading tracks. Now, she has more time to track down splits and make sure everyone gets paid on time, which is essential to our reputation, of course.”

Tight turnarounds and helpful analytics

It’s not unusual for a label to hit Shannon and her colleagues up with a message along the lines of, “they’re in the studio right now. Can you send a pack?” Shannon shared, “We’ll go to DISCO, listen to what we have, and text them a playlist link as soon as we can. The tagging system makes it easy and fast to pull up beats and songs for artists when they need something instantly. It’s cool because, with the analytics, I can see which songs they vibe with. As I’m watching that, I’ll send another pack to see if they like that.”

“I’ll look at the stats again in the morning to see what got downloaded and follow up on what they did and didn’t decide to use; it’s pretty common for them to forget to tell us. Or, I can check in and see if they want me to send more packs or tracks that follow a specific vibe.”

DISCO’s role in ongoing relationship management

The labels that Shannon is sending playlists to like how consolidated the information is in DISCO, and especially that they don’t have to click through several folders like they would in Box. Rather, they have a list of songs they can browse with all the proper metadata right there. This ease increases Pulse’s chances to be considered for projects.

Shannon shared, “There was a song from a huge compilation album that came from a track being sent through DISCO. We send a lot of packs directly to their label A&Rs. It was just so easy to gather all those songs together and pitch it to them.”

What to do with all that time?

Shannon made it clear that DISCO has opened up tons of time for the entire Pulse A&R team. For her, specifically, that means more time to listen to her clients’ music, do the other aspects of her job, and connect with more people, which is of course, essential to A&R.

Advice to fellow A&Rs

To fellow A&R people, Shannon says, “You would be doing yourself a disservice if you don’t use DISCO. It’s revolutionary, seamless, and clean. It’s unmatched. For me, it’s the little nuances that I don’t have to think about. It’s extremely intuitive.”