Genre guides Pop
Pop · how it gets madePop is built in rooms. A producer brings a track or starts one from nothing, one or two topliners write to it, and the song exists by the end of the day whether or not anyone knows who will sing it. The splits, the files and the credit questions all start the moment the room opens, so that is where this page starts.
Builds the track, usually in the room with the writers. Often a writer on the composition as well as owning or splitting the master. Delivers the trackout when the record is cut.
Writes the melody and the lyric over the track. A writer on the composition, paid by split, sometimes with a fee on top when the song is a pitch for a signed artist.
Sings the record and may or may not have been in the room. If they wrote, they are a writer. If they did not, their credit is the performance and their deal is on the master.
Runs the vocal session, comps, tunes and stacks. Per song or per day. Sometimes the same person as the producer, sometimes not, and worth agreeing up front.
Mixes from the trackout and the vocal stack, then masters or hands off to a mastering engineer. Per song with a revision count. Attended and unattended are different prices.
Most of the friction is in the handoffs, so this is the order the handoffs happen.
The room gets booked: a producer, one or two topliners, sometimes the artist. Someone brings a track or a chord loop and the song gets written that day.
Before anyone leaves, the writers agree the composition split. The US default when nobody says anything is equal shares among the writers, so say something.
A demo vocal gets cut, often by the topliner. If the song is being pitched to an artist, that demo is the product and deserves a proper vocal pass.
The artist cuts the final vocal with a vocal producer. Comping and tuning is its own job and gets agreed as one.
The mixer gets the trackout, the vocal stack consolidated from bar 1 with tuning printed, a reference mix and the revision count.
The split sheet gets signed and the metadata gets filled in before the release date is set. Everything else follows from those two documents.
The producer delivers a trackout: every element as its own full-length WAV from bar 1, at the session sample rate, with the BPM and key in the file names. Vocal producers deliver the comped lead, doubles, harmonies and ad libs the same way, dry and with tuning printed as separate passes. Ask for the trackout by name rather than "stems"; stems can mean grouped submixes and a mixer needs the individual parts. Demos travel as a two-track WAV plus a lyric sheet.
Writers in the room are paid by split, and a fee only when a publisher or label puts one on the table. Producers price a track as a licence, an exclusive or a custom production fee, and expect a share of the master on a real release. Vocal production, mixing and mastering price per song with a revision count. Session players price per session or per track. Ranges for 2026 are in the pricing guide and the rates posts below; treat them as ranges, not quotes.
Everyone who wrote in the room is a writer on the composition, and the US default when there is no agreement is equal shares among the writers, so agree it in writing the day the song is written. The producer's share of the master is a separate deal. The producer credit goes in the metadata and the release credits, and a topliner who sang the demo does not automatically get an artist credit; if they want one, it is negotiated.
Genre is one of the six signals that rank the deck, alongside role fit, activity, profile depth, distance and KollabScore. The rate and the terms get agreed in the app and settle between the two of you. KollabMe never holds the money.
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