Ten fields cover almost every request you will get: song title, writer or artist name, a contact email, BPM, musical key, genre, mood or theme keywords, the ISRC if the recording has been released, which alternate versions exist, and whether you control both the song and the master recording. The first three belong in the filename as well as in the tags, because the filename is the only piece of metadata that survives every email client, every Dropbox link and every WeTransfer round trip intact.
That last point is the one most writers miss. A supervisor who downloads twelve WAV files from twelve different writers ends up with a folder where half the tracks say nothing but "Mixdown_final_v3.wav". Nobody goes hunting for who sent what. The song is not rejected, it is simply never opened, and you will never hear why. Metadata is not paperwork, it is the difference between a file that can be found again in three months and one that cannot.
| Field | Where it goes | Why it matters |
|---|---|---|
| Song title | Filename and ID3 title | The supervisor's search term when they come back to it |
| Writer or artist | Filename and ID3 artist | Tells them whose song it is without opening the email |
| Contact email | ID3 comment field | Files get forwarded internally and separated from your email |
| BPM | ID3 BPM field | Most briefs specify a tempo window, often 90 to 130 |
| Musical key | ID3 initial key or comment | Matters for editors cutting to picture and for stacking cues |
| Genre | ID3 genre | The coarsest filter, and the one applied first |
| Mood and theme | ID3 comment, three to five words | Briefs are written in mood language, not genre language |
| ISRC | ID3 ISRC field, released recordings only | Links a placement to your royalty reporting |
| Versions available | Filename suffix and comment | Instrumentals and cut-downs close deals on deadline |
| Ownership status | Comment, plus your pitch email | One-stop clearance is often the deciding factor |
MP3, AIFF and M4A all carry ID3 tags in one agreed place, so title, artist, BPM and comments travel with the file and show up in whatever the recipient opens it with. WAV has no single agreed tagging standard. Some software writes a RIFF INFO chunk, some writes a Broadcast Wave bext chunk, some appends an ID3 chunk to the end, and a good deal of software reads none of the three. Your DAW may show the tags perfectly and the supervisor's Finder window may show nothing at all.
There are two honest workarounds. The first is to put the identifying information in the filename, which no format can strip. The second is to send a 320 kbps MP3 for listening and hold the 16-bit 44.1 kHz WAV or higher for delivery once someone says yes. Supervisors audition on laptop speakers and in browser players. Nobody is evaluating your mix depth on the first pass, and an MP3 keeps its tags.
These two codes get confused constantly, and the distinction is simple once stated. An ISRC is 12 characters in the form CC-XXX-YY-NNNNN and identifies one specific sound recording. Your distributor normally assigns it when you release. A different mix or a live version of the same song gets a different ISRC. An ISWC is the letter T followed by nine digits and a check digit, and it identifies the composition itself, independent of any recording. It is issued through your PRO when the work is registered.
The ISRC is the one that goes in the audio file, and only once the recording exists commercially. An unreleased demo written for a brief has no ISRC and no supervisor expects one. The ISWC lives in your PRO registration and on your split sheet, not in the ID3 tag. Where the ISRC earns its keep is later: it is one of the identifiers that ties a cue sheet to a payment, which is the part of the chain covered in how sync placements actually pay.
Genre is a coarse filter. Briefs are almost never written in genre language alone. They say "hopeful but restrained", "late night, slightly unresolved", "the moment before she tells him". If your files carry three to five mood and theme words in the comment field, they become findable against language of that kind. If they carry only "Indie Pop", they do not.
Pick words a stranger would use, not words only you understand. "Wistful, driving, heartbreak, nostalgic, 2010s" is useful. "Session 14 vibe" is not. Five words is plenty. Twenty words is noise, and noise is the same as nothing when the filter runs. Decoding what a brief is really asking for is its own skill, and it is covered in what a sync brief is and how to read one.
The fix does not need to be retroactive across everything. Tag properly going forward, and clean up the fifty songs you actually pitch. A well-tagged fifty beats a chaotic thousand, and the ordering work pays off again the moment you need to find a match under deadline, which is the subject of how to organize your sync catalog.
Pitchkit does not write tags into your files, manage ownership records, store contact details or issue ISRCs. Those stay your job, and the filename discipline above is still worth having regardless of what software you run.
What it does is remove the need to hand-tag the musical half. It reads BPM, musical key, energy, brightness and danceability straight from the waveform, and can transcribe lyrics locally with Whisper, so a catalog becomes searchable against brief language without anyone typing a single tag. A 1,000 song catalog takes roughly an hour to index once. After that you paste in a brief and it ranks every song you own by fit.
Related reading: music catalog management software, the five audio features music supervisors actually care about, and how to get sync briefs in the first place.
Ten fields cover almost every request: song title, writer or artist name, a contact email, BPM, musical key, genre, mood or theme keywords, the ISRC if the recording has been released, which alternate versions exist such as instrumental or a 30 second cut, and whether you control both the song and the master. Put the first three in the filename as well as the tags, because the filename is the only field that survives every transfer.
MP3, AIFF and M4A all carry ID3 tags in a standard place, so title, artist, BPM and comments travel with the file. WAV has no single agreed tagging standard: some software writes a RIFF INFO chunk, some writes a Broadcast Wave bext chunk, some appends an ID3 chunk, and plenty of apps read none of those. That is why a WAV arrives at a supervisor showing nothing but the filename, and why the filename has to carry the identifying information.
No. An ISRC is a 12 character code in the form CC-XXX-YY-NNNNN that identifies a specific sound recording, and it is normally assigned when you distribute the recording. An unreleased demo written for a brief will not have one, and no supervisor expects it to. Add it once the recording is released, because it is what links the placement to your royalty reporting. The ISWC, which is the letter T plus nine digits plus a check digit, identifies the composition rather than the recording and is issued through your PRO.
Partly, and it is worth being precise about which half. Pitchkit reads BPM, musical key, energy, brightness and danceability directly from the audio waveform, and can transcribe lyrics locally with Whisper, so the musical fields are derived without you typing anything. It does not write those values back into your files, and it does not manage ownership, contact details or ISRCs. It uses what it derives to rank your catalog against a brief you paste in.
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