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Song deliveries by email

Writers email songs to your workspace's delivery address. Catalyst reads each email into a proposed song, and nothing reaches your catalog until someone on your team approves it.

Your writers already email you their songs. With Catalyst they send them to one address, and each email turns into a proposed song (title, writers, shares, lyrics and audio) waiting in a review queue. You check it, fix anything that's off, and approve.

  1. Email arrivesat your delivery address
  2. Read by AItitle, writers, shares, lyrics, audio
  3. You reviewedit, then approve or reject
  4. In your cataloga song with versions and splits
From inbox to catalog. The AI does the reading; a person decides.

Your delivery address#

Every workspace has its own address, like yourcompany@deliver.joincatalyst.io. Find it in Settings → Deliveries (with a Copy button) and on the Deliveries page and Dashboard while nothing has arrived yet. Give it to your writers, or set up a filter in your own email to forward deliveries there.

  • Writers send songs the way they always have: attachments, a Dropbox or Google Drive link, lyrics in the body or as a document.
  • Forwarded emails work. Forward a writer's email from Gmail, Apple Mail or Outlook and Catalyst credits the original sender, noting who forwarded it.
  • One email can carry several songs; each becomes its own proposal.
  • Owners can change the address in Settings → Deliveries. A few names, such as support or postmaster, are reserved. Tell your writers when you change it.
Allowed senders
Optional. One address (ava@example.com) or domain (@example.com) per line. Leave it empty to accept deliveries from anyone.
Auto-reply to writers
Sends the writer a short confirmation once their email has been received and read.
Auto-approve confident deliveries
Off by default. See Auto-approve below.

What Catalyst reads from an email#

Title
From the subject, the body or the file names.
Writers and shares
Names as the email spells them, matched to your writers by name, Also known as names and email address. Shares are taken only when the email states them.
Lyrics
From the body, or from an attached .txt, .docx or .rtf. PDFs aren't read yet.
Audio
Attachments, plus files behind Dropbox and Google Drive links, which Catalyst downloads for you. Other links (Box, WeTransfer and similar) are shown in the review with the link, so you can download them yourself.
Notes
Anything else worth keeping, such as “pitched to X last week”.

Each audio file becomes a version. Its type comes from the file name: “work tape”, “WT” or “voice memo” means Work Tape, a named type such as Master or Instrumental is used as is, and anything else is a Demo. You can change it before approving.

If an email has no lyrics, Catalyst can transcribe them from the audio. Transcribed lyrics are marked Transcribed — check: read them before you approve.

Confidence and the score#

The AI rates how sure it is about every important field: the title, each writer, and which file belongs to which song. A song's score (0–100) is its weakest field, so a single guess pulls the whole song down. The score sits at the top of each proposal and on the queue.

  • 0–49 · Low confidence — read closelyThe AI is guessing on at least one important field.
  • 50–79 · Check the tinted fieldsSomething was inferred from a filename or context.
  • 80–100 · Looks solidEverything important was stated in the email.
What the score means. Fields the AI is unsure of are tinted on the review page until you touch them.
  • A writer matched to your catalog whose name in the email is spelled differently is held at 50 or below, with “Email says …” shown under the name.
  • A new name that looks like one of your writers (a typo, a nickname) is held at 60 or below, with a Did you mean …? suggestion.
  • A name the email spells exactly like one of your writers counts as confident.

Review and approve#

Open Deliveries (g then d). The To review tab lists everything waiting, newest first, with each email's score. A delivery opens side by side: the original email on the left, the proposed song on the right.

  1. Step 1: Check the tinted fields first. Click any field to edit it; changes save as you type.
  2. Step 2: Check each writer. Matched means it's one of your writers; New writer means Catalyst didn't find them. Click the pill to pick a different writer or create a new one, and fix a new writer's name before approving.
  3. Step 3: Check the shares. If the email didn't state them, the song is split evenly (you'll see a toggle for it); fix the real numbers here or later on the song.
  4. Step 4: Choose Approve (e) to add it to your catalog, or Reject (#) if it isn't a delivery. Catalyst moves you on to the next delivery.

Approving creates the song, any new writers you confirmed, the splits and a version per audio file, exactly as if you'd entered them by hand, and records it all in the song's History. Unknown writers are never created without your say-so. Rejecting adds nothing to the catalog; the email and its files stay stored for reference.

Adding to an existing song#

Writers often send a new mix or a finished master of a song you already have. When a delivery's title matches a song in your catalog, the proposal opens in Add to existing mode. If several songs share the title and no shared writer tells them apart, Catalyst lists them first and lets you choose rather than guessing. You can also switch any proposal to Add to existing and search for the song yourself.

Before anything changes, Catalyst shows the delivery and the song side by side: title, writers and splits, DOC, lyrics and versions, with what approval will do to each (kept, will be added, already on the song). Enter confirms, Esc cancels. Adding to a song:

  • adds the new audio as versions, skipping files the song already has;
  • fills lyrics and DOC only if the song has none;
  • never changes the song's writers or splits.

Auto-approve#

Once you trust the scores, an owner can turn on Auto-approve confident deliveries in Settings → Deliveries and choose a threshold between 50 and 100 (90 when first turned on). A song is approved automatically only if it scores at least the threshold and every writer is already in your catalog. Anything with a new writer always waits for a person. You still get the notification.

Notifications#

When new deliveries are waiting, your team gets an in-app notification (the bell at the top) and an email, and the sidebar shows how many need review. The Dashboard's Deliveries waiting pane shows the latest few with their scores.

Bring in past deliveries from Gmail#

Years of deliveries may be sitting in someone's Gmail. You can bring them in with a Google Takeout export, run through the same reading and review as a live delivery, without connecting Catalyst to your Google account.

  1. Step 1: Make sure each writer's email addresses are on their writer page: only emails from those addresses are imported, and replies from your team are ignored.
  2. Step 2: In Google Takeout, export the Gmail account (just Mail is enough). In the downloaded zip, find the .mbox file inside Takeout/Mail/. From Apple Mail, export the mailbox and use the file named mbox.
  3. Step 3: In Catalyst, go to Import → Past deliveries from Gmail (or Import past deliveries on the Deliveries page). Choose whose deliveries to import, then choose the file. Keep the tab open while it uploads; big exports take a while.
  4. Step 4: Catalyst scans the file and shows how many delivery emails it found, how many are already in Catalyst, and the estimated AI cost. Nothing is read by the AI until you choose Confirm.
  5. Step 5: The songs land in the review queue. Songs that are already in your catalog are proposed as Add to existing.

Approve in bulk

A backfill can mean hundreds of songs. On the import's page, Approve the confident ones approves every song at or above a minimum score whose writers are all already in Catalyst; matching songs get their audio, lyrics and date added. Tick Also add co-writers who aren't in Catalyst yet to let clearly new names through; a name that looks like an existing writer still holds its song back with a note. Everything else stays in the queue for you.

Something unclear or missing? Email support@joincatalyst.io.