Sharing with Collaborators

Producer Dashboard makes it easy to bring other producers, vocalists, and engineers into your projects. You control exactly who sees your work, what they can do with it, and how credits and royalties get split. This guide walks you through everything you need to know about sharing tracks and managing collaborators.

What Is a Collaborator?

A collaborator is anyone you’ve invited to work on one of your tracks. Unlike a simple share link, collaborators have a persistent connection to your project. They appear on your track, can access your files based on their permissions, and receive credit in any exports or metadata.

Collaborators are different from guests. A guest might receive a one-time share link to listen or download. A collaborator is an ongoing relationship — they’re part of the team for that track.

Adding a Collaborator

You can add collaborators directly from the Manage Collaborators option in the tracks grid, or from the Collaborators widget in the activity panel.

Steps to Add a Collaborator

Select the track you want to share in the tracks grid
Click Manage Collaborators from the context menu or track actions
In the collaborators panel, click Add Collaborator
Enter the collaborator’s email address
Set their master split, publishing split, and writer split percentages
Click Save

The collaborator will receive an invitation email and appear on your track immediately. Their avatar shows up in the overview widget, the collaborators panel, and across the grid.

Understanding Split Allocations

When you share a track, you need to decide how ownership and royalties get divided. Producer Dashboard tracks three types of splits:

Master split — controls ownership of the actual audio recording
Publishing split — controls songwriting and composition royalties
Writer split — attribution for songwriting contributions (a subset of publishing)

All three splits are expressed as percentages. The total for each split type must equal 100% across all collaborators (including you as the track owner).

Smart Default Splits

When you add a new collaborator, the app automatically suggests a split that keeps your total allocations at or below 100%. It calculates an even share based on the remaining available percentage, so you never accidentally over-allocate.

For example, if you own 100% and add one collaborator, the app suggests splitting it 50/50. If you already have Joshua at 50% and add Sarah, the app suggests splitting the remaining 50% evenly between all three collaborators.

Auto-Allocate Button

Instead of manually adjusting each percentage, click Auto-allocate to evenly distribute splits across everyone on the track. This is useful when you’ve just added multiple collaborators and want a quick, fair starting point.

The app splits master, publishing, and writer percentages evenly. If the math doesn’t divide evenly (like splitting 100% among three people), it rounds to two decimal places with the remainder going to the last collaborator.

Allocation Warnings

The split panel shows your current totals in real-time. You’ll see:

Green when total equals 100%
Amber or red with a warning when total exceeds 100%

You cannot save changes that would cause either split type to exceed 100%. The app blocks the save and shows a message explaining the issue.

Managing Existing Collaborators

From the Collaborators panel, you can view everyone currently attached to a track and adjust their settings.

Editing a Collaborator

Click on any collaborator’s row to expand it. You can update:

Their master, publishing, and writer splits
Their permission level
Their display name (for this track only)

Changes save automatically when you click away from the row, or you can use the Save button to confirm.

Removing a Collaborator

To remove someone from a track, click the trash icon on their row. A confirmation dialog appears. Once removed, they lose access to the track immediately. Any files they already downloaded remain on their device, but they can no longer access new files.

Sometimes you need to share a track without making someone a full collaborator. For these situations, you can create share links.

From the share menu, choose Create share link. You’ll see options for:

Expiration — set a link to expire after a certain number of days, or create a never-expiring link
Download permissions — allow or restrict downloads for different file types (stems, bounces, mp3s)
Track selection — choose which tracks to include (up to 50 at once)

The app generates a unique URL you can copy and send via email, messaging apps, or social media.

Share links respect the owner’s Dropbox connection. If you disconnect Dropbox, share links stop working. Recipients see a friendly error message asking them to check back later.

You can revoke a share link at any time from the Share settings. Once revoked, the link no longer works for anyone.

Collaboration Invitations

When someone invites you to collaborate on their track, you’ll see a notification badge in the app header. Clicking it opens the Collaboration Invites modal.

Accepting an Invitation

Click the notification badge (shows the number of pending invites)
Review the track details — you’ll see the song name, artwork, and who sent the invite
Click Accept next to the track you want to join

After accepting, the track appears in your grid. Files sync based on the permission level the owner set for you. Your split percentages are already configured — you can adjust them later if needed.

Sync Timing

When you accept an invitation, files begin syncing from the owner’s Dropbox. Large projects may take a few minutes to fully transfer. You’ll see a progress indicator in the activity panel while files are downloading.

Editing a Collaborator’s Splits

You can update split allocations at any time from the Collaborators panel. Click on any collaborator’s row to edit their master, publishing, and writer split percentages. Changes take effect immediately.

Tips

Adding Collaborators — detailed walkthrough of the add flow
Splits & Rights — deep dive into master, publishing, and writer splits
Permissions — understanding access levels
Invitations — managing incoming and outgoing invites
Default Project Collaborators — setting up recurring collaborators
Unsharing & Leaving — removing access and revoking links