June 4, 2026 · 8 min read

I am Marc Aaron Jacobs. I am a composer and a music publisher, and I have run a music catalog called Tonal Chaos for over 20 years, along with Tonal Chaos Trailers. For most of that time, sharing and pitching my music to supervisors and editors was just part of the job. And for a good chunk of it, I used DISCO to do it.

This is the story of why I stopped, and why I ended up building DropCue instead.

I used DISCO for years, and it is genuinely good

Let me say this clearly up front: DISCO is super solid, and the industry likes it for a reason. It pretty much invented the modern playlist-pitching workflow that composers and agencies rely on. When people ask me about it, I do not trash it. It works, and a lot of professionals are happy with it.

But over time, a few things started to wear on me.

It felt a bit clunky in places. The shared pages, the thing my clients actually opened, never looked the way I wanted them to. I am a composer, but I also care a lot about presentation. When I send a supervisor a playlist, that page is my first impression. It is my pitch. And I kept feeling like the pages I was sending out did not match the quality of the music inside them.

The other thing was cost. By the time you add the pieces a working music professional actually needs, the monthly number climbs fast. I will get into the real DISCO pricing math below, because it surprised a lot of people I talk to.

So I had two choices. Keep paying for something that felt off to me, or build the thing I actually wanted.

So I built DropCue to modernize this kind of platform

I did not set out to start a software company. I set out to fix my own problem.

I wanted a music-sharing and pitching platform that felt modern, looked premium, and included the features I personally use every day as a composer and a publisher. Not a stripped-down version where the important stuff is locked behind add-ons. Everything included.

Because I run real catalogs, I built in the things I actually reach for:

• A submission review workflow. As a publisher, I get music sent to me constantly. I needed to approve tracks, leave feedback and notes, and keep it all organized in one place. So that is built in.
• All the metadata goodies. Genre, mood, BPM, key, writers, publishers, ISRC, keywords. The stuff that actually matters when a supervisor is searching, and the stuff sync work lives and dies on.
• Playlists and portfolio pages that genuinely look good. This one was personal. I wanted shared pages that feel like a real presentation, not a utility. We just shipped a full-bleed cinematic share page that I am really proud of.
• Auto-grouped ALT mixes. Anyone who delivers stems and alternates knows the mess. Full mix, instrumental, no-drums, 30-second cut. DropCue nests them automatically so the page stays clean.
• Timestamped waveform comments. Your client can drop feedback at the exact second in a track. No more "around the 1:20 mark" emails.

I could go on and on. As you can tell, I get excited about this. The point is, every one of these features exists because I needed it for my own work first.

The biggest thing my users get is me

Here is the part no big platform can copy, and it is the thing I am most proud of.

When you use DropCue, you are not emailing faceless support. You get me. I am on call basically all the time.

People send me feature ideas and bug reports, and I usually have them handled within a few hours. Sometimes within the same hour. A composer told me recently that our cinematic share pages did not exist yet and that DISCO's looked better. I redesigned ours, tested it, and shipped it the same day. That is not a special case. That is just how I run this.

My users love that one-on-one attention, and it is the part of building DropCue I enjoy the most. When a working professional tells me what would make their day easier, I can actually go make it happen. DISCO and ReelCrafter are good tools, but they are big enough that your feature request goes into a queue. With me, it goes into the next build.

That direct line between the people using the tool and the person building it is the whole philosophy. It is why DropCue improves so fast.

What DISCO actually costs (the part that surprised people)

I want to be fair here, because I do not believe in fuzzy comparisons.

DISCO base plans advertise around $10 to $29 a month. That sounds reasonable. But the features a lot of sync professionals actually need, like the Discovery Suite and watermarking, are sold as separate add-ons. Once you stack what you really use, the working total climbs toward roughly $50 to $70 a month for a single user. That is somewhere around $600 to $840 a year.

DropCue's comparable Pro plan is $12 to $15 a month, with every feature included and no add-ons. Same pricing for composers, agencies, and supervisors. I do not believe in charging an "agency tier" that doubles the price for the same product. There is also a Founding Member option at $599 one-time for lifetime Pro access, which a lot of people have grabbed.

I am not going to tell you DropCue is cheap, because it is not a budget tool. It is a premium product at a fair price. The difference is that the premium price actually buys you premium software, not a base plan plus a pile of upsells.

Should you switch?

I am genuinely not going to hard-sell you. Here is where I land.

If DISCO is working for you and your shared pages look the way you want, stay. It is a real tool and there is no shame in it.

But if you have ever felt what I felt, that the pages you send out do not quite match your music, that the monthly cost keeps creeping, that you wish the person building the tool actually listened, then it is worth a look. You can start a free DropCue account and try it on a real pitch. If it earns a spot in your workflow, great. If not, you have lost nothing.

You can also browse the full feature breakdown for composers or read how DropCue compares to DISCO directly.

For deeper background on the sync and music-supervision world, The Guild of Music Supervisors and SoundExchange are solid resources, and BMI has good primers on publishing and royalties if you are newer to the business side.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is DropCue a real DISCO alternative?

Yes. DropCue covers the same core workflow as DISCO, building playlists, sharing them with music supervisors, and tracking who listens, with every feature included rather than split into add-ons. It also includes things DISCO charges extra for or does not offer, like timestamped waveform comments, a built-in submission review workflow, auto-grouped ALT mixes, and modern cinematic share pages. Most people who switch find that everything they actually used on DISCO is here, usually in a cleaner interface.

Why did the founder leave DISCO?

I am a composer and publisher who used DISCO for years. It is genuinely solid, but it felt clunky to me in places, the shared pages never looked as premium as I wanted, and the real monthly cost crept higher than the advertised price once you add the features sync work needs. I decided I would rather build the modern version I actually wanted to use.

What makes DropCue different from DISCO and ReelCrafter?

Three things. First, every feature is included, no add-on stacking. Second, the shared pages and portfolios are built to look premium, including a full-bleed cinematic layout. Third, and this is the big one, you get me, the founder, on call. Feature requests and fixes usually ship within hours, not into a corporate queue. As a working composer and publisher, I build the features I need myself, so the roadmap reflects real day-to-day pitching.

How much does DropCue cost compared to DISCO?

DropCue's Pro plans run $12 to $15 a month with everything included and no add-ons, with annual plans starting at $5 a month for smaller catalogs. There is also a $599 one-time Founding Member option for lifetime Pro access. A fully-loaded DISCO setup with the add-ons most pros use lands closer to $50 to $70 a month. Same DropCue pricing applies to composers, agencies, and supervisors, with no separate agency tier.

Can I try DropCue before paying?

Yes. You can start a free account and build a real playlist and share page right away. Try it on an actual pitch. If it earns a place in your workflow, you can upgrade. If not, you have not lost anything.