How to Prepare a Club Ready Music Track for Instagram Reels

An Instagram Reel of a Club Ready Music track is a 1080×1920 vertical MP4 with AAC audio, built in a free editor from the WAV and the cover JPEG, and the detail that matters most is the cut: Reels loop when they finish, so take an exact number of bars starting at the drop and the end rolls straight back into the start. Club Ready Music gives you the bar length through the BPM tag and the drop position through the share page preview, cue points.txt and the Drop in button. Instagram normalises to about −14 LUFS, so a DJ edit for Reels is built at Volume level −14.

Steps

1. Work out the bar length

One bar is 240 divided by BPM seconds. At 124 BPM a bar is 1.935 s, at 126 BPM 1.905 s, at 128 BPM 1.875 s. Read the BPM from the result panel chips or the TBPM tag; on a DJ edit built with Shift tempo to, use the target tempo. Eight bars at 126 BPM is 15.24 s, sixteen bars is 30.48 s, and thirty-two bars is 60.95 s. Pick the count that fits the Reel length you want.

2. Locate the drop

Open the share page at /t/; the 30-second preview starts at the drop and is a quick ear check. For the exact position, read the first drop line in cue points.txt from the DJ pack, or on a DJ edit press Drop in and read the intro end from the comment tag. Both are given to the millisecond.

3. Set the loudness and download

For a DJ edit, press Change settings & rebuild, set Volume level to −14 and rebuild. Studio tracks stay at their −8 LUFS and Instagram turns them down. Download the WAV, and the cover JPEG from the DJ pack for a studio track. Do not add gain in the editor; the file already peaks at −1 dBTP.

4. Cut the loop

In a free editor, set the clip start exactly on the first drop cue and the clip length to your bar count times the bar length, 15.238 s for eight bars at 126 BPM. Zoom in on both ends and check that each sits on a kick transient; the grid is fixed, so if the start is right the end will be too. Do not fade the end. Play the clip twice back to back; if the join is silent and the kick keeps time, the loop is correct.

5. Build the vertical frame

Create a 1080×1920 project at 30 frames per second. Place the square cover in the centre, scaled to 1080 wide, and fill the top and bottom with a blurred enlargement or a flat colour taken from the cover. Instagram overlays the caption, the audio name and buttons on the bottom part of the frame and the account name at the top, so keep any text in the middle band between the cover's edges.

6. Export AAC and upload

Export MP4 with the video at 1080×1920 and the audio as AAC at 48 kHz, 256 or 320 kbps. Upload from the Instagram app as a Reel. Name the audio with the artist and title from the tags so people who reuse the sound see the right credit. Put the Club Ready Music share link in your bio; the share page carries the cover, the preview and an open Download MP3 button for the full track.

7. Add a name drop at the seam if you want one

A 3 s Dry drop from the Drops page placed over the first bar identifies the track without breaking the loop, because the voice sits on top of music that continues. Drops are fixed at −8 LUFS, so lower it about 6 dB over a −14 edit. Keep it off the last bar so the loop point stays clean.

Tips

• Eight bars at the drop is the strongest Reel: the kick, the bass and the hook arrive together and the loop is under 16 seconds.
• Use the vocal in cue from cue points.txt when a studio track has one; a sung line that loops cleanly is rarer and more shareable than a drum section.
• Make the TikTok version from the same project. The frame is identical at 1080×1920; only the caption safe areas differ slightly.
• Keep the project at 48 kHz throughout. Club Ready Music WAVs are 48 kHz and a resample adds nothing.
• There is no publishing or scheduling from the site. The Reel is uploaded by hand, and the share page is the only automatic page.

Common problems

• The loop has a click or a hiccup. The clip length is not an exact bar multiple. Recalculate from 240 divided by BPM and set the length to the millisecond.
• The music is quiet compared with other Reels. The DJ edit was left at −8 and turned down, or built below −14. Rebuild at −14.
• The caption covers the cover art. The cover sits too low. Centre it vertically and keep text in the middle band.
• The drop sounds cut at the loop point. It was placed near the end of the clip. Start it on bar one and use the 3 s length.