Bulk Upload Guide

Uploading a handful of tracks is easy enough to do one by one. But when you're dealing with hundreds — or thousands — of assets, you need a process that's repeatable, auditable, and fast. Resolut's bulk upload system is built for exactly that. This guide walks you through everything from preparing your CSV to recovering gracefully from validation errors.

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Preparing your CSV file

The bulk upload process starts with a spreadsheet. Resolut reads a UTF-8 encoded CSV file where each row represents one audio asset. The column headers must match exactly — Resolut's importer is case-sensitive and won't guess at column names.

Required vs optional columns

Column name	Required?	Notes
title	Required	The canonical track title. Avoid trailing whitespace.
artist	Required	Primary artist name. For features, use the featured_artists column.
isrc	Required if assigning	12-character ISRC code. Leave blank to have Resolut generate one (requires ISRC prefix configured in your account).
filename	Required	Must match the filename of the audio asset in your upload batch exactly, including extension.
duration_seconds	Required	Integer or decimal. Used to validate against the actual audio file.
rights_holder	Required	The top-level rights-owning entity (usually your label or publishing company name).
release_date	Required	ISO 8601 format: YYYY-MM-DD.
iswc	Optional	International Standard Musical Work Code. Include if known.
featured_artists	Optional	Comma-separated. Example: Nadia Sol, Trace Vellum
genre	Optional	Must match a value from Resolut's genre taxonomy. See Settings → Metadata → Genre List.
mood_tags	Optional	Comma-separated mood tags. Example: melancholic, cinematic, slow-burn
explicit	Optional	true or false. Defaults to false if omitted.
territory_restrictions	Optional	ISO 3166-1 alpha-2 country codes, comma-separated. Leave blank for worldwide.
bundle_id	Optional	If provided, Resolut will add the asset to an existing bundle with this ID.
notes	Optional	Internal notes. Not visible to external parties. 500 character limit.

Formatting tips

• Encoding: Save as UTF-8. Excel users: use "Save As → CSV UTF-8 (Comma delimited)" — not the default CSV option, which drops special characters.
• Dates: Always use YYYY-MM-DD. Formats like March 12, 2024 will fail validation.
• Empty cells: Leave them blank — don't fill optional fields with N/A or -, as these will be treated as literal strings.
• Quotes: If a title contains a comma (e.g., You, Me, and the Rain), wrap the value in double quotes in the CSV.

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Supported audio file formats

Resolut accepts the following audio formats for bulk upload:

• WAV — 16-bit or 24-bit, 44.1 kHz or 48 kHz. Preferred for lossless delivery.
• FLAC — Lossless compressed. Any standard bit depth and sample rate.
• MP3 — 320 kbps CBR minimum for catalog uploads.
• AIFF — Accepted; treated equivalently to WAV.

Files below 44.1 kHz sample rate or below 16-bit depth will fail the quality check stage of the validation pipeline. If you're uploading masters alongside a metadata CSV, make sure all files listed in the filename column are present in the same upload batch — missing files are flagged as errors, not warnings.

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The validation pipeline

When you submit a bulk upload job, Resolut runs your batch through a multi-stage validation pipeline before any assets are committed to your catalog.

Stage 1: CSV structure check

Resolut parses the CSV and verifies that all required columns are present and that the file is well-formed (no unclosed quotes, consistent column counts across rows). This stage fails fast — if your CSV is malformed, the entire job is rejected before any audio is inspected.

Stage 2: Field-level validation

Each row is validated field by field:

• ISRC format: Must be in the form CC-XXX-YY-NNNNN (hyphens optional, validated by regex)
• Release date: Must be a valid calendar date, not a future date beyond 2 years
• Duration delta: Resolut compares duration_seconds in the CSV against the actual audio file duration — discrepancies of more than 2 seconds are flagged
• Genre taxonomy: Values not in the approved list generate a warning (not an error — you can override)
• ISWC format: If provided, must match T-XXXXXXXXX-C format

Stage 3: Duplicate detection

Resolut checks your existing catalog for potential duplicates by comparing title + artist + duration. Exact matches block the import with an error; near-matches (e.g., same title and artist, slightly different duration) are surfaced as warnings you can dismiss.

Stage 4: Ownership validation

If you include ownership split data (via the splits columns or a companion splits CSV), Resolut verifies that splits for each asset sum to exactly 100%. Anything else is a blocking error.

Common validation errors and what they mean

• ISRC_ALREADY_REGISTERED — That ISRC is already in your catalog. Either update the existing asset or leave the ISRC column blank to have Resolut assign a new one.
• FILE_NOT_FOUND — The filename in the CSV row doesn't have a corresponding file in the upload batch. Double-check for case differences (Track01.wav vs track01.wav).
• DURATION_MISMATCH — The declared duration and the actual audio duration don't align. Update the CSV value.
• SPLITS_DONT_SUM — Ownership percentages for a row add up to more or less than 100%.
• GENRE_UNKNOWN — The genre string isn't in Resolut's taxonomy. Either correct the value or proceed with the warning to use the closest match.

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Step-by-step upload workflow

Step 1: Prepare your files

Gather your audio files and your completed CSV into a single folder. Name the folder something descriptive — you'll reference this batch in your upload history.

Step 2: Navigate to Bulk Upload

From the main navigation, go to Catalog → Bulk Upload. You'll see your upload history and a "New Upload Batch" button.

Step 3: Upload your files

Drag your audio files and your CSV into the upload area, or click to browse. Resolut accepts batches up to 5 GB per job. For larger catalogs, see the chunking tips below.

You can upload the CSV and audio files in any order — Resolut won't begin validation until it detects both a CSV file and at least one audio file in the batch, or until you click "Start Validation."

Step 4: Review the validation report

Once validation completes, you'll see a report broken down by stage and severity:

• Errors (red) — Must be resolved before the batch can be imported
• Warnings (amber) — Can be dismissed and the import will proceed
• Info (blue) — Informational notices that don't block import

Click any row in the report to see exactly which CSV row and field triggered it.

Step 5: Resolve errors and resubmit

If there are blocking errors, download the annotated CSV from the validation report. This is your original CSV with an appended _error column describing the issue for each failing row. Fix the flagged rows, re-upload just the corrected CSV (your audio files are already staged from the first upload), and click "Re-validate."

You can iterate on this loop as many times as needed — Resolut keeps your staged audio files for 72 hours.

Step 6: Confirm and import

Once the validation report shows zero errors (warnings are optional to dismiss), click Confirm Import. Resolut will process the batch in the background. For large batches, this may take several minutes. You'll receive an in-app notification and an email summary when processing completes.

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Tips for large catalogs

Chunk your batches

For catalogs over 1,000 tracks, split your upload into batches of 500–1,000 rows. This makes validation reports easier to read and errors easier to isolate. It also means a single bad row doesn't hold up your entire catalog.

A practical approach: group tracks by album or release year. This way your batches are logically coherent and you can prioritize which releases to import first.

Naming conventions matter

Establish a filename convention before you start and stick to it. Resolut's duplicate detection relies on filenames among other signals — inconsistent naming (e.g., mixing Artist - Title.wav with Title_Artist.wav) makes it harder to spot real duplicates vs. naming variations.

A reliable convention: ISRC_ArtistName_TrackTitle.wav, lowercase with hyphens for spaces. This makes each file uniquely identifiable at a glance.

Pre-validate your CSV before uploading

You can save significant time by running a quick sanity check on your CSV before uploading any audio. Upload just the CSV file first, click "Validate CSV only," and resolve any structural or field errors before you ever upload a gigabyte of audio.

Use the template CSV

Resolut provides a downloadable blank CSV template from the Bulk Upload page with all supported columns pre-populated as headers and a sample row. Starting from this template is the fastest way to avoid header name mismatches.

Pro tip: If you're migrating from another platform, your existing metadata export is probably 80% of the way there. Open both the export and Resolut's template side by side in a spreadsheet editor and use column mapping (VLOOKUP or a quick script) to remap column names in bulk. Don't try to rename headers manually when you're dealing with 20+ columns — it's a reliable way to introduce a typo.

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After your import

Once a batch is fully imported, each asset appears in your catalog with a Batch ID linking it back to the original upload job. You can filter your catalog by batch ID to review everything that came in together, export a manifest, or apply bulk edits (like adding assets to a bundle or updating territory restrictions across the whole batch).

Import history is retained indefinitely — you can always go back and audit what was uploaded in any given batch, who uploaded it, and when.