Make a Spotify Canvas Loop
Build the short vertical loop that plays behind your track on Spotify — a seamless 9:16 MP4 — using the Canvas Studio or the audio-reactive editor route.
You'll useCover Art & Canvas Studio
Before you start
- →A Spotify for Artists account to upload the finished loop (free for anyone with music on Spotify).
- →Optionally your cover art or a track to drive an audio-reactive loop.
A Spotify Canvas is a short, silent, vertical loop (3–8 seconds, 9:16) that plays behind your track on the Spotify mobile app and when listeners share it to Stories. There is no audio in a Canvas — your track is already playing underneath. Novus builds one for free, entirely in your browser.
Route A: the Canvas Studio (synthetic beat)
On /albums, start a new cover and set Format to Vertical Canvas (9:16) so your preview matches the phone screen. In the Studio, set the background layer's mode to Visualizer and pick any engine — it animates on a built-in synthetic beat with no audio upload. The Visualizer Canvas template is the quickest starting point; it comes with a live engine background already enabled.
Add motion with the Animation Effects panel — one of five overlays (Pulsing Glow Border, Waveform Ring, Particle Burst, Zoom Pulse, Color Shift). Restraint pays off: a Canvas loops the whole time someone listens, so one or two motion sources at moderate intensity read better than everything at once. All motion renders on a shared cycle so the last frame lands exactly where the first began — that is what makes the loop seamless.
Export the silent MP4
Click Spotify Canvas (MP4) under the preview. It always renders at 1080×1920 (the recommended Canvas resolution) and records a 6-second seamless loop at 30 fps with no audio track — exactly what Spotify wants. The button shows live Recording % then Encoding %, and the file downloads. Keep the tab in the foreground while it records — the 6-second capture runs in real time.
Route B: an audio-reactive loop
Want the Canvas to react to your actual song? Below the Studio on /albums, the Spotify Canvas Loop card opens the full editor pre-sized to 1080×1920 with an 8-second loop. Upload your track, pick any of the nine engines, trim to an 8-second hook where the motion ends near where it began, and export a full-quality MP4 driven by the music.
Upload to Spotify for Artists
In the Spotify for Artists app (or web dashboard), open Music, select the track, choose Canvas, and upload your MP4. The Studio's 1080×1920, 6-second output meets every requirement (9:16, 3–8s, MP4, ≥720px tall). Canvases usually go live after a short review, and you can set a different loop for every track. Check the finished loop on your own phone first — the Now Playing screen crops slightly differently across devices, so keep anything essential away from the extreme edges.
Keep a release consistent
Making Canvases for a whole album? Reuse one template and color scheme across every track's loop so your release looks consistent as listeners skip through it. See Design Cover Art for the matching square.
Related tutorials
Ready to try it?
Open the editor and follow along — free, no account, watermark-free exports.
Open the Editor