I record at home alone with Reaper and BiaB. (Sometimes just Reaper.)
A song I'm working on needs a 'church choir' backing vocal part. Not a Mormom Tabernacle Choir, more like a 'little brown church in the vale' choir.

I don't live near anyone who is willing to sing into a hot mic. (It's hard enough to get my wife to sing along with the radio in the car.)

I could share stems of the song and distant folk could put their parts into a DAW and share them with me.

Is this sort of thing generally done? If it's verboten, I apologize!

I just participated in one of those by Nathan at hymnary.org.
You should be able to find plenty of takers in Florida. Just start familiarizing yoursef with the scene. On the other hand, maybe you have come to the right place.

Check this site out. A few folks from the forums have tried these services with pretty good luck for finding singers.

Fiverr - Freelance Services Marketplace for Businesses

I have used both Fiverr and SoundBetter. Fiverr cost less in general, SoundBetter had more professional people to choose from. Many vocalists on SoundBetter are very busy and sometimes they are a bit hard to contact.
There are several other sites advertising services on the net.

It is very important to know what you need and when you need it and get that agreed to in writing before accepting their offer. I don't normally try to bargain about the rate unless I am dealing with someone for the second time. You can state a budget upfront which will be helpful.

A high-quality vocalist can be pretty pricy. The price can be anything but $200 to $400 per song is pretty normal.

I find it quite difficult to work in such a passive manner. I much prefer to be live in a studio as the vocal is being produced. The pandemic has made that almost impossible.

The issue is that most people are unwilling to work face to face on Zoom or Skype while recording.

If you know with precision what you want to hear and can send the vocal line in writing/standard notation. That will separate the professionals from all the rest. Explain also the amount of deviation you will tolerate from the written music.

Be prepared to occasionally have this process fail and the vocal you get will be unacceptable and you will have wasted your money on that singer.

The two most difficult issues to deal with are vocalists and drummers.

Just an idea but perhaps there actually is a "little brown church" near you that you could make friends with to get this done.

Billy

Send a Note to Elliott Kane. He's in the Forum, live in Florida and has a full band. He may be able to assist.

If you don't need words just ooohs and aaahs, use Band in a Box.



type in:

vocal

I agree with Dave Snyder. BIAB Ultrapak has some cool Gospel background Vocals. I'm not sure if they are in the lesser paks but definitely in UltraPak. If you don't have ultra you can check the realtrack styles on the PG Music site and find the pack with Background Vocals. They will tell you on the pack if it's compatible with the version of BAIB that you are on.

It's easy in BIAB to quickly create a choir using the new Thickening feature designed specifically to do just that. It's the Medley button found in the RealTracks Picker Window.

Here's a link and demonstration from a PG Music YouTube tutorial:

Band in a Box 2020 New Features

Note: There are two types of Medley Maker in BIAB. The Medley Maker type that applies to your situation begins at the 19:34 mark in the tutorial. As you see in the tutorial, not only can you create a large choir, but the choir can also be individually volume balanced and panned. It's a great feature.

Thank you! I had no idea.
For the track I have in mind, I had hoped for lyric-singing but oohs and ahs might be good enough for a demo.

Thanks! I'll have to look into this.
So many options---it could be a full-time gig just keeping up with available resources!

Charlie,

This is really cool.

Do you know if there is a way to make a choir like that (I just did) and then save it as a personal multistyle so you can call it up as an option next time with doing all the choosing and entering again?

Yes, there's a way. You actually guessed correctly, that it's to save your creation as a custom RealStyle. Saving a custom RealStyle is fast and easy. Great idea.

Here's a link to how to make your own RealStyle. For thickening, just create a thickened RealTrack like you did today and save it as a new RealStyle and do a slow Rebuild in the StylePicker and you're set.

Make Your Own RealStyle

Charlie

Charlie,

Great!! Thanks! Have fun and let me know!!

Hey Dave, I tested it and edited my previous post. You're good to go. You know how to create the thickened track and in a minute, you'll know how to save the style.

Enjoy,

Charlie

Actually I don't see why not. In the old Cakewalk forums, I participated in several such adventures. The individual who needed the choir voices, or in one case, a bar room sing along.... simply created an mp3 of the song...told us where he needed us to sing... provided the lyric sheet and we simply downloaded the mp3, recorded our track or tracks, and sent them back to him. He asked us to return the tracks by a set deadline and quite a few folks participated. Post your invite in the songwriting forum, provide downloadable links for the mp3 and the lyrics. Be sure to include the ENTIRE song... not just the part you want folks to sing in. That way we can line it up properly and return a full length wave that YOU can line up properly and easily. No need to drag and try to line things up later in the mix. A real pain if you have a dozen tracks to line up. You can ask folks to post in the thread "I'm in" if they are participating so you have an idea as to how it's going.

Using the pay services can easily add up if you exceed the $5 limit and have a bunch of voices.... ask your friends and see what happens.

Good luck.

Great idea Herb!