PG Music Home Forums General Discussion Off-Topic Re Fiverr: Hirer of Vocalists Be Aware

This post is almost 2,900 words, thus if you've no time or patience for such you can skip to the end for 9 points to be aware of when hiring Fiverr vocalists.

During the summer I decided to try hiring female vocalists to sing 3 different versions of my song "Flowing Lady Deya", written in 2023 and adapted from my various instrumental versions of "Deya Flows" 3 of which have been posted on the User Showcase. Each of the 3 versions of the song have entirely different instrumentation, but all are in the same key, have the same tempo and are sung essentially the same way. There's a 'rock' version, a 'smooth' (smooth jazz/rock) and a 'baroque' version which is predominantly strings based. I wanted to hire 3 different vocalists in order to make each unique.

In 2023 after writing the lyrics for the song an online contact volunteered his wife, a trained and actually 100% superb vocalist, to sing the song and himself to do the mastering, so I eagerly agreed, only to discover that he'd cheated on his wife, she'd found out, and so he was using the song project to get he and his wife working together in order to get himself out of the "dog house". It took months before I received a demo vocal track of his wife singing the 1st 6 of 12 verses and the vocals were amazingly good, but just at that point they took a holiday together and either they did or didn't reconnect, but the result was that they no longer had a need for the song project and there it died. Thus just under a year later I turned to Fiverr.

So firstly re Fiverr and female vocalists, there's an inordinate amount of world class talent there, but sadly that's no guarantee of getting perfect or even acceptable results and one of the first lessons I learned was that those whose start-off prices are high can deliver unusable material just as those whose prices are low can deliver great material. Using the unfinished vocals I'd been sent as a demo by the above online contact I created 3 demos of the styles I wanted sung - the 'rock, 'smooth' & 'baroque' - and I posted all 3 on SoundCloud as 'private view' only, then I began the Fiverr search for 3 vocalists.

It literally takes hours and hours searching through all of the gazillions of vocalist on the site, but I eventually picked 2 to start off with and sent them the links to the demos. One was an Argentinean and the other an Indian with a crystal pure voice as I wanted to give a 'world' feel to the songs. The Argentinean (low but not the lowest start-off price) chose to sing the 'rock' version, and the Indian lady, who was expensive, the 'baroque'. Different vocalists offer different numbers of revisions after their first demos, but 2 or 3 revisions is the average. The lesson I learned here is that when hiring non-native English speakers one is almost certainly going to get mispronunciations and although the Argentinean, Denisse, produced excellent final vocals - 8 stem files, including harmony vocals - I still had a couple of mispronunciations after the revisions. I accepted that as I didn't want to pay more and that 'rock' version of the song was posted on YouTube in August and shortly after on the User Showcase. However I was unable to use the Indian's vocals as the final result of the expensive project was unusable, in part as I made 2 rookie-buyer errors:

She first asked me if she could change the pitch of the demo I sent her so she could sing in her preferred key - I sent both singers the music tracks alone, the demo with unfinished vocals as a guide, plus the lyrics - and I agreed, and then she asked if she could sing the song the way she felt it. I thought that was a plus - it seemed a no-brainer - but that was my 2nd rookie error as besides singing the song as a too quiet reverence she very surprisingly sounded self-conscious and nervous throughout - and nothing like she sounds in her Profile demos or her YT posts. And then I was even more disappointed that her revision wasn't as good as the original. I also discovered that even had her vocals been excellent I couldn't have used them as I couldn't reproduce the 'baroque' BiaB backing tracks as good as the originals due to always getting regenerations.

Still having the 'smooth' and 'baroque' versions of my song unsung I next approached a vocalist whose voice I loved, thinking she was either American or British. That was my error as I didn't peruse her entire profile, but she stated straight away that she wasn't a native English speaker and was my 2nd Argentinean. As I loved her vocals and had begun a rapport I decided to stay with her. She chose the 'smooth' version as it best suited her style and I had essentially the same results as with Denisse and the 'rock' version. The video of that finished version was posted on YT in September and shortly after on the User Showcase. But a 5th lesson learned with all 3 singers is that revisions are usually rushed jobs.

I won't go into details, but before getting someone to sing the 'baroque' version I worked with an English singer on an experimental project, but that's irrelevant to this post.

Another issue with Fiverr is that I was very surprised that when I went to approve my 1st successful order with them one is taken to a page in which one is expected to tip the hired freelancer, though I've read that it's not mandatory. Fiverr give a series of % options, starting at a massive tip, plus they also offer a box for a custom tip, so I assume inputting $0.00 is the way out. Then coming as an actual shock, once one has left a tip Fiverr charge you % of that tip as an extra fee to them! Thus the bigger the tip, the bigger Fiverr's cut aka fee, and that makes one not want to tip high when the freelancer deserves it. If one went to a restaurant and tipped the waiter for good service and then the proprietor wouldn't let you out unless you gave him a % of the tip you'd never go back again. I find that part of the Fiverr system appalling.

Once I had time to begin a search for a singer for the 'baroque' version very weird karma came into play. I now have a shortlist of 12 vocalists and my favourite I decided not to work with as she's a 3rd Argentinean (!) but on the day I went to approach my 2nd favourite I had a one-time only window come up over my shortlist page with the notification that just this page was being reformatted and I got blocked from that list for awhile! Then when I went back later my chosen vocalist had vanished! That's unusual as when a vocalist is temporarily engaged in another project their profile doesn't vanish from the main list or my shortlist and one just sees a notice stating 'temporarily unavailable'. So not wanting to lose my chosen vocalist I spent yonks and yonks searching through 20 pages of profiles but she really had vanished from the site. It was then too late to start reconsidering, so I logged-out. The following day I logged-in again and immediately found my chosen singer's profile on the 1st page of female vocalists, but she was no longer in my shortlist. I very wrongly assumed that her having vanished and then her not reappearing in my list was a karmic warning not to use her. I couldn't have been more wrong as the next vocalist I chose was a nightmare to work with!

This singer's profile stated she was "From" England, her start-off price was the lowest, plus her demos were brilliant, but a 6th lesson was learned, albeit that it took a few days before I realised it: If anything feels off from the start of proposing a project, hightail it out of there before an order is placed! In my proposal to Denisse and the Indian lady I posted my SoundCloud links to the 3 original demos of the versions; then when I approached the 2nd Argentinean I posted links to the demos of the 'smooth' & 'baroque' versions, plus the YouTube link to the finished 'rock' version. So for this new English lady I posted the YT links to the finished 'rock' and 'smooth' versions, plus the original 'baroque' demo with only half the vocals sung, plus a 2nd demo of the 'baroque' in which I'd added Denisse's 'rock' vocals to the instrumental track so as to present a full version. I still used the original unfinished version demo as that showed a cleaner, purer vocal which is what I wanted. Once I'd posted the proposal with the latter 4 links I decided to listen to all 4 to make sure all were correct, but only about 1/3 of the way through the 1st link I received a reply from the English singer saying that she'd listened to all 4 links and so would take on the job! There was just no way she could have listened to all 4 links as I'd not had time for even 1 and that dishonesty should have made me cancel the offer, but I stupidly didn't! 2 weeks later - when the project should have been completed a week earlier - I discovered that the lady was in financial straights, which is why she jumped at my job offer on October 1st, but that was just the beginning of a disaster scenario:

Having not listened to my 4 links and having the wrong idea about the project from the start, after a few days she sent me a demo of her singing the song to her own music, which despite only having a brief instrumental break was even longer than mine (6:24). I replied stating it just wasn't what I'd ordered, so I re-explained exactly what I wanted, thus it's important to state at this point that all 3 previous vocalists (all non native English speakers) immediately understood what was required - all 4 I'd hired left me 5 Star ratings as a buyer, 2 of whom even stating I was very clear re instructions - yet this English singer never seemed to understand basic constructs. Even after a 2nd set of clear instructions she sent me a 2nd file of her singing the song differently and to her own music, so realising that something was very amiss I went back over all of our messages and finally realised that this lady, "From" England, wasn't English! The very 1st sentence of my project offer to her was this: "If you're available I've selected you from a shortlist of Fiverr female vocalists due to the quality of your voice and also because you're a native English speaker." So besides her lying that she'd listened to all 4 links I'd sent, she also neglected to inform me that she wasn't a native English speaker, but I was still completely stunned that she couldn't understand what the project was. Just as with the other 3 I offered my song versions to I uploaded the lyrics, the version to be sung with vocals as a guide to how to sing it, and a wav file of the song for them to sing to, plus I stated that I'd do the final mix once they sent me their vocal tracks, thus if from the start I'd wanted this non-English English vocalist to only do her own version I'd have only needed to send her the lyrics. How could she not understand that when the other 3 foreign singers all did from the get-go? Anyway, we then had to add a week's extension to the contract period, but the 3rd file she sent me was HORRENDOUS! She was finally singing over my 'baroque' instrumental, but all she did was add her own singing to it which was in a different key and tempo! It was so bad I thought it was a deliberate bad send in anger, but she seemed baffled as to why it still wasn't what I wanted! I then re-explained as simply as I could the simple thing I wanted and the next day, the 13th, she sent me a slightly 'better' version of the last one, but as like the previous it wasn't sung in the same metre, key or tempo as in the links I'd sent her - I even reposted the 2 'baroque' demos for her - plus her vocals carried over well into the instrumental break and the 2nd set of vocals began before the instrumental break was over! After the 3rd of the 4 files she sent me I suggested that we ask customer services for arbitration, but she didn't want to cancel and she said the same after the 4th atrocious file. We only had 1 day left for the order to be fulfilled and she said she'd send a final file, re which I told her to just sing the song as the others sing it and treat it as karaoke, but she put the order through as fulfilled straight away and I stated I'd not approve it until it was. Early on the 14th I *knew* she wasn't going to send a 5th file, so I wrote to customer services that I wanted to cancel the order and get a 100% refund, explaining in detail why, then a few seconds later I received an auto-email giving me a ticket number and in which it was stated they'll respond "within 12 hours". 2 hours later I received another separate auto-email saying that the job had been fulfilled and I had 3 days in which to approve it as after 3 days it would be auto-approved. 24 hours later they'd still not responded, so I sent a 2nd email with even more explanations as to why the project had been a disaster and that included that although this vocalist's opening charge was lower than the singers of the 'rock' and 'smooth' versions, she charged me more than did both, which at the time I accepted as I assumed she was going add extra harmony vocals, but the reason she charged me so much was because she'd misunderstood the requirements from the beginning. IE: she, having ignored my 4 links, wrongly assumed I was hiring her to sing her own version.

It was well over 80 hours before I finally received a human reply from Fiverr customer services, but the guy who wrote just stated that my complaint had been "updated" and gave me a link to view the full response and add any new comments. Alas that when I used that link I got taken to a page of FAQs with a sign in' option at the top - though it's not the usual Fiverr log-in page - and all that happened when I attempted to sign-in was that the page flickered, but doesn't change to a page for email address and password. I replied to the last email sent and stated that, but although it took a couple more days to get a reply, on the 20th I received the good news that I'd been granted a full refund!

So here's the full list of things to be aware of when using Fiverr:

1: When hiring non native English speaking vocalists one has to expect mispronunciations and one may never get perfect vocals.
2: Expensive vocalists can produce substandard material jus as cheap vocalists can produce great material.
3: Never allow vocalists to change the key or sing the song as they feel it. Stick to your original vision of how you want the song sung.
4: I soon realised that the prime directive of freelancers on Fiverr is money. IE: vocalists will take on any job offered them even if it's in a genre they wouldn't normally sing and even if they don't like it or relate to the lyrics, so don't expect 100% commitment to the project.
5: Revisions are likely to be rushed jobs.
6: As one is expected to leave the freelancer a tip, be prepared to pay Fiverr a fee for allowing you to tip.
7: If anything feels off from the start of proposing a project, hightail it out of there before an order is placed as one may find out later that the freelancer is a liar and/or a village idiot short of a village.
8: Be extra clear about what one wants when first proposing a project to a vocalist.
9: If you want to retain 100% copyright of the song with the new vocals make that clear from the start with something like this: "I am not just purchasing the vocals, but also the entire rights to said vocals, thus I alone retain 100% copyright of them. Further, I will not accept an NOC (No Objection Certificate)." [When an NOC is offered, the singer retains the copyright, but has no objection to you using them whether for profit or not].

It's sad that you didn't have the success you'd hoped for with Fiverr, and I wonder if that is normal or if you just had a run of terribly bad luck.

One thing's for sure:
Yes, but it's hard to imagine it would be any other way.

Chay, what a mess. Thanks for sharing your experience and lessons learned...

I had looked at hiring one of those Fiver singers. The initial quote for the song in full was close to $200 and if I wanted the rights to the performance it would cost me over $300 total. If I wanted harmony tracks, which I had mentioned, that would be extra above and beyond the basic single lead vocal. They had specified their "rules" and how many revisions were included. I asked about turn around time and they said several weeks minimum and on this particular song, the deadline was less than a week out.

It was at this point that I thanked the person for their time and consideration but I was not going to move forward. For a song that was most likely to not earn any money, I could not see investing that kind of money in a "for fun" song. I think I ended up getting the Synth V singer at that time and starting my journey down that rabbit hole.

That was pretty confusing to me (your story) and all I can say is from my experience, your handling of multiple singers at the same time was simply amazing. Talk about an exercise in frustration. Wow....

Not to go off subject, but to let you and others know: it's possible to change keys of your song in BIAB and retain the original render and not do regenerations. If you or others run to the situation again, post your question as a new thread here in the Forum to get the directions. There's several methods and users can choose the best one to meet their specific needs.

Simpler:

This is a Work for Hire. You have no expectation nor are you entitled to share in any copyrights on this work.

If the song has air/internet play in any form and if the singer is a member of SAG/AGMA or AFM, then he/she is entitled to some of the performance/streaming revenues. You do not pay these, however—the streaming services etc. do and the respective Union collects and distributes those monies, not you, not ever.

Good point Mike

Always , always, always execute a Work for Hire with every single musician or singer for everything you have them do for you. ALWAYS. If you don't, they can prevent you from using your own song that they are playing on. And this is especially true with cowriters.... that's not a WFH but you do absolutely need a writer's agreement.

Paperwork isn't fun but it's essential.

Thanks for the response, AT. Re the 2 songs which were successful, it's "normal" that foreign vocalists will probably nearly always mispronounce English words and that there'll probably still be mispronunciations even after revisions; but the 1st bad experience was down to the leaning curve as well as bad luck; while the 2nd disastrous experience was 10% learning curve and 90% horrendous luck in that I ended up with a dishonest vocalist who couldn't understand the simplest instruction, while the previous ones understood the same job from the get-go. Then the problem re money being the freelancer' prime directive is that some will take on a job purely for the money and won't make the effort to deliver quality.

Thanks, Ron. There'll probably be more shortly as tomorrow, the 4th, I should receive a new vocalist's files for the 'baroque' version of "Flowing Lady Deya".

I went to Fiverr after disappointment with SynthV. Some musicians can make SynthV work really well, even impressively, but most that I hear sounds bland and amateurish.

I think had you researched more you'd have found better vocalists as the turn around times are nearly always under a week, plus having had my 2nd vocalist - which was a failure - charge more than the 1st & 3rd together I now narrow my search parameters to maximum start out costs of $20 per 30 seconds, the cheapest being $8.99 as that way the total costs should be well under $100. I can't recall whether you're US or UK, but as I'm in the UK these are my costs so far in £s, though this is for the job only and doesn't include the additional tip and Fiverr's fee for allowing you to tip:

Rock version: £75.56 for a total of 8 vocal tracks.
Smooth version: £69.62 ~ ditto.
1st baroque version: £216.19 for one unusable track.
2nd disastrous baroque version: I was refunded £124.15, but that was an overcharge as the vocalist at the cheapest rate misunderstood the job from the start.
3rd currently in progress baroque version: £105.50, but this vocalist usually does other jobs so doesn't charge the same way as the others - though currently I don't have a good feeling about it and I've an itchy feeling that I have been overcharged. If this goes wrong it'll be because I ignored my own advice: if something feels off from the start hightail it out of there! What I'd felt was off was that this vocalist wanted to do the entire job before putting the order through, which isn't the protocol - it's order first, then the job starts - and the only reason I can think of for breaking protocol would be so she could charge me a lot more at the end. I insisted on following the protocol and thus I already know the cost is £105.50.

I've a series of songs I want to do, only 1 of which may better suit a female vocalist, but all the others require my vocals, though I'll still want female backing vocals which will be a lot cheaper than the cheapest above. My main problem now is that I live in a way too small retirement flat with only plasterboard walls separating me from my neighbour, and out 6 flats in the block my neighbour is the only one who has daily visitors, many of whom stay overnight, so the opportunities for singing as loud as I need to are few and way too far between. Hiring a studio would be far too expensive.

Not to go off subject, but to let you and others know: it's possible to change keys of your song in BIAB and retain the original render and not do regenerations. If you or others run to the situation again, post your question as a new thread here in the Forum to get the directions. There's several methods and users can choose the best one to meet their specific needs. [/quote]

Thanks for the response Charlie. Yes, I'm aware that it's extremely easy to change key in BiaB. My mistake was not doing that myself and giving the vocalist who wanted a different key a new file to sing to. I didn't engage my brain and so allowed her to change the key; though even if she hadn't changed the key I still couldn't have used the single vocal track she sent.

Thanks for adding that Mike. Appreciated.

Those of us who are old enough will no doubt remember the Dutch band, Shocking Blue and their massive 1969–‘71 hit, “Venus” and its opening line, “The godness on the mountaintop…” Mariska Veres didn’t speak English and sang it phonetically.

Even though they re-recorded the vocal immediately and sang it correctly live, the original was the monster hit and is the only version you’ll likely find today.

Loved that song in 1970 and when I learned to play the lead note-for-note, it was a big deal. That opening line always bothered me, however. I leaned a bit about the music business, too, when a Japanese exchange student at my school told me that the song was a big hit in her country a year before we heard it in the US.

Yes, I remember Shocking Blue! They were a great band and even ahead of their time. "Venus" is a great song, but I loved their other material too.

I've had another failure on Fiverr, this time with a 1st language English speaker who again failed to understand what are simple instructions which were clearly understood by the 1st 3 vocalists I hired. It's partly my fault for ignoring note #7 above: "If anything feels off from the start of proposing a project, hightail it out of there before an order is placed …" This time the offness was that the vocalist wanted to start recording before an order was placed and as that's not the protocol the only reason for it would be so that once I accepted the final audio file/s I could be charged more than if the order was placed for an agreed amount. Yet, ironically, I should have done it that way as then I'd never have had to pay for files I couldn't use! What went wrong was a repeat of the previous experience in that despite uploading vocal guidance files and a 'baroque' music only track to sing to - it's as simple as karaoke - plus after using the term 'baroque' a few times, which was also in 2 of the 4 links I sent her, she enthusiastically sent me 3 of her own different music versions of my song, one almost a jaunty folk version, the 2nd a jazzy version and the 3rd a pop one! Even worse, she adlibbed extra lyrics which really peeved me. I once again explained the simplicity of the job - she sings over MY music in the same metre as in the 2 completed alternate versions I gave her YouTube links to - plus I asked her to reiterate the instructions so that I could know that she knows what to do. She then articulately paraphrased me, but then she sent me a vocal file that still wasn't in the same metre as the others! Also repeating what happened with the previous vocalist, she put the order through as completed after she sent the 1st 3 files before I'd even had time to review them! I think Fiverr should only allow the buyer to approve and complete the order. Thus here are 2 more warnings for buyers to add to the 9 above

10: Be warned that some vocalists might want to start their recording of the project before an order has been placed. This is not Fiverr protocol and is done so that the freelancer can charge you more than expected at the end.
11: State when making the initial offer, "DO NOT put the order through as complete before I've had chance to review the final file or files and approved them. Doing so will cause me to cancel the order and demand a 100% refund from Fiverr.