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].