I've been working primarily in instrumentals since rejoining TAXI but need to get back to songwriting as well. I live too far from Nashville to get singers out here from town & there is very little vocal talent locally. I've registered with demo singer .com and have found a wealth of vocalists to draw from but I'm not sure how to proceed on a couple of matters.

First would be work-for-hire agreements. I have singer forms for the US which I could email to the performer. I don't know how I would go about getting them signed & back to me in time to meet a deadline. Has anyone had any experience with this?

Second would be payment. I have a paypal account so I expect that would not pose too much difficulty. I was wondering if there is a generally recognized protocol for when to make the payment? Obviously both parties would want to be protected so I would like to have some idea of how this should be done. Has anyone handled this before?

Any help/advice would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,
Mike

Mike
It shouldn't really be a problem getting the form signed and back quickly. You should send the form before the session so the vocalist can look it over and agree to the terms before the session. There shouldn't a problem even getting the agreement signed, scanned, and emailed back to you VERY quickly with today's scan and email technology. It can be practically instantaneous.

As far as when to pay, that will vary one way would be for the vocalist to send you relatively low resolution mp3s (128K for example) for review and when you approve the final, you pay and they send you the high resolution wav or aif file. Of course, with a "demo studio", you may have to pay in full upfront. There are no hard rules.

My experiences so far, collaborating with people I've met on this forum has been mutual honesty and trust and therefore no issues.

The key thing is pick people you have a good feeling of trust with and the rest is easy. I've had work for hires done by a number of Taxi forum peeps. So far, I've paid the full price after approving the final mix and got the WFH right away after.

Casey

Hey Mike,

I do sign and scan and email on all my wfh's .. works great and fast .. tell them to scan hi-quality.

I've never had any problem with payment .. PayPal works great .. everyone has always been honest .. every vocalist I've ever used gives me their final wavs, let's me mix them in my track, makes sure I am happy with them, then I pay.

Dean

Casey, Dean, thanks for the info. This was exactly what I was looking for! TAXI peeps rule!!!

Thanks again,
Mike

Hi Mike,

Just to put in some other options to think about or maybe use at the right time with the right person... some things I have encountered are

1) 50% up front, 50% on completion
2) they send or stream you the file with an "audio watermark" in it, once approved you pay, the watermark comes out, done deal
3) some people are fine doing the work first and getting paid later

One thing I have noticed with non-taxi members and specifically vocalists. When they sign work-for-hires they tend to treat it as a "job". I have had 2 vocalists learn the song on the spot (while doing 'take 1') even though I sent them everything necessary to rehearse for several days. Needless to say I will not work with them again. - Anyway, to help "entice" the person I now add in that if the recording that embodies their voice is used and profit is made, they get 5% (in addition to the flat fee). This seems to push people to go the extra mile and not just think of it as during this hour I will sing for you and you will give me money.