Are you tired of looking for skilled singers in music forums or facebook groups? It takes a lot of time and usually is - at least for us - not successful and depressing. The lack of interested candidates is not a problem. Instead, the people contacting you on those platforms are often not professional enough and - until now - did not meet our needs sound- and skill-wise. That misery can finally be history! In the following, we present you the service Vocalizr that wants to help to connect singers and producers from around the world. Let's see if it does what it promises.
Vocalizr - Connecting Singers & Producers
Vocalizr was launched in February 2014 by dance music producer and DJ Luke Chable who developed the website together with his brother Matt and two other website developers. The team shared the vision to create a new online service that enables you to search for vocalists with specific profiles (genre, sound character, etc.) from around the world.
The focus lies on providing both parties of the two-way talent marketplace a safe, secure and easy to use online collaborative workspace. In the end, producers and vocalists should be brought together to work on projects, known as "gigs" on Vocalizr. In summer 2016, the services already had 12,000 registered users and successfully paid out more than $180,000 to artists for completing those collaborative projects.
"We want to help build musical partnerships, and to do that you need to build access to the music industry. I think we've achieved that"
Matt Chable
A public gig allows all Vocalizr users to bid on that project to get it. As gig creator, you also can create private gigs, that is only visible for the users who are invited to bid. As third job type, the gig creator can decide to create a contest where the vocalists are asked to demonstrate their vocal talents and - if required - songwriting skills on the track previously uploaded by the creator to get the job. The gig creator can include any reference material and a brief to introduce the project to the community. If you prefer to browse through the profiles of potential vocalists on your own after you have adjusted the search filters to your needs, you can approach the best candidates directly without posting a public gig first and waiting for bids.
The agreed fee needs to be paid at the time of the booking (plus additional service fees) but is held in an escrow account until the job is completed and both parties are satisfied with the result. That procedure eliminates any risk for both the producer and vocalist. Vocalizr also creates a contract that includes all previously defined key data of the project (mechanical/performance royalties, one-time remuneration, usage of the finished track) that is signed by both project parties and a representative of Vocalizr.
There is a two account system implemented. A basic account is free of charge for all users, while a Pro Membership is available for $9 per month or $86 per year that comes with several benefits such as unlimited connections & messages and reductions of the commission fees.
Our Personal Experience
Just recently, we gave Vocalizr a try, and all we can say until now is that we are pleasantly surprised how well everything worked out. Of course, we are aware of the fact that the experience may vary depending on the collaborator and how he communicates and what result is achieved.
In our case, the gig creation was straightforward and done within only a few minutes. We decided to create a public gig but additionally invited candidates we liked after exploring some vocalist profiles on our own. All those candidates and a lot more community members bid on the gig. The minority of them contacted us next to their bid submission to provide genre-related demo tracks or even a quickly recorded draft of our requested vocal track (exceptional!). The other users bidding on our gig were less interesting for us because of the lack of personal communication or shown interest in the project, although some of them had great reference tracks on their profiles. After only a few days, we successfully finished the collaboration. During the project period, we had close contact with the singer, talked about the song, sent ideas back and forth and also received useful feedback regarding the song. Everything went smooth and on a very professional level; we are super happy with the results!
The only possible downside that can be mentioned is that the community is very EDM and house heavy with only a few rap/R&B and pop productions. Rock, soul or funk music is usually not represented - you need to be quite lucky to find the right professional on Vocalizr. We also realised that there are almost none producer jobs - three to five maximum. That shows that the platform's concept is working out better for the vocalists. The concept, in general, may be interesting for producers searching for jobs as well. Maybe the founders can find a solution to increase the job situation for producers significantly. All in all, Vocalizr is definitively worth a try and an easy-to-use and well working platform with some very talented and professional vocalists.
