Hiring a session singer : what is the average fee ?

[Helvetius]

Hello ! I want to hire a session singer for EDM/Pop productions.

I have a big difficulty to determine what is the average price when expecting a professional quality result.

I found on the web, especially on Soundbetter, many established singers (I mean singers that sings on Revealed Recordings tracks for example) that ask something between 900 to 1500 dollars per songs. They look like sure value, but they cost a lot of money.

At the contrary, many others singers have lower prices. Many indeed, ask around 250 dollars for lyrics writing, vocal melody writing + vocals recording.

These singers look pro, they have for many of them degrees, a good musical activity, a very good voice, but I'm really suspicious.

Let say you want to produce a standard Revealed Recordings quality track, and you put 250 dollars for vocal creation ? Are 250 dollars really enough to reach a pro quality ?

I'm not a singer, but I think that songwriting + vocal performance for a pro song should take many days of work, let say one week or two. I doubt that 250 dollars is a good fee for a two weeks track.

So, my fear is that those singers are not going to deliver a good result, and just do a quick job, spend a few hours to it, and then delivers the result when they think it is "ok", but nothing more. Furthermore, I think most musicians buying that kind of services have amateurish skills/quality, and don't expect to get released somewhere, so these singers know well their customers population, and just do according to their wishes.




So, shorter : what is the average price for a pro quality session singer ? Is a fee around 250 dollars good enough in order to expect pro results, or should I pay more ? Thanks !

[BertKoor]

I have a big difficulty to determine what is the average price when expecting a professional quality result.

Quality of what? Measured how?

If this is about technical quality of the recordings themselves, all it takes is a good microphone and some simple measures to absorb most of the room reflections. I think all singers that offer themselves for hire have this covered. When in doubt, put a clause about this in a contract so you don't owe them a penny when not satisfied.

If this is about lyrics, melody and abilities/skills of the singer, that is rather subjective. Asking price may vary a lot.

I found [...] many established singers (I mean singers that sings on Revealed Recordings tracks for example) that ask something between 900 to 1500 dollars per songs. They look like sure value, but they cost a lot of money.

At the contrary, many others singers have lower prices. Many indeed, ask around 250 dollars for lyrics writing, vocal melody writing + vocals recording.
[...] Are 250 dollars really enough to reach a pro quality ?

Market value seems to go up with creditability. I personally don't think there is a strong correlation between price and quality. There's a huge pool of great singers that never had the chance to "make it", doing it for fun only, asking peanuts. Some may even do it for free.

Btw, if they write the lyrics and the melody, those have copyright. Who gets credited for that? Have you bought all the rights, or are they still entitled to a percentage of the revenue? Contracts and small print are important...

I'm not a singer, but I think that songwriting + vocal performance for a pro song should take many days of work, let say one week or two. I doubt that 250 dollars is a good fee for a two weeks track.

So, my fear is that those singers are not going to deliver a good result, and just do a quick job, spend a few hours to it, and then delivers the result when they think it is "ok", but nothing more.

Lyrics + melody can take just 5 minutes to write, when inspiration is there. For lyrics one can write in advance and put it on stock for the right occasion to use.
The recording itself takes maybe an hour. If it's not right in three takes, I think it won't get much better anyway. $250 seems a good price for an hour (maybe 2) of work.

What's in the contract about rework? Suppose you ask: can you do this and that a bit differently? Or the singer asks for the track to be transposed a bit lower/higher? How many iterations of work going back & forth between you and the singer is normal?

Sorry I don't really have a clear-cut answer, just more things to think about.