The heartbreaking story of Doubtful Compliant
INDEX1 The origins
2 Not so good start
3 Making progresses, the lucky triumphant lucky September
4 October, Things start to go astray
5 The detour for the topline
6 Something went wrong... again... but worse
7 The advent of ELIZABETH
8 Lizzy betrayed, my final downfall
9 Sad dark December, or what i got for ditching Elizabeth
10 Mariona brings back hope
11 Shari, ease to my soul, stress to my pockets
12 January's distractions
13 The final mix and the cover art
14 About the song
15 CREDITS of Doubtful Compliant
1 The origins
Once again, this crucial story of my life starts with Doom and me.
Back then, around 2003 i started to play this Doom multiplayer port called Zdaemon. I would regularly play it for more than 10 years.
It was in one of Zdaemon's servers when i first discovered Mark Klem's music midi's (as midi is the only music file format supported by Doom). At that time i didn't even know the name of the author, i just knew that i liked them, in fact, Most Doom midis from that era have something magic and special for me, most of those, i remember, have the 90'es unique vibe.
Time went on and on, and well, i found myself in 2021 remembering those zdaemon days, yearning for gone years, retrieving its sounds and music.
Then i extensively inspected all of Mark Klem's midis and realized how much they had impacted my own taste of music, for life.
Well, so i decided, it was time to give a well deserved homage to all the legacy that influenced me so much, so i prepared a hundred bucks or so and went on to fiverr, searching for some musicians that could compose and play some sort of Knock-off of one of Mark Klem's midis.
I had a hard time deciding which one of Klem's midis to homage, i had too many strong candidates including "the unjolly", "Dreadnaught", "Midnight call", "Give in" and many others among them. But the chosen one was "Reliance", which had been one of the most frequent midi tracks of my favorite server in 2003/04.
2 Not so good start
After making a basic plan, i proceeded to set a budget that was really low, having in mind that this project was clearly amateurish, and i was decided to hire the most basic packages and less expensive sellers.
I really wanted to do a song that would copy the basic elements of "Reliance" but something that could be original at the same time and not a literal copy, so i had to have a short melody, this would be like the basic mother cell of all the song. For this main melody i actually got inspired by a remix of another old game music, (Heretic, River of fire). I took the main notes of that tune and finally went to Fiverr looking for a melody composer whom i could give the Heretic melody so he could make a new analogue melody. from that very beginning, the problems began.
It happened that i just queried "composer" on the Fiverr search, because i was looking for a melody composer, so the search results showed me a wide range of them, i picked one randomly, contacted him and tried to explain him the supposedly super easy task of composing my basic melody. We closed the deal and i just had to wait until delivery.
Well, apparently there had been some miscommunications because some days later he sent me a preview of the work, and he had done exactly what i thought i told him not to do: he had made like a jingle or like a fully produced 30 seconds techno beat. I warned him that this was not what i asked but anyway i waited until final delivery. So couple days later he presented me the same beat, with my new main melody in it. The melody itself was ok, but surrounded of all the unnecessary production that i never asked for.
Anyway, i decided to let that be, clearly i made a mistake, but fortunately, i had taken the precaution of hiring an alternate composer. This time, i knew that searching for a "composer" didn't help, so i simply queried and hired a german pianist, and asked him the same thing: listen to my "heretic" melody and make an analogue, it is, something original but with same structure, number of notes and etc,
And finally, shortly thereafter, the pianist delivered what i needed. I actually was delighted with the melody he made, it ended being a bit more melancholic than the Heretic one, but i really liked it.
Immediately, i started thinking about lyrics ideas for the song, but meanwhile, i started hiring the rest of musicians.
3 Making good progresses, the triumphant lucky September
On 10 Sept, i chose the first musician to play the first definitive track of the song, the Drums. He was an Argentinian drummer that offered really decent drums for really cheap. It was a very good deal, he delivered a quite good quality track. My modus operandi was simple at this point, i just took the original Reliance,mp3 and told him something like: "you hear the drums of this song? do the same but with some slight alterations so it won't be a literal copy". He accomplished easily and quickly.
So on Sept 16 i was able to jump to the next step, the bassist. Same procedure, just had him listen to reliance and said something like: "do the same but different, but this time, listen also to my Motif melody (the one composed by the pianist) and take inspiration from it. Merge the bass you hear in reliance with the piano melody". Few days later, he delivered, actually, giving me three alternatives, each one of them better than the other. I was pleased, the bass tracks were so good, and i picked the one that i liked the most, problem was, that unlike the other two options, this was played with finger technique instead of slap, but i chose that one anyway, as it sounded so cool to me. This Ukrainian bassist just delighted me like no other in a long time, things seemed to go way better than expected.
Immediately, on Sept 24 i jumped to the next step, the acoustic guitar. This time, a Brazilian seller. Just like with the bassist, told him to do his part taking inspiration from both, Reliance, and the piano theme. Few days later, he delivered a fantastic track. The problem with the guitar track was, however, that it had to diverge considerably from that of Reliance, because i had demanded the guitarist to play some of the notes of the Motif, but there were too many notes compared with Reliance, so he had to play a slower guitar part to compensate for the difference. But anyway, it was so good that i decided to let it be. And immediately jumped to the next stage, the electric guitar.
This time, a Venezuelan guitarist was hired on Sept 26. Same procedure, told him to merge notes from Reliance and my Motif to play his track. Couple of days later, he delivered this super cool track. Sounded excellent to me, he followed my instructions with absolute diligence and precision, and the job was fantastically done.
September ended and i was feeling triumphant, everything had went better than i could have had imagined. The instrumental track was practically done, i had spent a really low amount of money, and everything seemed super easy. At that time i even dared to think of making much more songs in the near future, since the experience was being so smooth- I just assumed, quite wrongful, that the next stages were going to be the same. I was feeling like triumphant general really, invincible.
What's next? i was saying... yeah, i was feeling so confident...
4 October, Things start to go astray
With everything going so good, i carried out my first act of over confidence, even arrogance.
Remember that my chosen bass track was in finger style, not slap. In an act of stupid arrogance i decided to think that my amazing Ukrainian bassist had been an incompetent for not playing my track in slap style, so i decided to try a new attempt with a new bassist. I hired an italian bassist and told him to record the very same bass line, but i told him like: "make it sound much stronger, like the heaviest of the heaviest", or something like that. Well what i wanted was that my bassline sounded as strong or even more than Reliance.
Couple days later the bassist delivered, it was like an over saturated copy of the original one, it was not a good fit for the song, but i didn't realize. At that moment i just thought that my song was going to sound even cooler and more metalish than Reliance, what a moron!
Now it was time for the truly next stage, the topline, the melody to guide the singer performance. I knew what i wanted: a topline that would mimic that one of Reliance, so the process had to be just the same as before right? No, the trouble started right there, I knew how fundamental the top melody line was for the song, so i did not want to assign the task to just anyone, i had to find a really adequate composer... the problem is, i didn't know how to do that...
I tried with numerous queries for many days: "topline composer", "melody composer", "vocal line composer", and a long list, and even when i saw many profiles of people who likely could do the job, none of their sevices descriptions seemed to suit what i was looking for. The truth is, i spent so much time searching not because i was trying to find some supernaturally talented composer, but in reality, because i was starting to feel insecure, like afraid of making a misstep, so i wouldn't trust anyone because in fact i was starting to not trust myself.
So i decided to do something that would really mark the turning point to hell for my project, a cursed step that would always remain cursed for me in the Fiverr platform: posting a request instead of hand picking the seller as i had done all the previous times. So on Oct 9, i posted the request that said something like: "i need a person to make my topline melody, which has to be based on Reliance".
Without knowing it, it was that moment where the tipping point happened (for the worse).
Many sellers made offers to my request. To me it's quite uncomfortable to reject people's offers, i feel as if it's the same as disregarding people's talent and good will, the sole decision of taking just one of them is a bad experience. But anyway, i finally picked one of them, the one whose profile pic seemed the more "rocker" to me. It was a Brazilian producer and composer, we made a deal and four days later he delivered his part. When i opened the file and listened, immediately felt a deep feeling of dissatisfaction. The melody was actually good, and he had followed the instructions, but i just thought that it was not a good fit. I even discussed with him my feelings, but he assured me that it was just what i had instructed him to do, and even when he added his own original input, the thing was what it was. He was right, i had simply told him to copy Reliance with enough changes to consider it "original", and he just followed this mandate.
I knew i had made a mistake. The problem wasn't the composer, he was actually quite good. But instead, my mistake had been my own planning and its bad onset. I decided to let that be and move on. I spent a couple of days thinking... and i was about to accept this melody as definitive and move to the next step, but then i looked behind at what i had already invested in the song, so i decided to try again.
5 The detour for the topline
the failed top melody that i decided not to use, had been the most expensive order that i had made so far, and that marked a terrible, apocalyptic precedent of what was going to come... but back then i did not know.
Then i thought that i could not afford more unnecessary expenses, so i had to plan my next movements meticulously so as to recover from the top melody fiasco. So i made a little run around hiring a midi transcriber that would isolate the original Reliance melody in a Midi track. About the same time, with a clearer head i finally saw that i had to discard the oversaturated bass that i had bought, and had to hire a third bassist to play it the way the song needed. So the expenses began to accumulate, and the original budget i had assigned started to get depleted.
I spent a lot of time trying to chose the new god damn composer of the topline melody, squeezed my brains quite a lot until i realized what apparently had to be the most obvious and best choice: the same german pianist that had made the first main melody. Immediately, on October 19 i ran to him and made the deal. This time, the instructions were different.Yes, he had to copy the same structure of Reliance top melody, but this time, i told him what i hadn't realized when hiring the guy of the first attemtp: to take heavy inspiration on the notes of the Motif as well. So clearly my German pianist, as he was the same guy who composed the motif in first place, he had to do it better than anyone, and after listening to the result, i was much more satisfied.
Once again, the result was a bit more dark than expected, but it had to be it. Now, once and for all, i could go forward with this project. I thought that i left behind the worst part after spending an "expensive" discarded version and doing a few detours of bass line and midi adaptations. how naive, all of this had been nothing compared with what was to come.
6 Something went wrong... again... but worse
Between october 26 and 30 i hired two people for two more steps needed to make my topline fit within the song and prepare it for the singer. But finally, at the end of october, everything was ready, then i realized that i didn't have the lyrics yet!. what was the singer going to sing? "lalalala", of course not.
For me it's clear that the singing is the most important element of a song that's meant to have vocals, but Lyrics themselves, in my opinion, can only be the upper final coating: if lyrics are good, they act like a fine glass, letting you appreciate the whole song much more, but if it's bad, it won't le't you really appreciate the layers behind unless you do a conscious effort to ignore them.
So, i spent around 3 days searching not for a lyrics writer, but for a "poet" instead. my plan was to take the poem and alter it enough to make it fit in the topline melody. Well, first i contacted a female poet, but her price exceeded my estimated budget, so i went for another more affordable one, who rejected the task. Frustrated, i decided to post a request. Soon after, a random "original creative writer" offered his service, next day, he sent me a text he plagiarized from somewhere, fortunately i realized, thanks to google advanced search, and cancelled the deal. Really frustrated, i thought i was losing a ton of time( it had been actually just 3 days), but anyway, i thoroughly browsed throughout many gigs until i found a lyrics writer who claimed to be good at matching the words into the melody, also i listened to some of his demos and i liked his style. Finally! i proceeded to contact him and order a text. To my surprise he had placed an additional fee for commercial use that exceeded 3 times the original price! i almost stepped back but i thought that his lyrics should had to be really splendid if he was selling them for such a high price, so well, i took the decision to go on with the order... naively believing that such amount of money could bring the precise lyrics that i had in mind and wrongly thought someone else could write.
Couple of days later, he came up with two alternate lyrics. It was a competent and decent job, the words matched with the notes really well, just as promised, and they were fine. He had actually done research on the topic of "compliance", which was the preliminary title of the song, and overall the text seemed good to me. But the truth inside of my was, once again, of disappointment... because those were not the lyrics that i myself wanted to write. I accepted the delivery and thanked him. But then i decided to take a deep breath, scrap those lyrics and write the definitive ones myself. The scrapped lyrics at least served me as a model of how to correctly match the words, so in that regard, they weren't useless after all.
Nonetheless, i clearly made a serious overpriced mistake and i spent many hours, for many days, lamenting myself aloud for the money loss. But as said, i decided to calm down, sit, and started to write.
I had had a tough time writing the small intro, one month prior, so i knew i was going to suffer and sweat writing for the full song, and so i did. I spent from november 4 to november 8, spending almost every hour of the day sitting down in front of the laptop pc thinking over and over, making hundreds and hundreds of possible combinations in my head. It was like giving birth, it was painful mostly.
Finally, On Nov 8 i finished the text in the morning. then i realized that i had tried to save time paying a lot for the discarded lyrics, but ended up losing that money and also 4 more days writhing all over again. Those 4 days i was able to spend writing because they coincided with my vacation week of my day job. I didn't spend those vacation days having fun or resting or whatever, but suffering a lot... But this was still just the beginning.
7 The advent of ELIZABETH
I actually discovered Elizabeth's profile many weeks prior. I remember that at first glance i discarded her because her prices were too high for my budget. Although as the days passed by, i couldn't help myself but to enter to her profile time and again. I remember that one day, still in doubt, i finally took the time and listened to all the demos in her profile, i fell in love in less than 30 minutes. When the day of choosing a singer arrived, i had made my decision and was really sure about her.
Elizabeth was a young female singer, One of her demos was a jazz performance a la Ella Fitzgerald. I felt like hypnotized for how wonderful she seemed to me. It was actually a bit worrying from a psychological perspective because i actually kind of deeply fell in love for real, like as if she was some sort of idol of mine whom i loved with the intensity of an over obsessed teenager... Well i have to admit that i have this strong weakness for female singers in general. But anyway, she even had a well developed profile on spotify, youtube and other media. She seemed impressive and wonderful from every possible angle. So, i finally contacted her and made my proposal for the song. To my surprise, she answered and even was kind and gentle and willing to perform for my weird song.
The original idea of the song was to include an a capella "intro" that i mentioned above, so the overall length of the voice track had to be around 3 minutes in total. The total price she requested was a bit more than 130 dollars. At that moment, that was the most that i was able to pay for the singing, so i gladly accepted. I felt so delighted. The singer of my dreams was working on my song, i just had to wait until the delivery day, only one week later.
That week, i only had one thing in my mind, and it was the image of Elizabeth "Lizzy" singing my lyrics, probably laughing of how bad they were, and recording and etc. I think i was being happy, at least for this brief time. The day of the delivery i was so anxious, but happy still, when suddenly, a notification appeared. It was not the delivery, but Elizabeth requesting for another week to complete it.
I felt as if the biggest crush of my life had cancelled a date at the last minute while i had already ordered wine for two at the finest restaurant. Well i'm probably exaggerating but that hurt, the thing is that until that moment none of all the people i had previously hired on fiverr had postponed or requested a time extension. Every single one of the musicians had actually delivered with a lot of advance. none of them reaching the actual deadline, it had been that way with around 17 people, so i was absolutely sure that the normal thing to happen was to deliver asap, so i assumed that something was wrong with the task i posed to her.
Immediately, i proceeded to write an extensive response. Reading it now, it's obvious that i was troubled and worried , and even emotionally wounded. Although my real intention was to seem calm and reassuring, while trying to get a response about what was really happening, what was wrong? but without looking as if complaining or blaming on her.
Some time later, she replied with two lines simply saying that she was sure she could complete the task.
I started to get really worried, specially after her super brief reply. But, anyway, i liked her so much that i simply decided to accept the time renewal and wait for another whole week.
8 Lizzy betrayed, my final downfall
So from November 15 to 22, i patiently waited, thinking over and over about Elizabeth's performance, and how eager i was to listen to her beautiful voice singing my lyrics. I firmly believed that she was really close to deliver, and she would just need a couple more days, instead of an actual week... but the days passed by until the day of the delivery arrived again... As i mentioned, according to all my previous experiences, reaching the final delvery deadline was really abnormal and a red flag. And all my faith and love for Elizabeth suddenly turned into suspicion and distrust.
Like when someone you loved suddenly changes his attitude towards you for the worse, you instinctively adopt an emotional defensive stance, trying to prevent your feelings from suffering further damage. That''s what happened to me, suddenly i started thinking of Elizabeth as a careless irresponsible person. And i thought to myself that i had spent so much money, efforts, bust mostly, time into that project, that no single performer, no matter how good she was, none had the right to hold up this work for apparent no reason. I actually spent many hours thinking of some hypothesis to explain what was happening, the most "credible" of which was that Elizabeth was using me to feed her fiverr statistics in order to get the attention of serious clients, without actually caring for amateur dreamers like myself. How heart broken and butt hurt i must have been to believe in such a convoluted absurd explanation. but in fact, i was really hurt: since i was convinced that the singer of my dreams was despising me.
On the delivery day i was thinking that she probably had no intention to deliver, and she was simply using me and my hope as a simple number for her statistics. This stupid ridiculous thought, as absurd as it is, was my best explanation back then, and it was reinforced when the fiverr clock got to 0 and she did not even appear to request another time extension.
Some hours after that, with the Fiverr clock in delay status, i, on my nerves, finally received a message, it was a request for another week extension, with a short message saying something like: "i need some more days". I felt how my heart was shattered and shredded and turned into red goo, and i stood staring at her message for several minutes. almost with tears in my eyes. In my mind, her message confirmed my worst hypothesis, so i, defensively reacted to this, and proceeded to write another atrocious long message, trying to be as polite as i could , as i had no direct intention to make her feel bad. But clearly i was radiating frustration and disappointment. This is one of the messages that i most regret of my entire life:
Everything about this message is rubbish, a lie, As you can imagine, it's not true that the audio material is 4 minutes. Since Elizabeth's gig offers "layered backing track and harmonies", the actual singing length should be at least the the triple or more! How did i dare to talk to her like this! What was i thinking?. How much spite was i feeling?
And i got what i deserved: her silence, Elizabeth didn't ever reply again...
Some hours after my message, When i realized that she wouldn't say a thing, i in fact clicked on the cancellation button that appears automatically when the seller is on delay, and i had to wait two more days until the automatic cancellation occurred, because in fact, Elizabeth wouldn't even click on the cancellation request by herself.
So finally, on November 24 i got the money back and Elizabeth was no more in my project. I felt so sad about this almost every hour of the day for many weeks. My only consolation was to think that this had been the correct choice for the sake of my project, to believe that Elizabeth had been a mistake that i finally got rid of...
I utilized the remaining days of November in submitting my lyrics to revision by another Fiver seller, a poet who would give me advice about the correctness of the lyrics, she said it was ok and made some suggestions. Then November ended and i thought i was ready to find a replacement for Elizabeth...
9 Sad dark December, or what i got for ditching Elizabeth
The main reason why i cancelled my deal with Elizabeth had been that i was running out of time: According to the schedule that i had planned at the beginning, the song had to be ready to release before the end of the year (2021). Elizabeth had "made me waste" two weeks of this scheduled time, and now i was in need to find a new singer asap. So immediately i started browsing again.
After some time, i found an excellent candidate whose name was Donnoya, a really good singer from the Caribbean, which had about the same voice capabilities than Elizabeth but for a much lower price. I contacted her and she replied, apparently she was interested, however, after chatting for a while, she stopped replying. Two days later, she finally replied back to talk about the details of the project before starting the order. However, one day before, i had decided to contact another seller, believing that Donnoya hadn't replied because she didn't like the song and decided to step back.
So i had to tell her that i hired another person, which would turn out really unfortunate...
The person i had contacted was a Hungarian singer called Anna, also a mezzo, on Dec 2, she asked me for the details and i showed her the materials. I awaited for her response a whole day and i didn't receive a reply, so i decided to pass and look for another... On late night of Dec 3. i contacted the next candidate, a singer from Philippines called Anabell, who replied back asking for the details, and same story, i gave her everything and awaited for her response... but then, Anna, replied again, so i rather decided to not reply back to her. Since i had already contacted Anabell, i did not want to further waste Anna's time, but didn't have the courtesy to tell her the truth...
I just had to wait Anabelle's reply... and so i did for one, two, three and four days. Anabell would never reply again, and i had already wasted almost one third of the month...It means that because i was obsessed with not wasting time, i was starting to actually fall into an spiral of massive time waste. So on Dec 8, like a treacherous hypocrite, i decided to reply to the previous one, Anna, just to see if i could bring her back to the project, she replied and said she would take a look at the materials carefully. So now finally i just had to wait. Well i was sure Anna would take the gig with seriousness and would reply soon... but nope, the days started passing by... and she would't reply until 9 days later, on Dec 18 to tell me that she wouldn't be able to sing for my song...
And that was it, i felt as if this project and i were cursed, it definitely felt as if the fate were teaching me a lesson the worst possible way, or actually, punishing me. I couldn't believe such a struck of terrible luck... i ditched Elizabeth because i didn't want her to take one more week from me, but i had actually spent 24 more days without being able to find a replacement...
I kind of understood what was happening... apparently, it is a systemic thing for singers on Fiverr to have schedule difficulties and to request time period extensions... I realized that i had been really unfair to Elizabeth.
What happens is, according to what i saw, that most of the "budget" singers on the platform are not professional, which means, singers have their gigs on fiverr just as a very side thing. Well, at least, the singers with the most inexpensive gigs, the most affordable ones. They're usually hobbyists who have other duties and jobs in their daily lives, and that makes perfect sense. For example, Anabell did not reply because she didn't like the song, she would have sung for me for such an affordable fee only if she enjoyed the song, kind of the same with Anna and Donnoya. So in the end, if they charge you little money, you don't really have the right to demand too much from them, much less time pressuring them or being upset if they request time extensions.
On the other side, you have the professionals, freelancer singers who are on fiverr because they actually make their livings as singers on a daily basis, the problem is, their minimum prices are usually more than 300 for 3 minutes maximum of singing.
Once understood this fact, i knew how i made one of the worst mistakes of my life cancelling my deal with Elizabeth. She was actually semi professional during those times, because apparently she was making a living as a voice actor, and singing as her side gig.
Basically she had been doing me a favor when she accepted to sing my 3 minute song for half the price of a Fiverr Pro, and i paid her back ditching her mid way... how miserable kind of person had i been?
I browsed among the fiverr Pro singers, and when it's true that there are more than amazing performers, i couldn't ever find someone close to Elizabeth in terms of style, vibe, and overall musical profile and personality. Elizabeth was one of a kind, even if i felt that way because i was sort of in love.
I spent an entire evening crying softly and in silence, you know, like droping couple of tears each quarter of hour, in silence.. Saying something like "I'm sorry, Elizabeth" out loud from time to time...
I spent most of December grieving and receiving like a "karma" punishment for what i had done to Elizabeth. I knew that i deserved it, and i received what i deserved.
10 Mariona brings back hope
Broken inside, i was at the brink of quitting, even after having spent several hundreds. Without Elizabeth, nothing about the project seemed to make any sense. I really wanted to end that thing right there, however, in my main project document, i had strictly stated that the project had to be finished one way or another, even if i had to sing it myself and mix the audio with my own pc and sony vegas, It was mandatory, and i embraced this commitment before starting, so despite my sorrow, i had to go on. I actually thought of finishing the song by myself as a really super amateur-demo, but in that case, the song would never be actually finished nor released, but would remain a "draft" forever, so i knew i had to properly end it with some real singer and mixer.
So i gathered all the little will power remaining inside me, and posted a Fiverr request, since i did not want to hand search again... the budget for the task was not so high, so i was sure some random person with basic singing skills would be the only one willing to do the job. Additionally, tired of everything, one of the conditions of the task was to deliver really, really quick, because what i wanted now was to rush the project and finish it asap.
So i posted the request, waited a couple hours, and returned to see the offers. One of them was from a spanish girl with a kind of a physical resemblance to Elizabeth... I like to think that this was not a factor in my decision, but most likely, it was. I read her message and she convinced me, she agreed to my terms of doing it really quick and to take it with some seriousness and to charge not too much. So i ordered the singing pack and started waiting.
The very next day on Dec 19, she delivered. Her performance was in fact better than expected. Considering the fact that she did it in less than 24 hours, so i accepted the delivery and prepared for the next step: to post a request for a mixer/producer, and end the damn song...
However, after listening calmly to what Mariona had done, i kind of liked it and grew in me. And i felt like as if... the project was not as cursed as i thought. Mariona, actually, finally showed me that the song was kind of enjoyable after all. Mariona's performance was very well done considering how rushed it had been...
but for that same reason, it had several flaws... so i started getting obsessed with the thought of what would have been the result had i given Mariona a proper time frame? Why hadn't I? Now it was late!, but i had to do this again!, Now i knew there were people out there capable of doing the job. Mariona gave me my hopes and my dreams back, and for that, i'll always be grateful to her.
11 Shari, ease to my soul, stress to my pockets
On Dec 20, i prepared to contact Mariona to ask for a new order, the same task but with a lot more prep time. But a thought crossed my mind, my budget had almost ran out. The amount i had paid Mariona was not too big, but not too low either. What should be the fair price to pay for the same task, given that the first attempt took just a few hours to complete?
So it felt a bit awkward to ask her to do the same job, making her spend much more time, but paying just barely more. Well, in general, the situation felt a bit odd, because furthermore, she would have thought that i was really stupid to request the same order again after spending what i had spent.
Despite that i liked her quite a lot, i decided to look elsewhere. I remember that i wanted to post another request, but not without doing a quick manual search...
One of the best results was this Shari girl, a singer with really impressive demos. I remembered that i had already checked her profile more than a month prior around the time i found Elizabeth. The problem with Shari was, that her prices were a bit too high for the budget i had planned, but her demos were incredible, she was obviously a safe bet, and the fact that she was british also contributed to the high price for her services. I gave some thought to this decision, but since my confidence had received a little boost thanks to Mariona's performance, i decided to go all-in once and for all. I sent Shari a message and waited. As you've seen, i had many issues with non-responding singers before so i wasn't willing to wait for too long, but she replied quick and nicely. And on Dec 20, we discussed the final details and i proceeded to start the order. She was perfect, and made me fall in love again. Mariona had restored my hope and faith, and Shari finally began to heal the Deep wound Elizabeth had caused to me.
But the cost was being high, in addition to the total price of the order, which was the premium package and costed considerably more than the price i intended to pay to Elizabeth, in additon to that, i decided to give Shari the very same thing that i hadn't been capable to give to Elizabeth: a three weeks period until delivery.
So this project was now running over the max budget i had planned, and way over the max time limit. I had to do the planning of the project all over again retroactively. Now i was all-in, and there was no way back, but i did not care too much at that time, Shari seemed like an angel to me, and i was all-in-love.
I spent the Christmas holidays alone, due to bad calendar planning, and i had plenty of time and space within my brain to think about Shari's task. At this point, the situation was similar to that of the first time awaiting for Elizabeth's delivery. But i wasn't feeling afraid, i was sure that Shari wouldn't repeat that story. So for three weeks i waited in silence, the days passed slowly, and although isolated and with many reasons for sadness, i kept dreaming, smiling, healing my wounds, reading, and during some nights, visiting Shari's profile to delightfully listening to her beautiful demos. I also tried to distract my mind with other things, even some things related to my actual sentimental life (or the lack of it), so the days kept passing until the delivery date was getting closer and closer. One good day, on Jan 8 of 2022, before the actual deadline arrived, I received Shari's message, it was it, the task had been completed.
12 January's distractions
On the second week of January i had been assigned a 5 day holiday, from 12 to 16 of January, so i went to my hometown to spend some time with family and friends, and also, to solve a pending old sentimental issue with a person from my town. So the second and third week of January turned to be really sad weeks in my personal life because i suffered a broken-heart situation.I had put the project on hold during those two whole weeks, since i was putting a lot on mental efforts into solving the mentioned sentimental matter the best possible way, but in the end, the outcome was bad, and realized that i ended with a broken heart and also with two weeks wasted without progresses with the project.
So immediately, i took charge of the project again, and actually, it helped me to recover from my sentimental sorrow, it was therapeutic, to put it that way. Thank god i had Shari's files ready on my computer, and the consolation it provided to my heart during those days was immense. So finally, on Jan 21, after failing to make a deal with a handpicked producer, i posted a request, and the next day, Jan 22, i chose a mixer and producer for the task of completing the song. We agreed on a two weeks deadline, so once again, i just had to sit and wait, patiently.
What is clear is that carrying out a project like this, with a method such as what i was doing, had been an overall mistake. Acquiring each track, although it had been deceivingly easy during the first stages, was actually very time-burning... had to do multiple run arounds, hired multiple intermediate men to fix certain elements before proceeding to the next steps. But also, once certain point was reached, choosing the next musician turned into a hell of a situation, because it got really really hard to decide whom to hire, because the stakes were progressively raising and the responsibility along with the fear of doing a misstep increased exponentially.
Furthermore, I know for a fact that i have terrible negotiation skills, i tend to concede a lot, i'm afraid to give the impression of being petty, i actually like making people feel that they receive generous payment, because i know how good it feels. Deep inside, i believe this attitude is correct, but it's really counterproductive when it comes to business and negotiation. So this also had been a factor that contributed to the total downfall of time and money that this project turned out to be. I began in September, expecting to have everything ready after three months, but now almost half of a year had passed, and i still had many things to do. And regarding money, more of the same, and now i was actually surpassing twice as originally planned. But after all, i believe this process taught me invaluable lessons that have immense utility for life in general, not only for fiverr song-projects.
13 The final mix and the cover art
It was already February 3 and after a patient wait, the producer delivered before the due date, and it's the song as we know it. Its length was 3:40 compared to the 4:13 of my rough draft.Other than the elements he added, the main difference was that the piano outro had been discarded.
Something important that i originally envisioned was the a capella segment, where Shari should've sung an introductory verse. However, because my budget had evaporated, i couldn't make another order from Shari before the mixing stage.
So the final cut had a lot less than what i had in mind originally, but it was probably better the way it was now, because otherwise, the song probably would've ended being too long to be enjoyed on the go, as a quick, rock, energetic track that i wanted it to be.
The mixer had also cut out the third final verse and replaced it with the electric guitar solo. actually, Shari had heavily modified the melody of the final verse and apparently it turned out unfitting with the other verses, so i guess the change was for the better.
Compared to Reliance by Mark Klem, our Doubtful compliant had become it's own thing and the resemblances were barely noticeable now. In the end, i believe this was positive. After all, i wanted a song inspired by Reliance, not a shameless clone, in which case the easy way should've been just to remake Reliance itself.
Actually before i got the final mix, I had already hired the artist for the cover art. I gave him a screenshot of the Doom deathmatch map in which i originally listened to Reliance, and told him to redraw it with some small changes. (a very similar image to that of this old video i did featuring the Reliance midi track):
The delivery was ready on February 6 but it needed some tweaks that i thought a Photoshop editor would easily carry out. So the next day i posted a request, and hired a photoshop editor for not much less of the price of the original artwork. Actually, it took him a whole week to complete the delivery including revisions (feb 14), plus, two or three days more that i took to finish the cover myself... but at this point i didn't really care too much about the delays, because the truth was, i had already been defeated.
14 About the song
This project burned an immense amount of my money, costed me an entire half of a year, and on top of everything, caused me to behave horribly towards Elizabeth, the singer of my dreams, to betray her and insult her. Everything that i tried to avoid ended happening one way or another. When i tried to save time, i ended spending entire months in the stalemate, when tried to save money, ended up exceeding the expenses of my budget by the hundreds. And during the final weeks of its completion, i suffered the worst sentimental heart break of my life, although this last thing is unrelated to the project, contributed to the overall depressive mood that now i associate to this song.15 CREDITS of Doubtful Compliant
20 of February, 2022
