Commercial Music Production: Studio Journal - Dark Folk Songs by Tiff Norchick About Love and Our Place in the Natural World

Before you go on, here are the links to the recordings if you want to listen while you read!

https://tiffnorchick.bandcamp.com/track/lean-into-love-2
https://tiffnorchick.bandcamp.com/track/like-a-leaf
https://tiffnorchick.bandcamp.com/track/blue-sky-lover

In the first half of last year I recorded a series of songs written by Tiff Norchick. We recorded 3 tracks, each with a distinct dark-folk sound. The instruments used were; a tom drum, kalimba (placed on the tom drum for a larger acoustic sound), steel string guitar, nylon string guitar, violin, cello, French horn, and two singers. The aim for this project was to create a sound that was both large and minimal by recording simple sounding tracks and processing them to effectively build a larger-than-life atmosphere. The secondary direction for these tracks was to dull the sense of a pulse - to eliminate the kind of tension felt in music where the pulse is more solid. This creates a free-flowing feeling in the songs, with any edge and solidity detached, forming a gentle, calm nature. Two other important things to consider when recording these tracks were the context and the emotive purpose of the tracks. Tiff is quite an avid nature-lover and she uses nature as inspiration for her music. She does this by using purely acoustic instruments, creating a calm and gentle atmosphere, and using natural imagery in her song writing.

Creating a base

The process of recording these tracks involved laying down base tracks with a guide vocal and building off them. The first song we recorded (Blue Sky Lover) had a nylon string guitar as the base. The second song (Lean into Love) used a live-tracked steel string guitar with nylon string together in the recording booth. Finally, the last song (Like a Leaf) used the kalimba as the base.

Like a Leaf

There was a bit of discussion regarding how we would record Like a Leaf, since the kalimba and the vocals are the only parts that are strictly notated, whereas the other instruments were improvised. Since the kalimba plays a loop, only varying in two bars near the end, we were concerned about how closely the form of the song was going to be monitored. Towards the end, Tiff decided that she would be able to play throughout the whole take. The kalimba playing was so repetitive that Tiff's mind would occasionally wander off, but I was able to easily edit out any mistakes she made by cutting other similar parts of the form and pasting them in the appropriate places.

This song was used in a promotional video for the Bob Brown foundation. Contextually the song is about tree roots. For this, Tiff wanted the song to sound how tree roots look (in her own words). I interpreted this to mean mysterious, meandering and crude. The song was written as a call-and-response between Tiff and violinist Oliver Toombs. He interpreted this ‘tree-roots’ sound very appropriately - and you can hear this in the track.

Out of the three tracks, Like a Leaf has to most interesting form to me. It starts with a rather simplistic sound and towards the end of the song the cello, French horn and tom drum build emphasis. The three instruments create a surprisingly tense and almost volatile sound when compared to the other two tracks. The tension is particularly obvious when the cellist and the French horn enter, playing in unison, which creates a phasing effect that cuts through the lower end of the track. The psychology of why the track has so much tension might have something to do with the innocent sound of the kalimba, which has the timbre of a play school instrument, contextually battling the large and boomy baritone instruments. The violinist also pushes this idea forward by playing in quite a chaotic and crude tone. Tiff also remarked how the song was recorded a bit slower than usual and that was the biggest source of tension to her. She also remarked how this makes the payoff at the end much more satisfying.

At the end of the track, Tiff delivers the lines “Someday I will be the earth beneath you.” Which, in context with the form and instrumentals, I found to be an incredibly important line, so I moved these lines to a separate track in the DAW and edited them so they would have more presence in their position, which was already quite sonically dense within Tiff’s vocal range.

I was disappointed by the noise on the kalimba track. Since the kalimba is such a quiet, subtle instrument, the pre-amps struggled to catch it and the noise floor was a bit too high. I edited the track so that the noise in the background blended a bit more and I attempted to get it to the point where the noise brought a bit of an indie, crude vibe to the track but I would have loved having a cleaner kalimba track to experiment with instead.

Blue Sky Lover

Blue Sky Lover, to me, had the most interesting melodic construction of any of the tracks. Despite having very simplistic lyrical content and form, the intent of the vocals were to interact with each other in interesting ways and that became the driving force of the song. Tiff discussed with me how she was criticised for the lyrical repetitiveness of the song in the song writing class, by people who did not understand the form and creative direction of the song.

In the final recording of Blue Sky Lover, around 2:10 into the track, someone was heard outside in the hall, shouting the security guard’s name during the best take. This take seemed to have a few too many of those golden moments that producers look for, so I cut this section of the guitar track and faded it out and back in again, so it sounded like the guitarist simply took a rest for that section. Surprisingly, it created a beautiful moment of tension in the track and I discussed this artistic choice with Tiff, which she endorsed.

Blue Sky Lover is, to me, the tightest track of the three. The vocals matched the tone excellently, and the synergy shared by the violinist and the cellist is perfectly displayed in this piece. The guitarist played the nylon string as the base and paired it with a steel string on the overdubs. He created a beautiful sense of space and movement on the steel-string with some interesting countermelodies and polyrhythms. Additionally, his loose sense of timing worked wonderfully for the piece, as it created a very satisfying ‘cascading’ feel and helped dull the sense of a pulse.

Throughout the mix there were also issues with a boomy tone, particularly from Tiff’s vocals and various guitar tracks. Tiff’s vocals were affected by the fact that her vocal range is quite low for a female and her vocals were also affected by the proximity effect. Since Tiff’s voice is so quiet, she sang very close into the microphone. The guitars were effected by this boomy tone because their mic positioning was meticulously chosen to create the warmest tone they could. Though I had to EQ out some of this, I still think these microphone positions were successful because the timbre of the instruments is still incredibly warm and pleasant.

Lean Into Love

In Lean Into Love, the two guitar tracks were live-tracked together. As a result, they were a bit muddier, and the guitar tracks were not as tight as the ones on Blue Sky Lover. This was not necessarily bad, because it leant itself to the style of the recordings, and the guitars simply had a different texture. Lean Into Love is quite thematically linked to Blue Sky Lover, and that’s why I made the suggestion not to add any French horn to Blue Sky Lover, so that there was more of a distinction between the tracks. Also, since Lean Into Love has more of a minor feel, the French horn aided it to sound larger and more emphatic. I also felt that Blue Sky Lover had a more interesting form and composition, and Lean Into Love called for an extra element.

The Characteristics of Dark Folk

The characteristics of recordings like this often include long reverb tails, light to no compression, and very low-fidelity sounds. Though I did use very little compression and the recordings themselves are quite tonally warm, I did not use much obvious reverb. Reverb was often used on the vocals to give them some space, but this was quite minimal. In Like a Leaf the reverb on the vocals is more prominent, and this helps fill up the space and make the song more interesting when there is not much going on. This reverb is also automated upwards in one specific spot to make a note Tiff sings ring out a bit more. The only really obvious use of reverb is on the violin. Throughout the three tracks, the violin was treated with a long, spacious reverb effect. Though this effect is fairly subtle, it succeeds in creating a wide, open space in the mix. The reverb also helps to dull the harsher tones of the violin. When the violin sounds like it is closer in the mix, it is quite invasive and unpleasant, especially since the violin’s tonal range falls pretty close to the human vocal range that listeners are fairly sensitive to.

Towards the end of mixing, I invited Tiff in to listen to the tracks and get her opinion on things. We ended up cutting some tom rolls from Lean Into Love and further balancing the vocals on Like a Leaf. She was incredibly interested in how the violins were mixed and how they sat in the track. She also enjoyed how the French horn sat in the tracks and how her vocals sounded – she claimed to not like how microphones usually made her voice sound but I helped her by making good microphone choices, editing out the booming frequencies caused by the proximity effect and adding a bit of reverb to create some space. Mostly, she had positive things to say about the final product. Afterwards, I bounced the tracks off and listened to them on a few different systems, including a cheaper pair of speakers, and my laptop speakers.

Final Thoughts

Overall, these recordings were successful because I focused much less on the mixing at the end and directed a lot of my energy into getting good performances and good microphone placement. Understanding the purpose and emotional context of the songs was a very important part of these recordings. I was fairly lucky to have the opportunity to record a wholesome group of individuals, who were quite supportive, positive and harmonious. There wasn't any conflict at all, just a lot of sharing of ideas and good energy. I feel more confident about these recordings than I do with most other recordings I have done in the past, because the performances are so solid and the emotional effectiveness of the recordings are simply on point. I was very happy with the outcome and so were the performers.

Links:
https://tiffnorchick.bandcamp.com/track/lean-into-love-2
https://tiffnorchick.bandcamp.com/track/like-a-leaf
https://tiffnorchick.bandcamp.com/track/blue-sky-lover

Personnel credits:
Tim Chivers – Producer and engineer
Tiff Norchick – Songwriter, producer and performer (guitar, kalimba, vocals)
Amber Clark – Performer (vocals)
Benjamin Ekso James Pasanen – Performer (guitar)
Alexandra Frank – Performer (cello)
Oliver Toombs – Performer (violin, tom rolls)
Maraika Smit – Performer (French horn)
Recorded at the University of Tasmania Conservatorium of Music