[00:00:00] Jordan Smith Reynolds:

Welcome to the Song Saloon. Today is a different type of episode where we're not focusing on a song composition, but more the production elements around it.

I recently released Auld Lang Syne as a holiday single, um, with Robert Ballantyne Willes and that is our guest today. We're going to talk about some of the production elements that, that went into making this song. And it was An extremely short timeline. We had to do quite a bit in a week, especially Robert and getting all this production work together.

So I wanted to highlight some of those, those choices that he made and thought it might be a nice fun holiday theme for this show. so here is Robert Ballantyne Willis's bio. The combination of identities of classically trained cellist, producer, and audio engineer place Robert Willis at a unique crossroads of musical worlds. Whether groove based or electronic and orchestral, Robert's work imbues a sense of sincerity and sophistication from concept from conception to execution.

Above all, Robert strives to use music to create a moment of honesty, absurdity, absurdity, Man, I'm struggling.

[00:01:17] Robert Willes: It is painful for me to read too.

[00:01:20] Jordan Smith Reynolds: yeah, well, it's, it's funny. I've done this with like all the artists and they're all like, Oh gosh, I got to change my bio. It's funny. above all, Robert strives to use music to create a moment of honesty, absurdity, and joy to connect with listeners in a playful and sincere way. In explaining the process of choosing the name Tampico Lasting Love, which is Robert's project, Robert once mentioned, although somewhat nonsensical, I thought it sparked joy, which is the aim of the music in general.

Welcome Robert.

[00:01:46] Robert Willes: Wow. Thank you. I'm touched by my own bio. It's like, wow, what a guy.

[00:01:51] Jordan Smith Reynolds: glad. What a

guy. 

[00:01:53] Robert Willes: No, it's painful. Mostly 

[00:01:55] Jordan Smith Reynolds: and I've been listening through your, your album that you released in October as well, which has been super fun.

[00:02:01] Robert Willes: Thank you that you're a featured on one song. So I

[00:02:04] Jordan Smith Reynolds: That's correct, yeah.

[00:02:05] Robert Willes: My dad's favorite 

[00:02:06] Jordan Smith Reynolds: the Let 

[00:02:06] Robert Willes: the 

whole thing, I think.

[00:02:09] Jordan Smith Reynolds: Is it really?

[00:02:10] Robert Willes: Yeah.

[00:02:10] Jordan Smith Reynolds: That's great. Oh man, that's awesome. that one's called Let the Light Come Through that I'm singing on, um, featuring Energy Secretary. Which

[00:02:19] Robert Willes: Yeah, that's right. Yeah, I should

[00:02:20] Jordan Smith Reynolds: sync moniker. Yeah.

[00:02:23] Robert Willes: Separate brand, for sure.

[00:02:25] Jordan Smith Reynolds: Yeah. It is a different kind of writing than I normally do for, for my project.

But this one that we worked on together definitely fits in that, in the Jordan Smith Reynolds universe. but talking about your project for a second. You mentioned in your bio too, it's kind of like this kind of quirky, unique approach to songwriting and music making. And that really comes through in the album.

One of my favorites is space love that I was listening to. I really appreciated the lyrics in that one in particular.

it's one of the best ways. I've ever heard someone say, like, I love you is, which was basically, I forget the line, maybe, you know, it, uh, verbatim right now, but it's the one about like leaving a parasite,

[00:03:04] Robert Willes: Oh yeah, 

[00:03:05] Jordan Smith Reynolds: basically quoting the movie alien. Yeah. 

[00:03:08] Robert Willes: gross.

[00:03:09] Jordan Smith Reynolds: Yeah. What is it? It can

do, do you know 

it? 

[00:03:11] Robert Willes: like, ah, I can't remember exactly, um, a parasite crawling up inside your rib cage beside your heart. That makes it sound so nice the way I just said it. Um, 

[00:03:20] Jordan Smith Reynolds: yeah. No, it's it's basically that. Yeah, sharing your lifeblood. That's the part that I thought was amazing is yeah it's pretty goofy. I really like it

[00:03:30] Robert Willes: That's nice of you.

[00:03:31] Jordan Smith Reynolds: I thought that was a really fun different way. You've never heard someone say I love you which is like I want to put a A life sucking parasite in your heart and share your lifeblood, which is just funny.

it was good. 

So yeah, do I talk about that project at all that came out in October?

[00:03:45] Robert Willes: just briefly, it's just kind of a collection of things I've written and written with people over the years. For different projects that I ended up just really loving, that I felt all fit under the umbrella of Tampico. Just kind of goofy, sincere stuff, so. A lot of it pop, a little bit of folk, but.

[00:04:03] Jordan Smith Reynolds: yeah, I really loved the the video work you did to advertise for it too. You had like

[00:04:08] Robert Willes: Oh, that's nice.

[00:04:09] Jordan Smith Reynolds: 3d polygon Rendering of yourself like dancing in your living room and

things. It was 

[00:04:15] Robert Willes: 2 style graphics, yeah. That's nice of you, that's fun to make.

[00:04:19] Jordan Smith Reynolds: So let's go ahead and dive into Auld Lang Syne let me know if you're getting your side of the story correct on this but I remember I'm caroling a ton right now.

That's kind of what my life has been the past month is I'm in a caroling quartet and singing a lot of Christmas songs and a few Hanukkah songs, but, mostly Christmas this time around. And, I was just really busy going from gig to gig and I was kind of lamenting not having a holiday song out and cause I've released one.

last year I released one two years before that. It's like, Oh man, it would've been really nice to get a song done. And so I sat with my guitar and I was playing around with, a G open tuning version of Auld Lang Syne. I was like, Oh, I could, we could record this pretty quick. And then I reached out to you and.

You were basically like, yeah, can you come over now, which was awesome. and the timeline was basically a week and a half, I think, to get it released. that sound right to you? It was a week and a half.

[00:05:15] Robert Willes: yeah, we, I think you called me on a Wednesday, you came over on that Wednesday, and then we were thinking like, okay, next Tuesday or Wednesday it needs to be wrapped up. We ended up kind of pushing it till Friday, maybe even Saturday morning or so, but yeah, so about a week and a half.

[00:05:30] Jordan Smith Reynolds: Yeah, a week and a half. And then we released it this, this past Monday. Um, so yeah, it was a very rushed timeline. What, what was that experience like for you?

[00:05:43] Robert Willes: in working with like pop, like beats can get written pretty quickly. This was not quite that, so it did take longer, but I feel like you can definitely finish a record in a week with pop, especially if you don't do too much production after the top line's written, but because this turned out more orchestral, it was kind of a rush and just a lot of recording strings, a lot of recording things. It was fun. It's like this big push. Mm

[00:06:07] Jordan Smith Reynolds: yeah, well, I'm glad you you had fun with it because I know it was a lot of time Can you talk a little bit about the different elements because I feel like vocally I stayed pretty close to the original melody, which actually stays the same throughout the verse and the chorus for the most part. there's not a lot of variation vocally.

And I do think that if we had a bit more time, I probably would have gone in and made a few little changes vocally, which might've helped out the, the composition and feeling like you had to shoulder less of it by changing the production so much each verse. But we released it in a week. So what can you do?

Um, yeah, do you want to talk about production wise what, what choices you made? I know you've ended up recording on a bunch of different instruments, like live organic instruments, as well as using some, uh, synth patches and things. So let's talk about that 

[00:06:53] Robert Willes: yeah, so I'm, I'm, I don't know if it's just my background or what, but I'm always interested in making big distinctions between sections. Or as big as they need to be. so we started with guitar. and got that all, when you came over, we started with the guitar, your guitar and your vocals that we tracked out and made a

[00:07:15] Jordan Smith Reynolds: And I do want to mention those vocals were supposed to be the scratch

[00:07:19] Robert Willes: Oh yeah.

[00:07:19] Jordan Smith Reynolds: uh, we had it in our head that we were going to record this at another time and we just like one didn't have the time and two, we're pretty happy with how this scratch turned out. So that ended up being the lead, the lead vocal.

Yeah. Please continue.

[00:07:32] Robert Willes: Oh yeah. No. So the whole idea was just, having said trying to create contrast between the sections, cause the melody is pretty similar between the verse and the chorus. we wanted, my thought was to keep it distinct, but as subtle as possible through the beginning of it. and then just kind of let that grow and become a big orchestral thing, um, throughout.

So it kind of, just a big crescendo until through like the second to last chorus. And then we kind of have a little outro thing until the very last chorus. that was kind of always the thought pattern was kind of a, a big outline for how things were going to go. And then, um, as we started on it, my inclination with working with acoustic stuff, especially with you, Jordan, is, uh, Just how many strings can we jam in there?

Like, how much of an orchestral sound can we get? So, just cause, I guess that's my background. So, when you're a hammer, everything's a nail. Everything needs strings when you're a cellist.

[00:08:24] Jordan Smith Reynolds: I love having strings in, in my arrangements. I know I've, I've worked with Chris Rohr quite a bit, with cello in the, in past recordings. So having elements of cello and other string. Oh, I had my cousin, Joseph Gibbons on viola on another one. So, or maybe he was on violin. He's a violist, but I think he was playing violin for that one. I'm a big fan of strings is, is the main point I'm trying to make. And I really like how you brought that element into this song. it's featured really heavily, especially at the end. the rising, strings line just adds a ton to the song. Yeah. It's really fun.

[00:09:00] Robert Willes: Yeah, that's something that I always like to do as a producer. Is um, I always think of it as K material, cause that's what they taught us in music theory. Like, the closing material. Um, I always enjoy when there's something subtly new at the very end that hadn't been introduced yet. I hope that's a 

good thing to do, it's what I'm always inclined to do.

[00:09:21] Jordan Smith Reynolds: yeah, I'd love to hear some examples if you have them. I know you have your logic session pulled up. For those that are on the podcast, you can go to YouTube and you'll be able to see that Robert has his screen pulled up and can go through some of these elements visually, as well as just through audio, so consume in whichever way you like.

But, yeah, I'd love to hear some of those string elements that you have

throughout the song, if you have

[00:09:47] Robert Willes: let's, uh, pull that up and grab the orchestra and, so there's actually a string quartet, and then underneath that there's an orchestra and we can go, we'll start with the quartet. It's kind of like this repetitive ostinato thing, but I liked how that moved against the chord changes. That's something that I always enjoy to make kind of an ethereal kind of washy sound is something constant. And then the chord changes moving against that, um, because you get used to it once it's repetitive.

So even if it's a little bit dissonant, um, your brain kind of, I feel like it works out what's going on and you create an anticipation when it moves back to somewhere where it's not as dissonant. Could you play that whole thing in 

[00:10:38] Jordan Smith Reynolds: Nice, yeah, I love the extra movement that it gives. That whole phrase, because Like we mentioned, you know, the vocal melody stays pretty consistent and it's slow. And having that

just adds so much, I think, to keeping it moving. And I really like where it sits. In the mix too. I know we were playing around with some different like EQ options with it. And I love that it sounds really natural and full in the, in the final version that we have.

[00:11:36] Robert Willes: Yeah, I think I had filtered it at one point just trying to get it like, I don't know, to sit and we got some feedback that needed. 

[00:11:43] Jordan Smith Reynolds: Shout out Jay Ives for that feedback.

[00:11:46] Robert Willes: appreciate it. I guess moving back a little bit, I kind of forgot, so the very first thing that we did to it, after we got your vocals and guitar, I laid down kind of some, I guess in my mind they were like kind of Suf and Stevens y, kind of plunky little things.

I have a small body guitar that I like doing this kind of stuff with. let me play that for you. Let me mute the So these little guys. And there's actually another layer that comes in that I pitched up, and it starts to sound a little funky.

[00:12:23] Jordan Smith Reynolds: Oh yeah.

[00:12:29] Robert Willes: Uh, another thing that's that higher guitar is not following the chord progression, but as long as it's nice and high, I think you can get away with 

[00:12:38] Jordan Smith Reynolds: Is that, um, do you have that RC 20 plugin on that?

[00:12:41] Robert Willes: Yeah,

yeah, that's on a lot of stuff. I kind of 

like that just like gritty.

[00:12:47] Jordan Smith Reynolds: RC20 for those, um, that may not be familiar with it adds, what would you say? It adds like wobble and it garbles the audio a bit in an interest, interesting way. Um, what would you say?

[00:12:57] Robert Willes: yeah, it's a, it's just like an emulator for tape or, um, or vinyl. Um, so we got kind of that sitting right and basic layout between the verses and chorus and then our little, what I kept thinking of as a bridge, but it's actually just another verse. Um, and then from 

[00:13:13] Jordan Smith Reynolds: Mm hmm. 

[00:13:14] Robert Willes: um, some bass, really, it's really simple bass, like super simple bass. I'm not much of a bassist, but I could play that. Plucky sound with it. Then just jumping in with the string quartet and just letting it grow bigger and bigger with adding a final orchestra at the end. That's what we, that's what we were talking about, huh?

Let me play that orchestral part for you. yeah, there's the orchestra. So just let it build and build. yeah, then it just kind of releases into this big orchestral thing at the very end.

[00:14:18] Jordan Smith Reynolds: Yes, awesome. We added percussion elements pretty late into, into the process as well. When we were going back and forth. do you want to talk about that at all?

[00:14:28] Robert Willes: Yeah, so, I think we both felt like it just needed something a little bit more grounding. particularly on the choruses. So we just added a really simple beat. I think I've got like a, like an orchestral bass drum mixed with just a really muted kick. and that plays a really simple pattern. And then instead of a snare, I didn't want too driving of a sound and it's Christmas or like New Year. So we did a tambourine, kind of a jingly thing. I think that just grounded it. It was kind of odd just because with all the Tempico stuff, I'm a little bit more used to mixing pop basically, or pop related

genres. So it was hard. mixing this to not be able to kind of hide behind the drums because i feel like drums and vocals are that's it that's it for pop but because this was added so late and was kind of a secondary element to the whole thing it wasn't the main focus it was a lot different of a mixing experience 

[00:15:27] Jordan Smith Reynolds: Yeah, that's cool. Um, can we hear that in context? Yeah, I do like that it just kind of happens to be there. It doesn't feel like, oh this is what's driving the song right now.

[00:16:01] Robert Willes: it's so sparse it only happens on three, three loops or three choruses.

[00:16:05] Jordan Smith Reynolds: Yeah, and then you add the, in the instrumental, right? You have, like, is it, what kind of, uh, like a bells of some sort going ch ch ch ch?

[00:16:15] Robert Willes: Um, Yeah. Just some, uh, sleigh bells. 

[00:16:20] Jordan Smith Reynolds: some good old fashioned sleigh bells. That's good.

[00:16:22] Robert Willes: Give it that holiday feel. I keep meaning to buy actual sleigh bells, because it's 

surprising how often it happens, but it's just a sample that I've manipulated to get in time, and it's,

[00:16:37] Jordan Smith Reynolds: You can almost hear Mariah Carey being summoned with that. That's good. Yeah. I imagine you would use those pretty frequently. So, that might be a nice producer tool to have.

[00:16:48] Robert Willes: I'm always trying to work on sync stuff, uh, holiday music licensing is a thing, so.

[00:16:56] Jordan Smith Reynolds: Mm hmm. The first song I ever got licensed was a holiday song. So, that's a good place to be. That's awesome. so for this song, I also really liked what you added vocally because we have some background vocals that I added to the piece and the leads obviously, but you also added some vocals and I particularly like what you do at the end of verse four. So maybe you could talk about some of the vocal choices you made throughout, like in the choruses, and then we can talk about what you did with the vocal section at the very end of four.

[00:17:25] Robert Willes: Yeah, it's just kind of that similar idea. I kind of had that, uh, Carrie and Lowell reference in my mind, um, as I started the production on this. And

The background vocals that I added to the initial I think it's the second chorus at this point, but initially the ones I added. It sounds kind of crazy by itself. I do not have the vocal chops that Jordan does but

[00:17:50] Jordan Smith Reynolds: Oh, whatever. I, and that's actually something else. I, when I was listening to your album in Tampico Lasting Love, like you've got great vocals on there 

[00:17:57] Robert Willes: nice. 

[00:17:58] Jordan Smith Reynolds: And I feel like you kind of, yeah, shy away from it a little bit, but yeah, anyways, I like your vocals. Let's, let's go 

[00:18:04] Robert Willes: to hear. it was mostly just a placeholder, just that same idea of trying to make things distinct, what, what more could we do to lift? the choruses from the verses because they're so similar in the song and the progression, progression is practically the same and the melody is practically the same.

Um, let's jump to the end where you did record some more backing vocals that are super cool. So I guess the idea was with my background vocals in there, they're kind of, they're very intimate and kind of gravelly. Even though I tuck them in because I didn't want them to be super prominent in the mix. Um, but then I think it's a really nice text because it's juxtaposition against your background vocals, which are like very big.

And like, I kept referring to them as the opera background vocals, but,

[00:19:11] Jordan Smith Reynolds: Yeah, because I did, I kind of went classical opera on some of it, and I think it's fun because the way you've kind of brought the opera ones back gives it this really cool energy because you get, yeah, you get some of that energy from that full voiced singing, but because of where it sits in the background, it doesn't just hit you in the face, 

[00:19:30] Robert Willes: Most of how I think about it is just textures. Like, how can we fit this texture in? What does this texture add? especially in a song like this, which kind of is kind of this big wash of sounds and textures. Thinking about it like that. I think that, yeah, came out really cool.

Cool. 

Um, I've, I wanted, I forgot, well, we were talking about the orchestra, the thing that I was so excited about. It sounds pretty crazy to play it by itself, There's some new AI tools, so I sang some parts. 

 I think the team is part of Google, but it's called Magenta. It's a free plug in basically where you sing into it. I had to massage it a lot because it's not quite there yet, you sing into it and it converts it and it takes all the nuance of your performance and changes it into an actual instrument.

So it was really exciting to me to get almost actual sounding orchestral instruments that I don't play. Um, cause then you get a full orchestra. Let's play real quick. There's just a clarinet, I think. Yeah, it just blew me away, that Even if it sounds a little bit, like, weird or janky, to me that's better than a very stock sounding sound, or a very, like, rigid sounding thing.

They've trained an algorithm on I'm sure hundreds and hundreds of hours of a clarinet, specifically if we're talking about this clarinet part, of a clarinet player, and then you, let me see, let me, I studied some of this but I don't remember very much of it, You can sing into it and then it'll convert your voice. It bases the algorithm or something like that on your voice. So the pitches stay the same, but it, it changes the timur and all the texture and complexities to the clarinet that has been trained on. So it retains the nuance of your performance. So it doesn't sound like you've, it doesn't sound like you've played it on a MIDI keyboard. 

[00:21:29] Jordan Smith Reynolds: Yeah, if you're adding phrasing as a vocalist, that, that phrasing is, is kept when you transfer it to clarinet mode.

[00:21:37] Robert Willes: Uh huh that said yeah, yeah, uh huh. Exactly. So the the nuance and pitch variation and all those things that said I did have to like massage it a lot Because when you sing you don't sing things like a clarinet, so you have to yeah There was a fair actually a little bit of testing because I was excited to try and use it on this 

[00:21:59] Jordan Smith Reynolds: Yeah, what did that look like? Having to, change it up a little bit from, from the first result? Mm.

[00:22:05] Robert Willes: like just testing different vowel sounds, like how I performed it, what would get the best result. And then I actually ran, my vocal that I, my performance through autotune just to kind of strap everything down before I ran it through the algorithm. it's called like DDSP or something like that by Magenta.

and then after that. I tightened up the tuning and got rid of some of like the vibrato in my voice and stuff like that because the clarinet typically doesn't have vibrato like that. Um, just cleaning things up and tightening the pitch because it, it picks up a lot of artifacts.

It's like not quite there, but like, I think it'll get a lot better, but it's already in a pretty cool place. And then of course reverb is your friend. I'll play it for you without reverb because it really sounds crazy. the clarinet sounds pretty good. Maybe I chose the wrong one. Let me grab the, those other ones were cleaned up pretty well actually. Let's try the trumpet. That one sounds a little synth y.

[00:23:22] Jordan Smith Reynolds: It's a buzzy. Yeah.

[00:23:24] Robert Willes: kind of funky without reverb. But anyways, They sound okay. And I thought it was kind of 

fun. Better than a VST, so.

[00:23:30] Jordan Smith Reynolds: Yeah. And you don't happen to have any of the original vocals for that, do you?

[00:23:34] Robert Willes: I have them in a different session. Yeah. 

[00:23:36] Jordan Smith Reynolds: a different session? Okay. that's really cool. I think. maybe you could talk for just a second on your views on AI and music production and its role in music production, how you see that changing in the future, 

[00:23:49] Robert Willes: this kind of stuff excites me a lot. I don't feel like super fearful of AI replacing what I do as like a producer or songwriter. But I do think there's some super cool tools that are making things faster and more accessible, which I'm a huge fan of.

I hope everybody has access to, the cello the way I do one day. just think more tools are better. That means more art. That means better art. That means more interesting things. 

[00:24:14] Jordan Smith Reynolds: so you've put in tons and tons of hours as a vocal or as a cello major. in college. So, not to completely derail the episode, but if it was like came to be like either you as a session player getting hired for your hours of expertise versus a really really good AI plug in that could do a pretty decent job like where's? Where the need is for for session players that are extremely skilled at the craft.

[00:24:40] Robert Willes: I think there's always going to be like, room for human interpretation. AI can only regurgitate what's happened. 

It can connect things, but it's only ever trained on what's happened. I think there's something, I don't know, unique and divine about any type of artist, whether it's a session player or what.

But, that said, I do think it does cut into that a little bit. I personally, as a, even though I spent tons of time practicing the cello, I feel like I understand music through the cello, but that's only one aspect of music. I guess what I'm trying to say is like music literacy includes reading and writing.

I think I value people being able to create. More than, I I just want people to have the tools. Like, I don't, I feel the joy of using this trombone and this trumpet and clarinet and flute because I can create something new. And I want other people to have that.

I guess that's, that's the extent of it.

[00:25:33] Jordan Smith Reynolds: Yeah, cool. Thank you for that. I know it's a complicated topic. Cause I mean, there are different functions for, for something like this, right? Like in this case, for this song, I don't think it was really essential for, a clarinet player to come in or a trumpet player to, to really flesh it out.

It would have been awesome. And if we had the budget for it, maybe that would have been 

[00:25:53] Robert Willes: oh, it'd be way better. I mean it's always better, but it yeah, what is this function? You're right. 

[00:25:58] Jordan Smith Reynolds: and there's also a sound you kind of get from having something that has that AI tint to it, you know? I don't know, there's like this super mellow quality about it that I like, that we've accomplished with, with what we've done on this track. 

[00:26:12] Robert Willes: that said like I Mean so much of what you watch on TV is not performed by real real musicians. It's all Libraries or like a software instruments and sample libraries. Um, so, in my view, I don't know if it'll, like, cut in to session musicians work, There's just a better form of the sample libraries that are that much more, I guess, human, even though we're talking about AI.

They capture the performance that I made, so.

[00:26:41] Jordan Smith Reynolds: Yeah, for me it's kind of like, some of the, I guess smaller jobs, session work. Kind of the grunt work, session work stuff that might be taken care of through AI, and more of the more featured, interesting stuff is going to be left for, session players and musicians. I could be wrong about that, but, Yeah, I agree. it's an interesting space that we're getting into, but Having that human element in songs is really valuable. Um, obviously with this song, because so much of it with this one in particular with the string section, how much life that gives the entire track because those were done live.

yeah, I think it's an interesting juxtaposition of, of AI instruments and, and live, live stuff we have going on in this.

[00:27:25] Robert Willes: Yeah, I hope, I hope that's not, doesn't make somebody fearful, cause I just 

want everyone to be able to record and create, 

[00:27:32] Jordan Smith Reynolds: Yeah, that's the thing, right? It's creation. it's about creating it shouldn't discourage you from creating. Anyways, there's our AI existential, uh, moment

[00:27:42] Robert Willes: I just, thought it was cool. I just thought it was cool. I just thought 

[00:27:44] Jordan Smith Reynolds: I would love to get back to this, uh, if you can go to verse four, there's this vocal that you added, and you just like kind of reverbed it out a ton. Leading into that last chorus, uh, I'd love to play that little piece real quick if you

[00:27:58] Robert Willes: Yeah, let's grab that.

[00:27:59] Jordan Smith Reynolds: Yeah,

[00:28:15] Robert Willes: Oh, there's just a lot of delay on those, uh, 

[00:28:16] Jordan Smith Reynolds: That lay, lay,

[00:28:18] Robert Willes: Yeah, it's like, whoa, I put a ton on there. yeah, I, uh, there's a band called, I guess a duo called The Books. I don't know. Have you ever heard them? Listened to them? It's really bizarre. They take old audio books and like produce to it basically.

That's like a lot of what they do. anyways, they'd have like a lot of really, really beautiful textures and stuff. so that vocal is kind of something that kind of a homage or reference to one of their songs. there's just a lot of seconds it rubs. So that's my voice in there. I just sing, sing those background vocals.

[00:28:49] Jordan Smith Reynolds: Just going,

[00:28:51] Robert Willes: Yeah. And it's, it's like, 

uh, yeah, it's the same, it's the same, scale, but one is delayed basically by, I don't know, a beat or two beats or something like that. And so it just rubs really hard against itself. But when you wash it out, then it just creates a texture and an atmosphere.

[00:29:08] Jordan Smith Reynolds: Yeah. I think it's a really nice, prep, which I think you had this before I gave you the extra background vocals too, but I think it does lead into the extra vocal wash that happens right after really well. It prepares your, your ear to hear all those different harmonies. So it's, it's really nice.

[00:29:27] Robert Willes: Okay. I guess it's a little bit from, um, it's kind of my mind in pop. It's like, how can you ramp something up to a drop and stuff like that? So a little bit reminiscent of that, I guess that's

where I'm coming from. 

[00:29:40] Jordan Smith Reynolds: So we're just about out of time for this episode, but is there any other pieces of the production you'd like to cover real quick, or do you feel like that, that covered pretty well?

[00:29:51] Robert Willes: I think that did it. Yeah. It's just, you came in and we kind of already had a really solid structure for everything. You had a really good vision. And I had some textures in my mind that I wanted to add, and it came together.

[00:30:03] Jordan Smith Reynolds: Came together extremely fast. So yeah, it was fun to, it's fun making this with you. And I hope everyone's enjoys the song, and enjoyed getting a little look into all that goes into it. 

It's a ton of work and I so appreciate all that you brought to the, to the song doing that. cause you know, I, I pitched the vocals and I worked on the guitar arrangement and stuff, but, it's a lot of production work that you threw in.

So, uh, I really appreciate that.

[00:30:28] Robert Willes: My pleasure. Yeah, it just kind of kept growing and growing. I had in my mind that we'd do something a little less big, but Can't resist.

[00:30:36] Jordan Smith Reynolds: Just became more and more epic as it went. yeah, thank you so much. And we mentioned your, your project is Tampico Lasting Love. Uh, where can people find you online?

[00:30:45] Robert Willes: right on Spotify. Tampico, Lasting Love. Yep. Or TLL. You can find

[00:30:50] Jordan Smith Reynolds: Tampico

[00:30:51] Robert Willes: Also those same handles on the social media. So hit that up.

[00:30:55] Jordan Smith Reynolds: Tampico Lasting Love. And then as far as production work, do you have like a website or something that people can check out?

, maybe Instagram or something.

[00:31:03] Robert Willes: Yeah. Instagram. I share, uh, under, under my Robert Ballentine Willis. Um, I share a lot of other composition work and production work that I'm doing, um, outside of that.

So. Yeah, thank you.

[00:31:14] Jordan Smith Reynolds: Awesome. Yeah. I'll make sure to have a link in the episode description and everything for that. So go ahead and go there and check out Robert's work. thank you all so much for joining us at the Song Saloon today, and I hope you have a great holiday season. Thanks for being here, Robert.

[00:31:29] Robert Willes: My pleasure. Thank you.

[00:31:30] Jordan Smith Reynolds: Bye bye.