Terl Bryant has worked on more than 1,000 recording sessions and clocked up thousands of international touring miles over four decades as a drummer. His list of credits is long and includes Peter Gabriel, John Paul Jones of Led Zeppelin and Faith Hill. ‘In the early 2000s I invested in some gear to start writing and recording,’ he says of his move into production. ‘It brought a whole new perspective and transformed my relationship with music.’
Bryant’s studio is in an oak beamed annex to his UK home. Here he has worked on ‘literally hundreds’ of remote sessions for artists and producers, including Cameron Craig, Arthur Brown, Jim Kerr and Elizabeth McGovern. ‘I mostly track using Ableton Live 11 with 16 active preamp channels made up of an Audient ASP880 connected via Adat to a Presonus Quantum and MAC M1. I use a mixture of dynamic, small and large-diaphragm condensers and ribbons around the kit.
The recent addition of the ASP880 eight channel mic preamp comes with the approval of some heavyweight contemporaries. ‘When I was exploring options for my set-up, I got into studying the spec of everything out there,’ he explains. ‘Producer friends Steve Levine [Culture Club], Cameron Craig [Adele] and Nik Fairclough [Northwind, Durban SA] were all super helpful with pointers. Each gave the thumbs-up with my decision to go for the Audient ASP880.’
It’s proved to be an excellent addition to the set-up,’ he reports. ‘Quite a game-changer to be honest. Not just as it offers the ability to switch phase and adjust filtering on each channel, but the Burr-Brown converters have added a remarkable improvement to the audio. I run two kick channels, two snare channels, overheads and room audio through it, with a Presonus Quantum for toms and hats.
‘Drum-wise, I use three main kits for recording; a beautiful custom birch Jalapeno kit [which I toured with John Paul Jones with], a 1979 Sonor rosewood kit and a lovely mid-1970s vintage Ludwig kit, plus an arsenal of snares, including Ludwigs, Yamaha, Sonor, Jalapenos and VK custom drums.’
Having left school at 16 to follow his dream of being a drummer and travel the world, there wasn’t anybody in Bryant’s orbit who thought it realistic or long-term. Over the past 40-or-so years, however, he has proved them wrong. ‘Here I am still playing drums, writing music, travelling, performing and collaborating with all sorts of wonderful artists, some of whom have been very successful in their own right,’ he says.
Bryant presently divides his time between work as a session and live player, collaborating and writing, and also running a non-profit operation supporting creative initiatives. ‘Over the past couple of years I have recorded so much stuff that I am pleased with,’ he says. ‘Les Belles Habitudes by the Stefano Ianne project – a trio that I am a part of – ‘New Buryin’ Ground ‘by The Grace Machine, and I also got to do a fabulous version of ‘House of the Rising Sun’ with Paul Mitchell and John Etchells featuring Arthur Brown for the Help Musician charity. I am currently collaborating with Ben Reed [Frank Ocean] on some new material that will be out later this year, all of which I’ve tracked here at my studio. And in March and April I’m out touring the UK with the lovely Barbara Dickson.’
Asked what advice he’d give himself when he was starting out, he says, ‘I might suggest to anyone following that inner call to the arts to keep a copy of The War of Art by Steve Pressfield nearby. Producing something of worth in the arts is not easy, but it’s not a competition. Authentic creativity is not about “likes” it’s about “love”, so stay kind, be generous, invest at a heart level, listen deeply and don’t be a doormat for the angry voices out there.’
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