I’ll admit that I had never heard of Tyler Bryant when I decided to interview him. Shawn Dealey encouraged me: “He’s a guitar player, studio owner, and recording artist. And a nice guy.” After some research, I found that Tyler was not only a great guitar player, but we also had a geographical overlap in our childhoods and followed similar paths getting to Nashville. So, we started off swapping stories, as two Texas boys will do, before launching into talking about “magic bullets” or “aha” moments when he discovered gear that influenced the way he played and recorded music.
How You Got Your Start
So, you grew up in a tiny town in northeast Texas, not too far from my grandparents. And you moved to Nashville in 2008? So, before the gold rush, before Nashville became the it city.
Yeah, it was a lot slower when I got there, luckily. It was already a culture shock for me to be in a city that had restaurants that you could walk to. I grew up in a town of 1,700 people. Honey Grove, Texas.
I’m sure that was a big change. In Nashville, there’s music everywhere. And everybody plays guitar.
Everywhere. And that’s what they say in Nashville: “Be aware that your mailman is probably a better guitar player than you.” Nashville’s a great place to be humble in. And if you’re not, you’ll get humbled pretty good.
I tell young engineers you really have to love it more than anything else because there’s a whole lot easier ways to make a living.
And you got to be willing to sacrifice for it. And yeah, Nashville’s a competitive place.
There’s so much talent.
And the landscape for recording is constantly changing, and sometimes not even in the engineer’s or producer’s favor. Because budgets all around have shrunk so much. I even think about our first record deal, how that would’ve been different now, just in 10 years.
Did the label actually give you a budget?
Yeah, yeah, they did.
So many now are like, “Bring us a record, and we’ll talk.”
I know, but I think that artists have the power now to actually own their music. Artists have more power than they’ve ever had, and I think that’s something certainly worth focusing on. I mean, my band and I, we started our own record label two and a half years ago called Rattle Shake Records and have been kind of growing that grassroots, just like we started growing our fan base on the road. It was, you play a club, you hope for 10 people; next time you go back, you hope for 15, and you do it one person at a time.
You’re selling CDs and T-shirts and building an email list?
Then, the next thing you know, it’s like, okay, who can we partner with? Who can we hire as a publicist? And you start to realize a lot of the people that these labels are hiring you can actually just hire yourself, and then you’re investing on the front end, but you can actually own more of your music on the back end.
Controlling your own destiny.
It comes down to what’s important to you. And that’s not to say that doing a record deal is a bad thing, because Lord knows I’ve been in financial situations before where I had to do it just to get my ideas out there, because it’s expensive to get things going. But now, with the technology, artists can make beautiful-sounding recordings with less. I say that as I’m building a recording studio from the ground up right now.
A commercial studio? Or just your personal-use studio?
Mainly for my family to exist and create in. My wife, Rebecca, is also obsessed with writing and recording music, and she has a band called Larkin Poe with her sister, Megan.
Oh, okay.
And yeah, I’ve worked on their last couple records. The last one, which was largely recorded in our home studio, ended up winning a Grammy! I spent a lot of my hard-earned money on microphones, preamps, and compressors.
Good for you.
Gone as far down the rabbit hole as I can in my basement.
How involved were you in the new Larkin Poe record?
I co-produced and engineered a lot of the Blood Harmony album and co-wrote a lot of it with them. Roger Alan Nichols captured the bulk of the guitars beautifully, and it was an honor to tag team the engineering side of things with someone I admire so much. As far as their new record, Bloom, which just came out this January, I engineered that whole thing and co-produced it, as well.
About Engineering
I have to ask this, because there are thousands of musicians out there just like you: Are you engineering by choice or engineering by necessity? Do you love the engineering, or is it, “Somebody’s got to record this?”
Oh, I’m obsessed with engineering.
For me? I kind of fell into it because I did my publishing deal with Sony. They gave me an advance of money, and they gave me a recording budget for demos. And what I learned pretty quickly was, anytime I took $300 or $600 to do a demo, it got tacked onto the bill that I then owed the company back.
So, you’re just ringing the cash register. The debt’s just going up.
Exactly. So, I went and bought an interface. The first interface I bought was an Apogee, and it had four inputs. Next thing you know, I’m like, well, I have to get an SM7. And I remember I called Richard Dodd.
Oh, yeah? Richard’s a good friend of mine.
I love him. And I said, what’s the best microphone I can get? And he said, the best microphone is the one that works when you need it.
That’s it. The one that’s right there on the stand when you’re ready to go.
So, I bought just a couple of affordable microphones, like the SM7, and my parents had given me some Cascade Fat Heads. And I got a 57. Those were my microphones. And then I had one old Electro-Voice microphone, I can’t remember the name. It’s a bullet mic.
Is that the one in your videos? It’s the EV 630. I have one sitting at my desk.
I had that microphone. I got it somewhere in Texas and brought it with me when I moved to Nashville. I love that microphone. I still use it on records as a junk mic on drums and in an assortment of other places.
It’s very unique.
It is. It sounds great. That microphone’s become one of my favorite things through a Neve 1073, crushed with an 1176 as the junk mic on the drums. It is an amazing sound.
The one on my desk is the one we used on a DC Talk record because Toby (McKeehan) wanted to do his rap vocal sitting in the control room. So, I handed him that mic, we turned the monitors up real loud, and he cut the vocal sitting right there on the couch in the control room.
That’s awesome. That’s a great story. I love that microphone, man. And they’re not expensive. It was one that I had. I just used what I had, and I didn’t even think about buying more. You know what I mean?
I got Pro Tools and started learning because I had realized that anytime I was in a studio working out an idea, and it was being recorded, and then I could hear it back; one, I would be able to evaluate the idea in a different way; and two, I would always be really, really happy and excited.
I’m kind of a professional appreciator. I’ve never really met an amp that I don’t like. I’ve never met a lot of gear that I don’t like. I’m always like, well, it’s either good for this or it’s not good for this, but it’s probably good for something. So, I’ll just put stuff in the corner and be like, maybe it’ll be good down the road, which I think has served me well and helped me get balls rolling creatively because I’m a lot faster to say yes than I am to say no. You know what I mean?
That’s very helpful in creative endeavors.
But that also means that I’ll end up writing 60 songs to end up with 10 songs.
Is that a problem? (Laughs.)
I mean, it just depends on how much time you’ve got. I wanted to know how to do my own demos to save money because I knew that I was racking up a bill with the publishing company.
I would have friends come over, and I started doing demos for them. I thought it was so cool to be able to manipulate sounds with plug-ins, and I was really heavy handed with the sounds I was recording. Then I was making samples of that stuff and kind of just following the breadcrumbs.
When you were starting out, were you using just the plug-ins that came with Pro Tools? Or did you have everything with, oh, 200 different EQ options?
Yeah, that was me. I was buying plug-ins when I could afford to. I wanted anything that would make distortion, anything that would make slapback, anything that would sound like tape.
So, we’re talking Amp Farm?
Yeah, and that Line 6 delay that they used to have was a great one. Roger Alan Nichols turned me on to that.
Yeah, yeah, a lot of that stuff, man. I was just really intrigued by it all. And then there was an artist, Frankie Ballard, that I was writing songs with. He showed up, and he wanted to make some low-down music like I was already doing. We made a couple demos, and he said, “Man, would you be willing to produce some more demos for me?” And that was the first time I’d ever thought, oh, I can produce for other people. And so, his band came over, and that was my first experience really recording other people outside of my own band.
So, the songwriter/artist hat came off, and the producer hat went on.
Yeah. That was about 2014. But as soon as that happened, I think that night I bought an AEA R84, and I was like, I’m going to get a nice ribbon mic. And even just looking at that mic inspired me. I was like, I want to sing something into this. I want to play guitar into this. And then I was amazed at — when I would record drums, even with just the one mic — the sound that I would get. So, then I was like, well, I got to get another mic. If this mic sounds this good, what would happen if I had more great mics? Then I went down a big-time rabbit hole, years of just make a dollar, spend a dollar, make a dollar, spend a dollar, and kind of gathering my tools.
Just the kind of person that Sweetwater likes. (Laughs.)
I know. Sweetwater likes me. I remember the first time I talked to my Sales Engineer, Joe Schafer. And I thought, oh, cool. This guy’s calling me from Sweetwater. I thought he was calling because he liked the band or something. I said, hey man, I’m going to send you some demos. This is what I’m working on. And we became buds. That’s the small-town kid in me who’s just excited to talk about music and gear.
That’s what’s cool about Sweetwater. You can have relationships with people who know about this stuff. And it was also really helpful because I was like, great, I just bought these Distressors and this 1176, but I don’t have any cables to plug them in with. That kind of thing, the stuff that you don’t really think about. So, Sweetwater has been very helpful in getting a lot of that stuff sorted out for me and helping me grow my creative space. And I’ve grown that creative space about as far as I can. I’ve been in the same spot since 2019 and, I think, have made 15 albums in that studio.
Your basement studio? Now you’re building a standalone studio? A bigger space?
Well, here’s the thing. I started acquiring more drum kits. We’ve got three drum kits in our bedroom right now. I’ve got drum kits in our stairwell on shelves. My wife has been very patient and cool as she also benefits from my obsessive nature. They use a lot of the tools I gather on their records. It’s been so cool to lean into what inspires me. I always knew it would be creatively rewarding, but I never imagined that I would find myself sitting in my basement with Rodney Crowell singing into a microphone that I’d purchased or Elvis Costello coming over and recording a vocal.
I’m thinking, well, this is pretty far out. I’m glad I bought that U 67 because you get one shot at capturing some of these things, so may as well capture ’em good.
I’m not saying that the gear does it, but when you hear the sounds back and they sound right, then it makes you want to create more. So, gear in a way has done that for me, where I’ll get something, and then all of a sudden, the chase that has been exciting you for so long, when you’re like, I’m going to learn everything about this microphone, and then I’ll know everything there is to know. Once you do that, then you’re like, well, I guess now I have to buy it. And then you buy it, and then that chase is over. And then what else is there to do?
You’re on the hunt for the next thing.
You’re on the hunt for the next thing, but then you got to make something with the thing you bought. Because if I spend all the time and all the energy, then I look at it and it’s taunting me at that point going, well, now you’ve spent all this time, what are you going to do? So, then I have to sit down and make something with it.
Talking About AEA Ribbon Mics
You mentioned the R84. When Wes [Dooley, founder of AEA] first started making those, he sent me a pair to review, some of the very first ones he ever made, and I bought those. I’ve still got ’em.
Beautiful mics, aren’t they?
Oh, amazing microphones. And like you said, it’s inspiring. I remember the first time I used them on strings, and it was not in a big room — not a big music hall, not like RCA. It was a smaller room. And I put them up as overheads, one over the high strings and one over the low strings. And when I pulled the faders up, I thought, oh, it’s MGM. It sounded like The Sound of Music.
That company makes beautiful-sounding mics. And Wes is an encyclopedia.
I bought an AEA R44CE, and I have an original RCA 44 BX from the ’50s, and I put ’em up next to each other. And the difference is so subtle, and it’s not to say one is even better than the other. It’s just different. But it’s almost unnoticeable in a track. I don’t know that I would be able to pick them out if you were doing a shootout or something. I don’t do that sort of thing very often because I do agree with Richard’s perspective sometimes where it’s like, well, this mic’s already on the stand and plugged in, so let’s go!
But those AEA ribbons sound wonderful to me. I bought the KU5A and have it on guitar cab, and I love their R88A.
I’ve used those.
They’re great. That R88A has been awesome on this Rodney Crowell record I’ve been working on. Rebecca and I have a baby grand piano in our bedroom. I put that R88A on that the other day, and it sounded beautiful right off the bat.
What preamp?
I was running through the API 1608 in my basement.
Game-changing Gear
Was there one piece of gear or one moment that really changed things for you?
Well, as much as I would like to say that it was some cool vintage piece of gear, I think it would have to be the Universal Audio Apollo. I was traveling so much when I got that interface. I got a small one, and I got a little Pelican case for it. I put a MIDI keyboard, a laptop, and a pair of headphones in this case — everything I needed. I slapped a piece of gaff tape on the front and wrote “Tyler’s Idea Farm.” That case went with me in every hotel room. It went in every backstage dressing room. I carried that around for years, and I still take it with me.
Did you have a microphone in the case?
Yeah, just an SM7. I started writing so much more than I had before just having that with me all the time. Because even if we had an eight-hour van ride, I would put my headphones on and program a beat with my MIDI keyboard and my laptop. And then when I’d get to the venue, I would have a beat and a programmed bass line, and then I’d plug in my Apollo and put a guitar riff on it and a vocal. And before you knew it, I had a song that I had written during the travel day.
That was really inspiring. And then I got a Universal Audio Apollo x8p — this is before I had any outboard gear at all — and started recording on that, and I thought that sounded pretty cool, just using their Unison preamps and their plug-ins. And I was going, oh man, this is a game changer for a guy like me.
Were these just scratch-pad demos?
No. We put out a whole record that we made during the pandemic called Pressure that my friend Roger Alan Nichols engineered. He’s a great engineer, and he’s in Richard Dodd’s old place in Berry Hill. Roger’s an amazing engineer and producer, and he’s got a studio filled with anything you could want. I told him, man, you got to hear some of these Universal Audio Unison pres. They’re pretty cool.
Did you take some of the stuff you’d recorded over there?
No. I said, why don’t you come over? Why don’t we make a grungy basement record together? And he was like, all right. I said, well, do you want to bring some of your gear? He goes, no, if you’re digging that, let’s use it. Which, I think, is a testament to how bold of an engineer he is. He came over, we made a record called Pressure, and we didn’t use a single piece of outboard gear. All we used were two Apollos. We had two x8ps. That’s what it was. It was 16 inputs.
We made this record and put it out. And I love the way that album sounds, but it was at that point, not long after that, that I started buying hardware. I was like, oh, I wonder what getting a real 1073 would be like. And I wonder, what if I got an LA-2A? But at that point, I’d been playing with the plug-in so much that I kind of had an idea at least what the gear was supposed to do. And then actually having something to grab and touch was a whole different ride.
How was it going from plug-ins that you knew to hardware?
A lot of times, it was just like, let’s turn the knobs. Let’s see how far we can go. Let’s see how far we can push this thing or what. And yeah, it was just the constant fascination with manipulating sound. The first thing I bought was an 1176, and it sort of grew from there. I’d just buy what I needed next. Someone would say, “Hey, can you record drums and this or that at your place,” and I’d look around and make sure I had enough mic stands to do it. Then I’d say, yup, come on. I’m excited to keep exploring and see how it all grows and changes.
So, your gear collection has just grown one piece at a time. I love the organic way you’ve done it, where you think, “If I had this, I could do that,” and you just sort of built it up slowly.
The Jeff Beck Story: The Difference Between Demos & Masters
As I chatted with Tyler about gear and recording, we wandered into how the music doesn’t know the difference between a demo and a master. And how important it is to record things well as the creative juices are flowing.
When I started out in Nashville, I had an 8-track studio that we built to record “demos,” and we ended up turning out demos that sounded as good as what we were getting in the big studios.
See, it’s interesting to hear you talk about that because then I think maybe I shouldn’t change my approach. And then on the other side, I’m thinking maybe I should just be a little bit more, just 10% more, intentional with everything I do from the jump.
I mean, we talk about that all the time in my band, the Shakedown, when we start going down a rabbit hole. It’s like, yeah, it sounds like a snare drum. But the kid in Youngstown, Ohio, who just wants to hold his beer up and rock out to this song isn’t worried if the snare drum is tuned to the major seventh or whatever.
Sure. The guy listening on the radio in his truck doesn’t care whether or not you had a mic under the snare.
Yeah. There was this song that I wrote and demo’d, I was very fortunate to go out and do some touring with Jeff Beck, and . . .
Seriously? That’s amazing!
Yeah. So, I became friends with Jeff and would send him my demos of stuff that I was working on. And this is when I was working with my 4-channel interface and my limited mic collection. And there was one song in particular that I sent him, and he wrote me back, and he didn’t write me back about every song. He wrote me about this one and said, “I love this. You need to release this as is.”
Basically, don’t change a thing.
Then I went into a studio with my band, and we spent a lot of money recording the song, and we did all the things that you’re supposed to do. And I thought it sounded good, but it was certainly different. I sent it to Jeff, and he wrote back, “Hey, man, this sounds sonically better, but it’s missing that thing.” He was like, “Listen to the magic you had before.” That’s it. A lot of times, I guess the thing that I try to remind myself is it’s not the microphone, it’s not the preamp. It’s the idea. It’s the intention. It’s the spirit. Because the best microphone doesn’t sound like anything unless someone’s doing something interesting in front of it.
What Will Be Your Magic Bullet?
Does Tyler’s path to successful artist and studio owner inspire you as much as it did me? Can you buy one mic at a time or one interface or preamp and slowly build up what you need? It requires time, talent, and sacrifice, but taking one step at a time, following your dreams, you can truly build the studio you need. And we’re here to help you get there. Just like Tyler did, call your Sweetwater Sales Engineer at (800) 222-4700 and let them help guide you to the studio of your dreams.