Sweet Spot: Mighty Toad Studios With Craig Dreyer
PARK SLOPE, BROOKLYN: SonicScoop recently connected with salt-of-the-earth producer/engineer Craig Dreyer who’s been working on a new record with singer/songwriter Brenda Kahn at his Mighty Toad Studios in Brooklyn. Excited by the prospect of a new record from Kahn, who’s been on hiatus since her ’99 record Hunger, we managed to score ourselves an invite over to the studio to meet Dreyer, a native New Yorker, and hear some of the new tunes (on 2″).
Mighty Toad has the space, isolation and all the fixings for making an awesome live band record: stellar collection of amplifiers? Check. Essential microphones? Check. Ludwig kit, Hammond B3 + Leslie, Rhodes and jangly upright? Check. Oh, and then how about running everything through a Trident 24 console to Studer tape machines or Pro Tools HD? That’s right — this is Mighty Toad!
A professional musician, Dreyer plays tenor saxophone and B3, and has performed/recorded with James Hunter, Dispatch, Pete Francis, Keith Richards, Joan Osborne and many others. He’s a true musician’s producer/engineer and Mighty Toad is a musician’s studio.
View from the vocal booth in Mighty Toad, Dreyer on the left
“I’m pretty home-grown,” Dreyer says. “I didn’t go to music school; my friends and I learned how to play in bars. We were like street kids who figured out how to play, how to read and write horn charts, etc. without any teachers or very few. And, as far as recording, we just figured that out as we went. I think we always tried to do things the way we first heard and loved them.”
He points to the studio’s collection of amplifiers. “You see that Marshall amp and think it’s just a JCM-800, but my partner in the studio modded it to do what you’d want a Rat or a Tube Screamer for,” he notes. “So, when we get guys in here playing loud rock or even metal, that Marshall dials in that sound exactly for them, without rattling your teeth and without using a pedal. My personal vibe is to get the sound from the source, not through a pedal. It’s old school, but those are the sounds we loved in records back in the day.”
Illustrating the point, Dreyer notes that in the days prior to our visit, blues guitarist/singer Bill Sims Jr. had been recording at Mighty Toad. “What’s cool about an amp distorting is that when Bill Sims digs in and plays hard, it starts to crunch and when he plays soft, it doesn’t crunch. A Tube Screamer doesn’t quite do that.”
Dreyer works with a lot of one-take musicians, and tends to get gigs with artists who appreciate the old-school production approach. “I just did a record for Joe Flood, and we did everything live — vocals and all — keeping the vocal bleed,” he shares. “It’s funny that in ’09 we’re making records like that. I’ll write out all the charts and bring in my guys who can do everything in one take, and it’s really fast and efficient. I really like when I’m able to trust the musicians, trust their instincts; I think you really feel it when it’s done live and in the end — for me — feel trumps sound.”
Putting a band together for Kahn’s new record, Dreyer called on some of these instinctual players, including Adrian Harpham (Chromeo, Amel Larrieux) on drums, Jack Petrucelli (Fab Faux) on guitar and Jared Samuel on keys (James Hunter). He handled the B3 himself.
In this video interview, Dreyer gives us a taste of the new Brenda Kahn record and talks about why he likes making records like it’s 1978. Press Play!