Danton Supple is a London‑based producer, engineer and mixer who began his career in the mid‑1980s at the legendary SARM Studios in London under the tutelage of producers Trevor Horn, Steve Lipson and Julian Mendelsohn. Always wanting to expand his horizons, he later moved into production and mixing work. With a career that now spans 40 years, Supple has worked with artists across a wide range of genres, including Coldplay, Pet Shop Boys, Morrissey, Suede, U2, Spandau Ballet, Elbow and Kylie Minogue, to name but a few. Asked to pick out a favourite sound from the many he’s created, Supple nominates the percussion on ‘Low’ from Coldplay’s 2005 album X & Y.
Danton Supple: There’s this great moment between the glasses, the fire extinguisher and a chair.
Recording The Hits
“I was looking to add some kind of percussive element to an instrumental section of this song, which comes in at the 2:03 mark, to change the mood and drive it along. I brought the band into Townhouse Studios where we recorded this, and gave each person two drumsticks and stood them next to various objects such as a piano, a chair, a metal plate, a fire extinguisher and some glasses — whatever was in reach. Then I just ran the click track and they all played along to it. No planning, just seeing what rhythms would appear between them.
“As we listened through the three minutes, there were a couple of bars here and there where it suddenly came into a great pattern between everybody and there’s this great moment between the glasses, the fire extinguisher and a chair. Everyone’s individual patterns aligned, both rhythmically and tonally.
“I used whatever mics were up in the room from previous drum and piano takes, so there was a nice mix of close and ambient sounds. Also, there were different compressors kicking in fairly randomly to add to the dynamics, too. For a percussion track, it was a somewhat exhaustive collection of mics, with a whole range of dynamics and condensers: Neumann 47s and 87s, Coles mics and Shure SM57s. The ‘smash mic’ — so called because it smashes the sound with a heavy pumping 1176 compressor doing lots of the work — was a Sennheiser 441, and with that on the kit, it was also creating its own rhythm with the fire extinguisher, making it pump away, but that and a wine glass really brought the tonal side in. The final result was this very colourful percussion interlude.”