Danton Supple - Producer Engineer

In this episode Kevin Paul talks to Record Producer and Mixer, Danton Supple who gives a fascinating insight into learning his trade at Sarm and Westside Studios during the 1980s and how he approaches the different roles of Recording Engineer, Producer and Mix Engineer.

Chapters
00:00 - Introduction
01:04 - Getting Started In The Business
07:47 - Technical Training
09:17 - Working in Different Countries
10:49 - The Move To Westside Studios
13:25 - The Art Of Engineering
19:06 - Working Alongside A Producer
23:10 - The Role Of A Producer
24:50 - Pre-Production Meetings And Rehearsals
33:20 - Visualising The Whole Project
34:59 - Working With Coldplay
37:07 - Preparing For The Mix
40:10 - The Process Of Mixing
43:13 - Preferred Monitors
44:16 - Getting A Mix To Work
45:28 - What's On The Mixbus
49:30 - How Long To Spend On A Mix
58:28 - Favourite Plug-ins
01:01:12 - Structuring A Recording Session
01:02:36 - Breaking Up Mixing Sessions

Danton Supple Biog
Danton is a London based Record Producer and Mixer with almost 40 years experience in studios and studio production with a diverse and successful range of artists as engineer, mixer and producer including work on 3 Grammy Winning and 5 Grammy Nominated projects.

Having trained as a recording engineer at the legendary Sarm Studios under producers Trevor Horn, Steve Lipson and Julian Mendelsohn he moved to Westside Studios to work with Clive Langer and Alan Winstanley. Going freelance in 1994 he worked with producers Phil Spector, Steve Lillywhite, Gil Norton, Mike Hedges, Steve Osborne, Flood, Ken Nelson, Paul Oakenfold, Brian Eno, Hugh Jones, Chris Hughes, Mark Saunders and Ian Stanley.

He moved into production and mixing soon after with projects including Amy MacDonald, Soulsavers, Coldplay, Ian Brown, Morrissey, Oceansize, Starsailor, Lucie Silvas, The Devlins, Kylie Minogue, Patti Smith, Electric Soft Parade and The Doves. Recent projects include Alabama 3, Skinny Living, The Horn, Autoheart, Canadian band Around Joshua, Glowie, Deco, Oh Baby and Waiting For Smith.

Danton is now based at RAK Studios (https://rakstudios.co.uk), St Johns Wood, London
@dantonsupple
https://www.dantonsupple.com/

Kevin Paul Biog
Kevin Paul started his career as a DJ but quickly found his passion was sound engineering. His first audio job was at Soho Studios in 1991, moving to Konk Studios six months later, where he worked alongside successful producers and engineers such as Bob Clearmountain, Adam Mosley, Pascal Gabriel and Gil Norton, as well as bands such as The Kinks, Galliano, Terrorvision, UFO and Elastica.
 
 After working on archiving the Depeche Mode back catalogue in 1994, he was offered an engineering role at Mute Records’ in-house studio, which eventually lead to a position as Head Engineer, which gave him access to the entire Mute Records roster. Highlights include mixing Goldfrapp’s “Felt Mountain”, David Bowie’s “Hours” and Nick Cave’s “No More Shall We Part”. He also worked in 5:1, mixing Moby’s “Hotel”, Goldfrapp’s “Black Cherry“ and more for DVD.

In 2004 Kevin went freelance and re-mixed the entire Depeche Mode and Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds back catalogues for SACD/DVD. Since 2008, Kevin Paul has been in charge of mixing and remixing performances at the iTunes Festivals in the UK and Germany. He has mixed over 100 artists to date, including Adele, Ed Sheeran, Alicia Keys, Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds, The XX, Calvin Harris, Foo Fighters, Jack White, Linkin Park, Florence & The Machine, Deadmau5, David Guetta, Jessie J., Norah Jones, Oasis, Mumford & Sons, N.E.R.D., Lykke Li, James Blunt, KT Tunstall, Hot Chip, Paul Weller and many more.

He continues to record, engineer, produce and mix many projects in music and film, runs the mixing and surround mixing modules for the Masters Degree course at UK’s Westminster University and divides his time between London and Berlin. Recent works include the International selling new album by Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds and mixing the latest album of Denmark’s “Dúné” with the first single premiering at the Danish Music Awards, plus the latest iTunes Music Festival.

http://www.kevin-paul.com/

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