Rik Simpson

Mentioned by A Head Full of Dreams co-producer Rik Simpson as having been used on Coldplay’s “Hymn for the Weekend” in this Sound on Sound interview.

“Another song that came together in an interesting way was ‘Hymn For The Weekend’. The song had been around in a basic form since the beginning of the sessions, and it was quite hard to get the tone of it right. We ended up recording many different versions, and bars or parts of earlier versions found their way in the final version. The song ended up as a hybrid of styles, with strong hip–hop/R&B elements. If you listen to the drums in the verses in particular, they are very swung and sample–based. The main beat is a combination of live drums and programming. I think Stargate used samples in Structure in Pro Tools.

“Mikkel and Tor have an extensive sample library. The great producers that I have worked with in the past generally have had vast palettes of sounds, but often would come back to a handful of their favourites that they knew would work and also constituted part of their signature sound. Even if it is not exactly the same sound, it often shares an ethos. It’s like, ‘Oh, this is a Brian Eno whomp,’ or ‘This is a Stargate kick drum.’ It inspires the people in the room. The beginning of the song ‘Violet Hill’ on Viva La Vida is a big ambient intro with Davide Rossi on strings and Jon Hopkins on electronics. They had been jamming and I put what they had done through an Eventide H3000 and it became this big ambient thing. When the record came out there was a lot of talk about it being classic Eno, even though he had not been in the room. But somehow the energy got tapped, and we did the sort of thing that he would have done.”

So I run my main mix through the Cranesong HEDD 192 converter, and through some outboard from my rack, and then into a Pro Tools session on the second laptop

On the "Duet Artists" section found on Apogee's website, Rik Simpson can be seen with an Apogee Duet 2 USB Audio Interface. He says, "I’ve recorded the last 2 Coldplay albums through Apogee converters and always have a ONE and a Duet out on the road with me, enough said…" (source)

“As for the gear racks, I have a whole load of 500–series preamps, and quite a bit of Thermionic Culture stuff like the Earlybird, the Culture Vulture and the Phoenix. I love their stuff: it imparts an analogue character that plug–ins have difficulty emulating."

“As for the gear racks, I have a whole load of 500–series preamps, and quite a bit of Thermionic Culture stuff like the Earlybird, the Culture Vulture and the Phoenix. I love their stuff: it imparts an analogue character that plug–ins have difficulty emulating."

Rik Simpson acknowledges having the Echo Fix Tape Echo EF-X2 on his Instagram, praising its ability to modernize vintage tape echo effects.