Andy is a degree educated engineer, musician and composer who joined Abbey Road Studios back in 1991 and has just celebrated 30 wonderful years (so far!) at the studio. He studied engineering at Spirit Studios in Manchester for many years recording various Factory Records bands in the late '80s.

In his pre-studio life, Andy was a classically trained musician and composer, but also the bass player in the feted 1990’s pop glam rock band The Trash Can Junkies who featured heavily (and humorously) in the critically acclaimed book Hell Bent for Leather by Seb Hunter, that was turned into a short comedy film starring Tim McInnery and cast.

Andy is one of the world's foremost mastering and restoration engineers, with four Gramophone awards and two Grammy nominations to his name as well as numerous other accolades and awards. A pioneer of digital restoration processes and using state-of-the-art technology like CEDAR (much of which he helped in the process of early development), Andrew has applied his skills and knowledge to working on recordings as early as 1897 on 78 records to vinyl, tape, CD, DVD, SACD, Bluray and filmscores through to modern 7.1 surround sound audio restorations for classical, jazz, spoken word and all genres of pop music.

As a surround mastering engineer he has also worked on CD and DVD projects for some of the biggest names in the pop and rock world including numerous projects for David Bowie, Jimmy Page, Coldplay, Kylie Minogue, U2, The Cure, Robbie Williams, Radiohead, The Bee Gees, The Who, Simple Minds and The Beatles. Andy transferred the first (and thought ‘lost’) studio demo acetate recording of The Beatles’ Love Me Do, which was owned by Sir George Martin and was restored and released for the first time ever on The Beatles Anthology box set.

Andy has proved himself a popular Online Mastering engineer at the studios working with engineers, artists and producers on the Abbey Road Online portal on recordings from around the world from South America, America, Russia and China. He also QC produces numerous recordings for Decca Records and has produced and mastered a wealth of catalogue artists for many labels around the world, including Capitol Records (Nat King Cole, Frank Sinatra & Crosby & Nash to name a few)

Andy is also in great demand as a mastering engineer for the film and stage industries, mastering numerous soundtrack albums for Hollywood blockbusters including Harry Potter, Everest, Cinderella, Shadow Recruit and V For Vendetta and the BAFTA winning film Atonement, which received the Academy Award for Best Original Music Score.

Andy has also worked for many award-winning ‘hit’ musicals including The Lord Of The Rings, Dirty Dancing and Phantom Two: Love Never Dies for Sir Andrew Lloyd Webber (also remastering Lloyd Webber's classic Jesus Christ Superstar and numerous other projects). In the classical world he has worked exclusively on a series of recordings with the world famous cellist Mtislav Rostropovich and on a musical audio history of EMI Classics, the complete recordings of Maria Callas and The Centenary Box, for which he was Grammy-nominated.

He has recently worked with Snow Patrol and Kasabian on film projects, with the director Mel Brooks on the London cast CD soundtrack of The Young Frankenstein and with the composer on the 2018 filmscore release of Yardie and film The Bees, where the audio for the first time has been mastered ‘pre film edit’. He was delighted to complete a 5.1 mix of the classic album Hemispheres by Rush in its 40th anniversary edition, as well as mastering all the surround streams for SACDs of every Rush album ever recorded, as this is a band he loves.

Andy is a world expert in audio restoration and also forensic restoration work and has worked with the British police, the UK government as well as business clients as a respected engineer in cleaning up audio for legal and private investigations. He regularly gives expert lectures to industry groups around the world namely in the USA, Hong Kong, Berlin and the UK, talking about audio restoration, the mastering process and the state of the art restoration technologies involved, for which Abbey Road is a pioneering alumni. He has also appeared on the media on BBC Radio 4, BBC Radio 3 and local BBC Radio stations talking about restoration and mastering work. He has recently undertaken several unique wildlife projects, notably restoring sound clips of ‘tropical fish talking’ and ‘trees drinking water’ which has proved a fascinating and world-breaking audio first.

Occasionally he works as an independent producer for Abbey Road, working with our recording teams at the studios and elsewhere on a rich diversity of projects like a university choir Christmas concert, a pop symphonic piano album in Studio 2 and the world premiere recording of Palintropos by the internationally famous eclectic composer and friend of John Lennon & Ringo Starr, Sir John Taverner.

When not at Abbey Road, he owns and runs a small sheep farm and exclusive woodland camping site in Norfolk and sails a rare Nicholson yacht on the Norfolk Broads.


Highlights:

The Elgar Edition (Gramophone winner)

Noel Coward - The HMV Collection (Grammy-nominated CD box set)

Rostropovich - The Russian Years Edition (Grammy-winning CD Box Set)

EMI Classics - Centenary Edition 1897- 1997: 100 Years of Great Music (Grammy-nominated CD Box set)

Maria Callas - The Complete Opera Recordings (97 CD set)

U2 - U2 Go Home: Live From Slane Castle (DVD), Zoo TV Live from Sydney (DVD)

The Beatles - Anthology Edition (CD)

Roger Waters - The Wall Live in Berlin (DVD)

The Cure - The Cure: Trilogy DVD (Live In The Tempodrom Berlin November 2002), 40 Live - DVD Set (Curaetion 25 and Anniversary)

Sir Andrew Lloyd Webber - Phantom of the Opera – Love Never Dies (London show CD), Stephen Ward (London show CD)

John Williams - Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets and Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (CD)

Patrick Doyle - Harry Potter & The Goblet of Fire, Brave, Eragon (CD)

Dario Marianelli – Atonement (Academy Award winner), Pride & Prejudice, V for Vendetta, Everest.

Mel Brooks - The Young Frankenstein (London Show) CD

Rush - Hemispheres 40th Edition (SACD/DVD/CD)