Andy Walter

Andy is a degree educated engineer who joined Abbey Road Studios back in 1991, having studied 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 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 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 Brookes on the London cast CD soundtrack of The Young Frankenstein and with the composer on the 2018 filmscore release of Yardie and soon to be released film The Bees, where the audio for the first time has been mastered ‘pre film edit’. He has also recently completed 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, a band he loves.

Andy is also an expert in forensic restoration work and has worked with the British police as well as business clients as a respected engineer in cleaning up audio for court cases 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.

When not at Abbey Road, he runs a comedy club and sails a rare Nicholson yacht on the Norfolk Broads.

Highlights:

The Elgar Edition (Gramophone winner)

Noel Coward - The HMV Collection (Grammy Nominated)

Rostropovich - The Russian Years Edition (Grammy winner)

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

Maria Callas - The Complete Opera Recordings

U2 - U2 Go Home: Live From Slane Castle

The Beatles - Anthology Edition

Roger Waters - The Wall DVD (Live in Berlin)

The Cure - The Cure: Trilogy (Live In The Tempodrom Berlin November 2002)

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

Yardie – Original score

Mel Brookes - The Young Frankenstein (London Show)

Rush - Hemispheres 40th edition