Early Recordings

How can the sound of old records be revived? The remastering specialist Andrew Walter on the restoration of historical recordings.

Andrew Walter is a remastering engineer with multiple Gramophone awards and two Grammy nominations to his name. He joined Abbey Road Studios as an editor and mastering engineer in 1991. A classical sound engineer by training, he studied at Spirit Studios in Manchester with various Factory Records bands in the late 1980s and now works in both pop and classical surround mastering. Over the course of his career, he has remastered thousands of back catalogue recordings for major labels, including EMI’s Grammy-nominated “Great Recordings of the Century” series. He takes part in the development of digital-restoration tools such as CEDAR, and has restored recordings from as early as 1898. As a surround sound-mastering engineer he has worked for some of the biggest artists in the world including David Bowie, Coldplay, Kylie Minogue, U2, The Cure, Radiohead, and The Who.