User:Superaudiomastering/Simon Heyworth

Simon Heyworth

Simon Heyworth established his reputation in recording at The Manor Studios in 1970 at the age of twenty, He worked with Tom Newman to convert the old squash court of The Manor House at Shipton-on-Cherwell in Oxfordshire into the first residential recording studio in England.

In the studio Simon started out life as a Tape Op. This was the traditional educational route for engineers and he thrived taking absolute care and attention over his beloved tape machine. That was his ultimate responsibility so every day was devoted to making sure the heads were clean and that the machine was aligned the recording ran smoothly. His time as a Tape Op taught him all about how to handle analogue tape in every form, from 2inch to 1/2inch & 1/4inch and most importantly how to work with Record Producers and how to 'listen'.

Simon's relationship with The Manor is most notably known for the success in recording/co-producing Mike Oldfield's 'Tubular Bells'. An incredibly difficult record to lay to tape and pushing every technological boundary that existed in the studio at that time. A Seminal record, 'Tubular Bells' became the first calling card of a career that spans decades.

After moving from the tape machine to the console Simon spent time engineering/producing bands covering a wide range of genres including Classical music. He was also part of the Manor Mobile team that recorded Mahler's 2nd Symphony at Ely Cathedral conducted by Leonard Bernstein in 1974.

Simon also mixed in a number of London Studios during the early seventies and whilst Engineering/Producing Gong's 'You' album, Simon began thinking about updating The Manor Studios. In 1975 he was invited by Tom Hidley of Westlake Audio, to Los Angeles to mix the 'You' album in Quadraphonic Sound at Westlake Audio, their showcase studio on Wilshire Boulevard. Simon travelled to LA with Phil Newell, The Manor's chief technical engineer. Whilst working in this space Simon and Phil felt that it would be very leading edge and an ideal replacement for the Manor studio. It took very little time to build and one of the first projects was mixing Mike Oldfield's 'Tubular Bells' in Quadraphonic along with other Mike Oldfield material.

In 1976 Simon decided to have a break for a while as he had spent six years working pretty much 24/7 and living and breathing in that space. So after much thought he decided to move on to pastures new. 2 years were spent living in Wiltshire and London and working on a few album projects. It was at this time that he met Anthony Phillips, brilliant Acoustic Guitarist (Ex Genesis) and Harry Williamson, also excellent Acoustic player, and son of the late author Henry Williamson. Simon was determined to bring together a piece of music they were working on inspired by one of Henry's books 'Tarka the Otter'. This was a quintessentially English piece in 3 Movements for Acoustic Guitars and up to full Orchestra. They recorded some of the pieces including the full orchestral parts but the Music Industry was not interested in funding it so it wasn't for another 10 years until it finally came to be completed courtesy of Amy International, Actors Simon McCorkindale and Susan George's Company. The album 'Tarka' was released via PRT Records and later an updated version was released on BluePrint.

In 1978 Simon met Nick Bradford (ex-Trident) and was asked to help build up the Studio complex and become an In-house Recording Engineer at Matrix Studios in Little Russell Street, London. This was constructed in the basement directly below Pizza Express and became the first £25 per hour recording studio which ran day and night 24/7. After 3 years at Matrix Simon consulted to Ridge Farm helping them to take a leap into purchasing SSL's first In-Line Recording Console. He recorded a few projects at Ridge Farm most notably Peter Green's 'White Sky' album and also 'Dramatis' who worked with Gary Numan as his backing band. At the advent of the 80's Simon felt he was best suited to recording real people in real spaces rather than playing around with early computer generated music tools and so followed a period working for a number of bands in West and East Germany. This was a fascinating time of great imminent change.

In 1982, and having spent a number of years at the helm of a tape machine/mixing console, alongside having a great set of ears and a deep understanding of how the recording/mixing process worked, Simon decided to move into the Film and TV industry as a Music Co-ordinator and Record Producer. He had a great interest in the art of the Motion Picture Soundtrack. He worked with Filmtrax an independent music publishing and sound track company. He produced classical recordings for films such as Merchant Ivory's film, 'A Room With a View', put together a Punk Band for 'Return of the Living Dead' Directed by Dan 'O Bannon and worked with Jerry Goldsmith on the soundtrack the to film 'Legend' and was Associate Producer for 'Goldsmith Conducts Goldsmith' recorded by Mike Ross-Trevor at Walthamstow Town Hall, London.

In 1990 Simon returned to the technical side of the music industry teaming up with Bernie Spratt and Avi Landenburg to expand the Mastering division at Chop Em Out. Due to his extensive experience working with analogue tape, exceptional care, attention to detail and creative nature Simon made the perfect engineer to take the Chop Em Out Mastering division forward. In his time at Chop Simon built up a wide array of credits and relationships with labels and artists Re-Mastering legacy catalogue and Mastering new albums. It was also here that he formed a long musical relationship with Robert Fripp and worked with him on the King Crimson catalogue, a project that continues today.

After Chop 'Em Out was sold to The Sanctuary Group in 1998, Simon was drafted in to build and manage three Mastering rooms with Iestyn Rees which were in the old Nomis building in West London and which was renamed Sanctuary House. He also continued working as a Mastering Engineer and in this time took a keen interest in Surround Sound and High Resolution Audio.

Following on the path of High Resolution Audio and Surround Sound, Simon became part of the SACD pioneering group of Mastering engineers working in DSD in both Stereo and 5.1 Surround Sound. The Mike Oldfield 'Tubular Bells' in Quadraphonic, was one of the first SACD Multi-Channel Hybrid Discs produced. He also Mastered the Audio and did all the dialogue clean-ups for the groundbreaking 'One Giant Leap' Project ( a unique music DVD-Video Composed and Produced by Jamie Catto & Duncan Bridgeman). This was released in 2002.

In 1999 Simon had moved to an old Farmstead in Devon set in in the Dartmoor National Park. His family spent 3 years renovating the granite barns and in 2002 one of the Barns became his own revolutionary Mastering studio, Super Audio Mastering. Many Re-Mastering catalogue projects followed: Simple Minds, Brian Eno, George Harrison's 'The Dark Horse Years 1976-1992' box-set, Charles Aznevour, King Crimson to name but a few.

As part of his quest, championing High Resolution Audio and 5.1 Surround Sound, Simon helped put together various legacy projects. Notably, in 2004, he worked with David Rowntree at Mute Records to facilitate the Depeche Mode (12 CD/DVD) and Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds (10 CD/DVD). In 2005, he negotiated and liaised with Data Theatre Systems (DTS) with the aim of creating 5.1 Surround Sound legacy products, 2 of the Simple Minds Albums were mixed in 5.1 Surround Sound by Ronald Prent.

As well as continuing to work on legacy products for King Crimson/DGM/Panegyric, Mute, Virgin/EMI (and many more) Simon also greatly enhanced his reputation for Mastering new albums working with Imogen Heap (Speak For Yourself, Ellipse, Sparks), Dan Deacon (America), Marillion (Anoraknophobia, Marbles, Somewhere Else, Happiness Is The Road Volume I & II, Less Is More, Sounds That Can't Be Made) and many more. For full listings see the Super Audio Mastering website.

In 2013, having spent so many years in 5.1 Surround Sound, Simon oversaw the Mixing/Mastering of Goldfrapp 'Tales Of Us' (mixed by Will Gregory and Andy Miles at Super Audio Mastering). Moving into the world of 5.1 mixing has been a natural progression for Simon and his colleague Andy Miles, whilst the facility continues to Master new Stereo albums for clients in Sweden, Norway, Germany, Italy the USA and India.