David Watts
David has achieved #2 as a mix engineer on the UK album chart, as well as UK Top 40 singles success as a producer and has recorded a number top 5 UK albums for the likes of Richard Hawley, the Kaiser Chiefs , Paul Heaton.
2021 brought David more success with The Reytons (produce/mix) and Jane McDonald (mix) both landing in the UK Top 20 album charts.
Several tracks David has produced/mixed have achieved national radio playlisting on stations such as BBC Radio 1 & 2, Radio X and Absolute Radio.
Some other artists David has produced/engineered include: allusinlove, Skinny Living, RedFaces, The Fall, Paul Woolford, Little Hours, Mike Vennart (Biffy Clyro/Oceansize), NGOD.
David has extensive experience working in recording studios across the country and has worked in varying capacities on projects involving several high-profile artists such as Bryan Adams, Gary Barlow, Bring Me The Horizon, Fightstar & Fatherson.
Simon Humphrey
Starting in 1973 at London’s prestigious CBS Whitfield St. studios, Simon gained a grounding in recording techniques at the highest level in all styles of music, working with classical artists John Williams, Daniel Barenboim & the English Chamber Orchestra, jazz singer George Melly, show singers Michael Crawford and Bruce Forsyth as well as recording spoken word albums with Peter Ustinov, Vincent Price and poet laureate Ted Hughes. Simon worked on West End show albums, film scores, TV jingles and ‘musique concrete’ albums, as well as recordings by guitar legends Duanne Eddy and Bill Haley, comedians Tommy Cooper and Ken Dodd and many other international recording artists. Pop music recording was to be Simon’s main work however, working with many of the seventies well known names. Abba, the Glitter Band, David Essex (including an appearance in the film ‘Stardust’), Marc Bolan, Argent, Hot Chocolate, Tina Charles, Pan’s People (!), Sailor and Smokie among many others.
In 1977 punk arrived at CBS in the shape of the Clash, and Simon was chosen to capture the band’s seminal early recordings, now acknowledged as one of punk’s great albums, and for which the band presented Simon with his first gold album in recognition. Simon also recorded the Vibrators first album, gaining his first production credit ('London Girls ‘live’ at the Marquee'), also the Only Ones’ 'Another Girl, Another Planet', a young and unsigned XTC, Manchester’s the Drones and many other New Wave hopefuls. In later years, Simon would also work with Talking Heads’ David Byrne and Television’s Tom Verlaine.
Simon left CBS in 1979 to pursue a freelance career in production and songwriting, releasing his own albums of disco and pop songs, having chart success with bands Secret Affair, the Jags and the Techno Twins, and setting up his own recording studio (‘Hot Nights’) in west London. During the eighties Simon mixed Culture Club’s massive second album, including UK & US number one ‘Karma Chameleon’, recorded Bros’ multi hit debut (‘When will I be famous?') played bass on a Beach Boys album, engineered for film score ubermaestro Hans Zimmer, made the ‘Birdie Song’, and has engineered and produced in most of the UK's famous pro recording studios. Simon has had a unique and varied career in music recording as an engineer, producer, musician, programmer but has now retired from audio engineering.
Tim Atack
Tim Atack’s feature credits include Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant’s film Cemetery Junction for Sony Pictures and Ricky’s 2009 The Invention of Lying for Warners. Re-Uniting The Rubins, a Brit rom com for Balagan Productions and Dead Cert, a thriller for Raw Films/Black & Blue Films. He also scored the Channel 4 documentary Graffiti Wars: Directed by Jane Preston and produced by Twofour Broadcast and a number of projects to coincide with the 2012 Olympics including 'The Race that shocked the world' and 'Victoria Pendleton (Cycling's golden girl)'.
The song Kissing You, which Tim co-wrote and produced with Des’ree, played an important musical thematic role throughout Baz Luhrmann’s 1996 movie Romeo & Juliet (20th Century Fox). In addition to being a featured song, an instrumental version was also used throughout the movie most notably in the Balcony scene. The film premiered at no. 1 at the US box office and was a huge international hit. The soundtrack album has sold in excess of 5 million copies worldwide and was number 1 in many countries.
In the early 90’s he toured and recorded with Oleta Adams and Des’ree, becoming the latter’s Musical Director. He did three world tours with her in two years, promoting the I Ain’t Movin album, which sold 1.7 million copies worldwide. It was while they were performing in Australia that they co-wrote Kissing You which Baz Luhrmann heard and requested for Romeo & Juliet.
In 1998 Tim co-wrote, recorded and produced a number of tracks for Des’ree’s album Supernatural, sales of which now exceed 2m copies. In the second half of 1998 he worked with Des’ree as keyboard player and Musical Director promoting this album on her world tour. He has also played on live dates with Michael Kamen and Bryan Ferry.
Mark Scully
Graduating with a 2:1 in Music Technology & Popular Music BA (Hons) from The University of Huddersfield, Mark also had a successful work placement at The Chairworks during his course. After graduating, Mark returned to The Chairworks team, assisting on high profile sessions with artists such as Kaiser Chiefs and Paul Heaton. Mark also engineers in The Chairworks Studio B, where he has produced music with Alistair Griffin used on BBC’s coverage of The Masters, engineered voiceover sessions for Big Ant Studios, Walkers, and Sky Sports.