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Wendy Breakell
Wendy is the sister of SSR’s founder John Breakell. She has always had a strong affection for SSR, and remembers well the £300 loan that John negotiated to set up the business in 1980, and the hours of painting studios with no pay from her brother.
She comes from a background in secondary education and has taught at many of the Northwest’s leading 11-18 schools. By 2002, Wendy had risen to the position of Deputy Head and was looking set to take up her first headship. However in December of that year, as SSR was becoming a leading centre in the Northwest for the delivery of degree programmes, and in view of her extensive educational experience, John asked Wendy if she would like to take over the running of the company. Even though it meant a dramatic career change, Wendy was delighted to join the team.
email - wendy.breakell@s-s-r.com
Ian Hu
Ian was a student at SSR in 1986. He got his first job, mixing music for films and television, within 2 days of leaving the course. One year later he set himself up as a freelance engineer.
Since then he has done a wide range of studio, soundtrack, broadcast and live work. Among his early studio recordings were bands such as King of the Slums, The Powers That Be, and N-Trance. Some of his soundtrack material has been released by various record companies, on albums such as ‘The Worlds of Doctor Who’, ‘Between The Lines’, ‘100 Greatest TV Themes’, ‘Battlestar Galactica’, ‘The Cult Files’ and the highly successful ‘No.1 Sci-Fi Album’, which went top ten in several countries.
He has also worked on the theatre shows (and cast album recordings) such as ‘42nd Street’, ‘Copacabana’ and ‘Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat’. His music has been played repeatedly on terrestrial television (from shows as diverse as Newsnight to the Big Breakfast) as well as satellite TV and Radio 1’s Chris Moyles Show. Ian has also collaborated on audio textbooks for the Focal Press Company.
Direct line - 0161 276 2110
email - ian.hu@s-s-r.com
Ian Carmichael
Ian joined SSR after 20 years experience in the music industry. His career started in the nightclubs of Glasgow where he mixed for live acts such as Bronski Beat, John Martyn and BB King. He then built his own recording and video studio in Glasgow, and by the early 90s had recorded with Pet Shop Boys, Texas, Wet Wet Wet, Del Amitri, and The Shamen.
Ian’s own band ‘One Dove’ released 5 singles (two top 40) and a top 30 album; they appeared on Top of the Pops and toured Europe and America, where they reached the Billboard Top 10 dance charts. He then went on to be a successful producer and remixer, and also recorded albums for Manchester band Lamb.
Ian is still occasionally found in the studio remixing, and has remixed 3 single releases in the past year.
www.onedove.net
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One_Dove
Martin Desai
Martin Desai is SSR’s Head of Audio. Martin is an outstanding teacher and one of Manchester’s most respected sound engineers. Martin’s career began with Pleasure Records as a programmer before he moved on to become a freelance engineer working with some of Manchester’s leading bands such as New Order.
In 1998 Martin set up his own studio, Codebreaker. Working from his own studio he soon became involved with production work and had the opportunity to engineer and mix for bands such as Elbow, Doves, Mr Scruff and Badly Drawn Boy.
He has also released his own album under the name of J-walk on East West Records and has remixed artists such as The Sugarbabes, Nitin Sawney, Kings of Convience and Ian Brown.
Today Martin continues to be industry active and is currently signed with BMG Publishing. He is one of our leading Pro Tools instructors and an inspirational tutor.
Jay Beard
Jay is SSR’s Head of Live Sound. Jay joined the school after 10 years on the road as a touring live sound engineer. He has travelled the world many times over, working for top bands such as Doves, Elbow and Snow Patrol.
Using his well established connections and contacts within the industry, Jay is able to stay abreast of the technical advancements taking place and set up many guest lectures and site visits to major venues and festivals. Some recent experiences include watching the sound check of bands such as Elbow, Kate Nash, Slayer and Marilyn Manson followed with an opportunity to sit with the crew during the actual performances.
Jay is also one of the first people in the world to become a Digidesign Certified Venue Operator and Instructor, so SSR students are able to gain additional training on the D-show, Digidesign’s impressive live console.
Jay brings his vast experience of live sound to SSR students enabling them to acquire a real world insight into the workings of this fast changing industry. He has brought some great guest lecturers to the school and helped our students get their first jobs in the industry.
Jay is still very active within the industry, helping up and coming bands, such as Cherry Ghost and Strays, and he has made sure that SSR’s live training is the best in the UK.
Norbert Weiher
Norbert is the programme leader and coordinator of the Film and TV Audio Post Production course. He started out his career as musician and later moved to the other side of the glass becoming a recording engineer.
After setting foot in Manchester, his own production company became focused on post production. Since then Norbert has worked with various international filmmakers exploring all shades of the post production industry. His projects have been screened at numerous film festivals worldwide.
Having a solid background in teaching (Norbert holds a PhD degree in chemistry and has taught at world leading institutes like the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology) he now devotes his time sharing his knowledge with SSR’s students. Norbert is a certified Pro Tools Expert Trainer in post and music production – a title that is currently only held by a handful of people worldwide. He is also an Apple Certified Trainer for Final Cut Pro.
Chris Power
Chris teaches on the Audio Engineering Techniques and Technology course. He was one of the first five people in the UK to become a Digidesign Certified Instructor, and to this day, has taught more people Pro Tools then any other instructor in the world.
He has worked as a recording sound engineer on countless sessions, from the Halle Orchestra to Badly Drawn Boy.
Chris is an excellent tutor and hugely experienced, giving our students a solid and realistic insight into what it takes to make it in such a competitive industry.
Steve Boyce'Buckley
Classically trained on Piano, Steve began his professional studio career in 1978 and became in-house engineer/producer at Square 1 in Bury; working alongside acts such as The Christians, Echo & The Bunnymen and Take That.
Steve worked on Black’s Million selling Wonderful Life Album, for which he received an Ampex Gold Reel Award. Turning freelance in 1992, he continued to work with acts such as Cher, Boy George and Linda Lewis. He is respected as an engineer/producer and as a string/brass arranger and session musician, working in dance music with artists such as Dannii Minouge and WiFi.
Sally Hesketh
Sally has been a freelance sound engineer for the past 5 years, working on pre-recorded, live and outside broadcast programs for TV and radio, with clients such as ITV, The BBC, Sky and XFM. She has worked on shows as diverse as Don’t Forget the Lyrics, Mastermind and Jeremy Kyle.
Sally is a Digidesign Certified Operator in Post Production and Venue as well as being a Digidesign Certified Instructor. She completed her Pro Tools training in Burbank, California, studying Advanced Post Production Techniques for Pro Tools with some of the industry’s most respected engineers and tutors. Sally is highly industry active and regularly works with some of SSR’s creative partners, including 3sixty Media, on live and pre recorded shows in a pre and post production environment.
Sally’s industry activity allows her to bring real world projects to her students, expanding their portfolio beyond text book exercises.
Paul Maunder
After initially starting his career producing radio commercials, Paul went on to design and run a post-production studio, making corporate videos and TV commercials.
He has worked with many TV and radio presenters including Sir Trevor McDonald, Vinnie Jones, Fern Cotton, and has recently worked on the sound for a number of Xbox 360 TV commercials.
Alan Wrench
After graduating from Salford University with a BA Hons (in Pop Music and Recording), Alan went on to design and build his own commercial recording studio. Alan’s musicianship and technical ability earned him the John Lennon award for outstanding creative talent in 1992.
He has since produced singles and albums for many bands and artists and his own releases have seen top-10 success in the Dance Charts both at home and overseas.
Damion O'Brien
Damion is solo electronica artist Designer Thumbs. He has music featured around the world on labels, films, computer games ,tv and adverts.
His music has been released on TQE Productions (US). He has produced music recently for ‘The Scene’ sci-fi series, 'The Nature of Challenge:Parkour', Honda advert (USA) and various computer games. He has worked as a dance music producer and live engineer and played as a live session musician with Helen Farley-Jones & Vinnie Riley.
He is also behind Cassini Divsion a techno artist, Afferent a drum n bass artist and singer/guitar sonwriter of Moetucker an indie rock band.
He currently runs label Lines Of Attack Records which promotes Club music, Electronica and guitar based artists.
He is also the school's Cubase and Reason specialist.
Stuart Avery
As well as his SSR teaching role, Stuart works as a freelance producer and mastering engineer for a wide range of artists and independent labels. His credits range from New Model Army to Angie Brown, ABC to Northern Uproar, plus a number of new exciting acts such as The Deadbeats and Ian Britt. Stuart can often be seen engineering live concerts at venues all over the city. He also owns successful local concert promotion company, SA Promotions.
Andrew Wong
Andrew, AKA Chengy, has been DJing for the past 16 years and has been teaching at SSR’s Technics DJ Academy for the past 7. Chengy specialises in creative DJing and scratching techniques. His style is eclectic and broad, ranging from Hip Hop & Soul to House & Drum’n’Bass.