MILES WILL BE LIVE IN THE LOUNGE 16:30 ON SATURDAY

Brought up on a varied musical diet, thanks to a record shop owning family, Miles began his career at Utopia Studios in 1984, where he learned the fine arts of disc cutting and tape copying, as mastering used to be termed.

After a spell at Copymasters/Masterpiece he moved to Metropolis Mastering where he became well-known for his attention to detail and his determination to improve the vinyl format. Miles brought all that experience with him when he joined Abbey Road Studios in 2013.

Using a mix of both vintage analogue and digital technologies, Miles is skilled in mastering all genres including dance, ethnic, folk, pure pop, guitar-based indie or crossover classical. He’s worked his magic on many of the world’s best-known artists, including Underworld, The Beatles, Disclosure, Iggy Azalea, Queen, Gareth Malone, Dido, ZHU, Eric Clapton, Faithless, The Staves, CeeLo Green, The Who, Lana Del Rey, The Rolling Stones, Gallant and The Sugababes.

Miles is an expert in half-speed mastering which he refers to as the holy grail of vinyl cutting by cutting at half speed you give the cutting stylus as well as the whole system twice as long to record the mechanical groove, which hugely improves the quality.

He’s also in demand for his live direct-to-disc work. In 2014, he demonstrated this technique in front of an audience with Gorgon City and Underworld performing live in Studio One as their music was simultaneously cut onto a 12″ 45 all live.

With his attitude in all things of good enough is not good enough; Miles has continued to push not only mastering, but the vinyl format further when he acquired his very own Neumann VMS 80 lathe, which is partnered with Vertere Acoustics signal and mains power cables for the cutter-head of the lathe. Typical of him he had it extensively restored, customised and rewired with the finest cable before he would use it. He describes it as the greatest sounding vinyl disc cutting system of his career – and he has used some very good ones in the past.