Chris Lord-Alge is an American mix engineer. He is the brother of both Tom Lord-Alge and Jeff Lord-Alge, both of whom are also audio engineers. Chris and Tom are known for their abundant use of dynamic range compression for molding mixes that play well on small loudspeaker and FM broadcasting. Lord-Alge frequently collaborates with Howard Benson, who has produced the plurality of his mix discography.
Career Lord-Alge began his professional studio career as an assistant engineer at H&L Studios in New Jersey, before working as a staff engineer at Unique Recording Studios in New York City in the 1980s. While there, he earned recognition for mixing James Brown's Gravity album (which included the hit song "Living in America"), the Rocky IV soundtrack, Prince's Batman soundtrack, Joe Cocker's Unchain My Heart album, Chaka Khan's Destiny album, Carly Simon's Coming Around Again album, Tina Turner's Foreign Affair album and 12" remixes of Madonna's "La Isla Bonita", the Rolling Stones' "Too Much Blood", and Bruce Springsteen's "Dancing in the Dark", "Cover Me", and "Born in the U.S.A.". Lord-Alge moved to Los Angeles in 1988, by which point he was increasingly specializing in mixing. In 1989–1990, brothers Chris and Jeff Lord-Alge collaborated on the Oingo Boingo album Dark at the End of the Tunnel, with Jeff Lord-Alge and Bill Jackson recording and Chris Lord-Alge mixing.
Lord-Alge continued to mix for Turner throughout the 90's. During this time he also provided mixing services for Neil Diamond's Tennessee Moon. In 1997, he mixed Green Day's Nimrod, marking the beginning of a continued relationship with the band, mixing the Grammy-winning albums American Idiot (2004) and 21st Century Breakdown (2009).
In the 2000s, Lord-Alge worked with many pop-punk bands, mixing for Billy Talent, Simple Plan, and My Chemical Romance. In the 2010s, Lord-Alge mixed on Celine Dion's Loved Me Back to Life, her first album after a seven-year hiatus, as well as Muse's The 2nd Law, a foray into more electronic textures.
Partnership with Waves Audio In early 2010, Waves Audio released the "CLA Artist Signature Collection", a collection of six application-specific audio plug-ins for vocals, drums, bass, guitar and the last two of them called "unplugged" (designed for acoustic elements) and "effects" (a collection of six different effects). Waves had previously released a bundle of CLA-branded compressors, featuring the CLA-76 (UREI 1176LN), CLA-2A (Teletronix LA-2A) and CLA-3A (UREI LA-3A). These are among Lord-Alge's favorite dynamics units.
List of Grammy Awards +YearWorkRoleAward2010American Idiot: The Original Broadway Cast Recordingmixing/engineeringBest Musical Theater Album200921st Century Breakdownmixing engineerBest Rock Album2005"Boulevard of Broken Dreams"mixing engineerRecord of the Year2004All Things Newmixing engineer (tracks 1, 2, 5, 9, 10, 12)Best Pop/Contemporary Gospel Album2004American Idiotmixing engineerBest Rock Album
References
External links Chris Lord-Alge - Official Website (chrislordalge.com) Video interview Artist Direct entry "An Evening With Chris Lord-Alge", EQ Magazine, Sep 2006 Chris Lord-Alge Feature, RecordProduction.com Chris Lord-Alge's Waves Plugin Collection