Tom Lord-Alge

src: i.ytimg.com

Tom Lord-Alge (born 1963) is an American music engineer and mixer. Having began his career at The Hit Factory in NY. Subsequently, TLA was the resident mixer at what used to be known as: "South Beach Studios" located on the ground floor of the Marlin Hotel. Lord-Alge mixed the latest Live album in Pennsylvania yet still claimed that his analogue mixer board produced the best sound.

Lord-Alge received two Grammy Awards for his work on Steve Winwood's Back in the High Life (1986), and Roll With It (1988)--both winning in the Best Engineered Recording - Non-Classical category. Lord-Alge's third Grammy was for Santana's "Supernatural" (1999), which won Album of the Year. Lord-Alge has mixed records for U2, Simple Minds, The Rolling Stones, P!nk, Peter Gabriel, OMD, Sarah McLachlan, Dave Matthews Band, Blink 182, Avril Lavigne, Sum 41, Oasis, Manic Street Preachers , Story of the Year and Marilyn Manson, among others.

Video Tom Lord-Alge

Career

Tom's first major project was engineering Steve Winwood's Grammy winning album Back in the High Life (1986), and he went on to engineer Winwood's Grammy follow up Roll With It in addition to co-producing its number one hit song "Higher Love". He then left Unique Recording to work as a freelance engineer and mixer.

Tom's turning point as a mixing engineer was in 1993 after mixing Crash Test Dummies' God Shuffled His Feet, featuring their hit "Mmm Mmm Mmm Mmm". Shortly thereafter he mixed Live's multi-platinum Throwing Copper, which to date has sold over eight million copies in the United States. The success of these albums marked the beginning of Tom Lord-Alge's professional career as a mix engineer. Tom mixed out of South Beach Studios in Miami prior to it closing, and is represented exclusively by Global Positioning Services Management in Santa Monica.

Like his brother Chris Lord-Alge, Tom is well known for his extensive use of compression in mix down as both a creative and functional technique.

Maps Tom Lord-Alge

Personal life

Tom is one of four brothers and two sisters (Meg and Lisa) - two of whom are audio and mix engineers, namely Chris Lord-Alge and Jeff Lord-Alge. Their mother (Vivian Lord) was a jazz singer and pianist, while their father sold jukeboxes for a living. After doing live sound engineering for some time, Tom joined his older brother Chris at Unique Recording in New York City in 1984. Tom began working as an assistant to Chris, who was then a staff engineer, and later became staff engineer until 1988. Tom credits Chris as being a strong influence on his early development as an engineer and mixer.