Abbey Road Institute Paris - Tom Lord Alge

Interview & tips with famous multi-awarded mixing engineer Tom Lord-Alge (The Rolling Stones, The Cure, Marilyn Manson, Blink 182, No Doubt, Santana, P!nk, Korn, Crash Test Dummies, Bon Jovi, Fear Factory, Faith Hill, Fallout Boy, Sum 41, INXS, Steve Winwood, 30 seconds to Mars, U2, Oasis, Avril Lavigne, Jeff Beck ...) when he came at Abbey Road Institute Paris for Master Classes in Mai 2018.
Interview avec le célèbre mixeur Tom Lord-Alge (The Rolling Stones, The Cure, Marilyn Manson, Blink 182, No Doubt, Santana, P!nk, Korn, Crash Test Dummies, Bon Jovi, Fear Factory, Faith Hill, Fallout Boy, Sum 41, INXS, Steve Winwood, 30 seconds to Mars, U2, Oasis, Avril Lavigne, Jeff Beck ...) à l'occasion de sa venue à Abbey Road Institute Paris pour une série de Master Classes en Avril 2018.

[@aleksamrkela831]

It's not the plugin, it's not the gear. It's how you use it - it's your ear. Man made a poem on the spot! xD Nice video!

[@Knutorius]

Yes! So lovely :D

[@edbuller4435]

Such a lovely man. I was lucky enough to watch him mix a record I had produced at his place in South Beach in 2001. Learned heaps!....proper old school talent. And now he teaches too....what a Mensch XXX

[@nothattommy]

Perfect low end on his voice

[@justinbonfinimusic]

Get him to do a mix breakdown from a song off of Take Off Your Pants and Jacket!!!

[@AUDIOCRISIS]

Please

[@mika461983]

22:48 It's not the plugin! It's not the gear! It's how you use it! It's your ear! BRILLIANT!!!)))

[@frankpaws]

Yes. 100 percent. But look at the room he is in. There is the other 100 percent.

[@shane2973]

Frank..you are correct, but we aren't listening to that room and the drums sound sick! I absolutely dig that drum sound...smashed and big making it sound like the drummer is just killing the skins...Love it!

[@Syklonus]

@@frankpaws No, it's not. That stuff is all just an aide to the mixer's ear. if you don't have the skill then all that gear means shit.

[@bsybng]

But what if my ear wants to hear new gear?

[@mika461983]

@@bsybng Then you should test it and try not to fear!

[@GollumSmeagol]

This is CLA but happier and without the arrogance and attitude.

[@WillJukedTheBox]

and better at mixing

[@TomFaron]

@@WillJukedTheBox equally great in his own right

[@hummarstraful]

haha love CLA though, even with the arrogance.

[@davetbassbos]

Are they related?

[@hummarstraful]

@@davetbassbos yes, brothers

[@edguitartorres]

Sir, not only are you an extremely blessed engineer, you’re a wonderful, generous clearly articulate teacher! G-d Bless you and thank you for sharing all your wonderful knowledge!

[@shane2973]

I have a hard time not hearing him constantly say..."again" I think I counted it on his Mix with the Masters video and it was just insane how often he says it...it's his "filler" word. He seems like a really nice guy. I enjoy watching him work and go over what he does

[@kenglod]

No Sir mate, Lord! He's a Lord-Alge remember? LOL

[@HumbleBasse]

he's such a lovely man, and a beautiful master.

[@MikeSpexTV]

"Winner winner, pigeon dinner"lol Thnx Tom!! Appreciate the output!!

[@atcordice]

A mixer like that would make you remain single for life

[@tsibren]

That song is amazing and the mix is f**** brilliant!

[@marioleoa]

He still number one for rock.

[@VicHightaian]

had the pleasure of meeting Tom at NAMM, such a nice dude!

[@Psalmistjamel246]

I HONESTLY LOVE THE 2 SPECTRUMS AND THE 2 PERSONALITIES. I LEARN A LOT FROM THESES GUYS.

[@joeyf808]

Tom is the man! amazing talent!

[@Zinouka]

Awesome...Brillant !!! "more of 2 plugs on master fader > problem in mix".

[@johnstitt2615]

A good song, a good performance, ear and good gear = Glorious

"Here's a couple of clean hits for you so you can steal my samples" *Proceeds to speak over the hits so you can't actually steal them. Joking aside, this was very educative and I love TLA, so much heart and seems like a really nice guy!

[@billbradleymusic]

This interview is invaluable. What a smoking hot drum sound.

[@urbansessions.offiziell4563]

I like this man 🙏like HIS Brother Very talented mixers...

[@operasinger2126]

Thanks, Tom!

[@SayajinKanak]

Amazing! ok I have to experiment more and more in my mixes

[@jppagetoo]

That T-Racks Black 76 was given away by IK for free over Christmas 2019. Once I had it... it was my go to limiter on bus tracks. Yeah, it's a compressor, but I found it's best used as a hard limiter on busses. Good plugin.

[@junkynepz]

BRO U CAN USE FAB FILTER PRO L

[@lordberly]

@@junkynepz he means FREE

[@alanoffer]

The keeper of the vibe

[@Particle67]

The drums sound amazing. Thanks for sharing

[@redbaronstudiodebron4319]

What a great Dude!

[@ukaszkusmirek6872]

Hello Tom.it sounds so great.I am thankful that you're demonstrate your approach. Makes me feel great as well because tricks like deessing drums ,low ratios etc are the stuff that I am also doing as foh live engineer. Great sounding tutorial, things that are so useful so thank you very much Tom!

[@artifexastrum]

I love the deesser trick! I usually use a frequency side-chain HF cut EQ, often with a frequency specific compressor with just enough mix information to position it in separation to all frequencies above my cut limit. But using the deesser is brilliant; as it allows for high cut without subjecting frequencies below that threshold to any artifacts or coloration. Thanks, man!

[@rofbeats10]

Great content. This helps us a lot

[@joewarlick8505]

cla has 2 brothers tom and jeff. I assisted for tommy at encore studio s in burbank.

[@TerenceKearns]

I just watched a 45min interview with CLA with Rick Beato and I had no idea that CLA had a brother. WTF what is the history of these two? how on earth did one family produce two legends?

[@asdfasdf917]

CLA needed an assistant when he started his career, so he asked Tom. In the studio CLA teached Tom everything he knew, thats why they sound similar.

[@shane2973]

Crazy, right! Both Grammy winners... I think about the Manning brothers both being Super Bowl winning QB's! same kinda craziness...what are the odds of 2 brothers making it to the NFL, both as QB's and both having Super Bowl wins?!?! I wonder what it was like growing up in that house...

[@WorldBurial]

Actually, there's even a third brother : Jeff Lord Alge. He's less known but has worked as recording and mixing engineer on albums for Freddie Mercury, Depeche Mode, the Rocky IV soundtrack (Living in America), Stevie Nicks, Chaka Khan, ...

[@MrJackrockerman]

@@WorldBurial wow 👍 thanks for the info...

[@manuele.itriagom.728]

CLA and TLA brah haha

[@RobKingRC]

He pans his drums like a live engineer.. I like to pan the drums like your sitting behind them. His way would make it weird playing air drums to Tom Sawyer.. lol

[@neilevan7870]

i used to pan drums like you’re playing them. then i realized most pan them as if you’re facing the band live.

[@RobKingRC]

@@neilevan7870 I pan like I’m facing the band except for the drum kit,

[@vermonation]

Love you Tom.

[@ProducedByDelgado]

TLA is way happier than CLA 😂

[@iam_geyed]

Prod By Delgado Lol

[@vidicsferenc182]

Chris taught Tom, and who got their Grammy first ? TLA haha :D

[@peterk3556]

It depends on the situation 😅

[@geoffschuller4875]

That's hilarious! I heard CLA speak at a high-end audio store in LA a few years ago. He told great stories and gave great advice. Looking forward to hearing this show here, too.

[@burnlastsunday]

Which one destroyed my friends' Warner Brothers debut I wonder?

[@muellerathen7721]

Thank you!

[@andrewwhitehouse1878]

Love TLA! What a legend!

[@VintiqueSound]

TLA is such a rad dude and a mixing legend

[@drampadreg1386]

Big consoles are making a come back thank goodness! Neve with the 88RS, SSL with their Duality consoles musicians start at home working in the box and end up in a big A-list studio with soffit mount monitors that are worth more than their house. I started out in lighting as well, but they didn't have those moving head lights or i7 core lighting consoles at the time. Just a little more evolved than lime lights with gels. I find if you work with what you have, you learn more. Use what you learn to make a little money and buy something new. After a while it's second nature, but you never stop learning something new. IF I help you get that SSL home, will you let me use it?

[@1siriuswolf]

Frickin brilliant

[@stevenrempel]

holy crap. I love seeing people break teh rules (thou shalt only use 2-3 db of gain on the SLL bus comp) and make killer mixes. inspiring. Awesome track too, very Porcupine Tree.

[@richertz]

Good reason for this - lack of tape removing transients , I’ve watched CLA achieve this as well, they rely on these higher thresholds (with lower ratio) to smooth over. I use tape sims but I can hear this seems to be another approach.

[@davemiha]

Love it...Thank you so much !!!

[@joelybarish4618]

Tom might want to look at the curve his TR5 One setting is generating on the masterbus. It's a large 5+ db boost at about 14 hz followed by a 2.5 db cut at 200 hz and a slight .5 db rise up to 20 khz. If you need that kind of rollercoaster curve on your master bus, you're mix needs more work.

[@JulianWorden]

If it sounds good, it is good. It sounds good, so it is good. You don't think he knows that stuff's there?

[@MixChecks]

He can let the mastering engineer deal with that lol

[@JulianWorden]

MixChecks Sure, but maybe he has a specific vision for the sound of the song and he doesn’t wanna spend time explaining it to the mastering engineer. If he could do it himself why wouldn’t he? It’s not weird to send a mix that has master bus processing on it to a mastering engineer

[@MixChecks]

@@JulianWorden For sure. I'm a fan of master bus processing :)

[@No-Pressure-Only-Results]

Tips Timestamp 8:00 10:20 11:20

[@jacobharley7117]

Awesome stuff Tom - Mix sounds great!!

[@jbarkerhill92]

That advice to automate eq and roll off high end of toms only when on same beat as cymbals is 🤯

[@santibanks]

Great video! The drums work nicely because of their interaction with the bass sound. In my experience, no matter how great your drums sound on their own, if there is a weak bass sound, it just doesn't work as nicely.

[@voraceOnline]

TLA absolutely Rocks!!!

[@TheBroRedSunLed]

Absolutely Great

[@1dnery]

Amazing guy!!

[@dbwproductions]

Well done Tom! Very inspiring.

[@digitalsketchguy]

Great tips from a world class pro

[@youknowwhoiam6484]

Yess you mix with plugins when you’re at Abbey Road while the SSL is staring at you

[@davemckay4359]

Love the brother story.

[@RobertVandenberg]

TLA is so humble and always looks so joyful. He got a very different personality than CLA.

[@djushuaia281]

How you get More low End TLA: more alcohol, more cigarettes

[@TechMetalRules]

I thought this was some sort of Mandela effect thing at first.

[@Savage-ih5il]

boy on that good dope

[@johnstitt2615]

Good gear takes the magic you have inside that you want to get out and gives it wings and a power jet engine.

[@shane2973]

They always say "it's not about the gear and to some extent it's true, but none of them mix with stock plugs on mediocre monitors in a bedroom. I guarantee that ALL these guys would mix circles around me using stock plugs while I used the best gear $ can buy, but still. The only one I have heard truly be honest about that is Jack Joseph Puig...another AMAZING guy!

[@dcdno_one2393]

What a solid guy TLA is!

[@luisjaviervaldezrodriguez7381]

Tradusca los video al español

[@bigtime94z]

CLA does not like verb or ambience on shells or direct mics, so i wonder if they have arguments about that?

[@ableton-i3d]

Nobody: Waves: Introducing the new TLA-76 Compressor

[@manifestgtr]

100% agree about gear being “meh”…I will, however, say that the IK SSL emulations are top shelf. About ten years ago, I used them on a pretty important record in my career and they sounded incredible. Very, shockingly faithful to the consoles. I’ve since shifted to the waves strips because the CPU hit is so much lighter. Maybe I’ll dust that stuff off at some point for busses or something. I don’t know if it’s changed but the one thing that used to suck about IK was its infrastructure…you had to buy “points” and get plugins through their “custom shop”. Hopefully they’ve done away with that 😑

[@ProphayniaX]

Where’s the link to this tune love what I heard

[@MixByRek]

You Never get real secrets off KZbin

[@DavidTimberDKT]

Very Pink Floyd influenced song for the demo.

[@jorgeconde4550]

"Weezer Ft kick" Green album, he mix, it nice sound!

[@DKStudiosful]

Sick.

[@mikaelsjoberg1894]

Hmmmm. Ian Dury...??

[@vcgrecords9159]

I am a young mixing engineer, A goal of mine is to get a SSL 9000. One day.. one day, for now I gotta mix with what I got

[@GeoZero]

@9:57 - "The picture is more vibrant" but now you have too much, too many choices that might not necessarily compliement each other. Paralysis by analysis syndrome. I went from 4 track to 8-track ADAT digital to 16 and of course to digital. There was something uniquely special in that pre-digital realm where you could get done faster. A lot of times now is spent on fixing a tech issue, like one that I just had where midi is triggering 2 notes on top of each other at the same time, and have to spend hours looking for a tech solution, or writing the DAW maker and waiting for a response. The spark of creating is dead when you have too much digital stuff going bad all the time. Not to say things didn't break in analog, but it was sure easier to get back running and recording. That said, digital offers tremendous opportunities. I just wish the computers, O/O systems, plugins, and DAWs were more reliable and worked seemlessly.

[@amyrulharris]

Bean?

[@TruenorthmtGod]

I thought this was his brother until he said plug-ins are great

[@buwohsylvester300]

Music is my dream world career and l shall accomplish it through Abbey Road Institute Paris.

[@dreamix2007]

Good luck :)

[@ThomasMurray7]

Digital guy: Wat the fuck do all those knobs do, how do I even Analog guy: what the fuck do all those buttons do, how do I touch them

[@hummarstraful]

Where can I get these ambient samples?

[@PKingDuck]

you know

[@luthiervandros]

I close my eyes and see ray romanos brother.

[@stevensawers9214]

Omhgggg I can't unhear it now

[@jullieishot]

S'KUDAH WUZ HERE

[@busywl69]

T-RAcks max is amazing.

[@dantecarouso]

audio charmeleon

[@ryangunwitch-black]

Something tells me Tom has more fun.

[@TANKSINATRA289]

What he used on masterbuss ?

[@elchevequebb]

coke, probably

[@ytnsanw]

T-Racks One

[@geraldgoodiii6993]

Who gonna nick a sample from KZbin? Come on TLA have some faith brother !

[@alonsog3r]

The tom toms tho

[@junkynepz]

IS CHRIS LORD ALGE AND TOM LORD ALGE ARE BROTHERS ??

[@Abbeyroadinstitute]

JUNKY NEPZ yes they are.

[@junkynepz]

BIG FANN OF CLA

[@junkynepz]

VOICE AND MOUTH ARE DITOO SAME BROO

[@robertmaroney4373]

Are you related to CLA ?

[@HanDrumsolo]

yes, he mentions it several times within the first 5 mins

[@hitdogreport4619]

@@HanDrumsolo tell me about it... geesh!!!

[@diemturner5755]

HanDrumsolo even if he hadn't mentioned it, just listening to his voice is a dead give away :-)

[@rdubb77]

The track sounds like a nu metal version Pink Floyd.

[@AudioReplica2023]

The secret is in the belly. You get a beer belly like that ...your mixes will improve 100%🤷🏽‍♂️ EAT , MIX , REPEAT

[@hummarstraful]

lmao

[@Andyw1228]

Isn't the title mixing/recording/audio engineer somehow protected by law in th US ? In germany it's prohibited to name on audio engineer without having a master at some university and there big fines if you do it nonetheless. Just asking. No strings attached.

[@MixChecks]

Nope. Anyone can call themselves that. It makes you sound more professional if you add "engineer" after you're job title. For example, the person manning the cash register at a store is not a cashier. They are a Cash Exchange Engineer.

[@Andyw1228]

@@MixChecks Ok. We have it in Germany too now. Imported from the USA : the janitor is now the Facility Manager !

[@splashgvng]

TLA > CLA

[@frankpaws]

I don't even think they, as brothers, talk.

[@jimbeam4694]

Eh that snare sounds like ass.

[@totoroxmusic]

Holy shit, that hair. Dude, youre what, 60? White mohawk/bald combo is bad. Accept your fate and shave that head! xD looooool

[@adamfulton1102]

I love how he thinks someone is going to want his verby snare samples. I bet anyone who watched this have 30,000 snares on their computer already, including 5 of these. ;). All respect given, the true secret is to be in the right time at the right place, be willing to do grunt work and deal with egoic idiots for a while and then doink around with EQ/Compression for a few years, and voila! I bet their are audio grads who have 10X the technique this guy has, but not the industry connections or the developed ears for what is professionally acceptable.

[@Scarlettsmeal]

This guy lol. He mixed the green album. Stop praddling on like a bellend.

[@Skkyyyyyyyyyyy]

Huh?