Lord of the Mix

Green Day, Bruce Springsteen, Aerosmith, Tina Turner, Keith Urban…the list of toptier recording artists who have placed their creative vision in the care of recording and mixing maestro Chris Lord-Alge is a who’s who of popular music. The recordings he has mixed are renowned for their crisp, spacious and life-like sound, as well as their commercial success.

Lord-Alge gained notoriety while working at Unique Recording Studios, in New York City in the 1980s. It was there that he mixed James Brown’s Gravity album, the Rocky IV soundtrack, Prince’s Batman soundtrack, Steve Winwood’s Back in the High Life and dozens more iconic albums and soundtracks.

Chris leveraged his NY success and in 2008 opened Mix LA in Los Angeles where he continues to craft recordings for demanding artists such as Daughtry, Michael Bublé, and the Grammy-winning American Idiot by Green Day – arguably one of the very best sounding hard rock albums of the last 20 years.

Chris has been the owner of Mix LA in Los Angeles now since 2008. This place is loaded with gear, but of course what we are fans of, as well as Chris’ celebrity client list love the most, is the sound that is produced through a pair of M&K Sound MPS2510’s and two MX-5000 subwoofers (located underneath the mixing console), managed by an M&K Bass Management Controller, BMC-1.

While we were visiting Chris in the studio, he was mixing down the tracks of ”xxxx”. Now I’ve heard our products in many installations, but even I was blown away by the sound in this studio. I certainly understand why so many artists love the sound that Chris creates.

”…most of the artists come in here and they hear the kick drum and the bass, they hear the vibe and the separation, it’s very cinematic to them. They like the cinematic quality of the speakers, plus the clarity of the upper mid and top end.” says Chris.

“I’ve mixed at least 10,000 songs with this [speaker] configuration.” Chris went on to say, “Since I’ve been mixing] in this room for the past eight years once I set [the M&K system] I’ve never touched it. It’s our true sound. For a mixing room it’s just right. The bottom is perfect…spot on.”

I’ve mixed at least 10,000 songs on my M&K speakers

Chris Lord-AlgeMix LA, Los Angeles

Lord-Alge also credits the mixing room itself for the quality of the monitoring sound and the work that comes out of his studio. “This is a Vincent Van Hoff [designed] room. It’s one of the last Van Hoff rooms left, period. It’s floating [ed.: isolated from the foundations] with high ceilings. That’s why I took over this location. In order to build a [new studio] like this it would cost a fortune…” “You have to have the [ceiling] height for control rooms in order to have that punch, in order to have the right sound. It’s very simple, you go to all the great studios in the world and they all have height. All these guys mixing in garages and basements they all have low ceilings and what do you have? A comb filter.”

One thing we love about Chris Lord Alge is his exuberance for music. You can tell that he likes to have fun. His approach to mixing seems to be one of a musician and less of
a scientist. He’s not doing math equations or sending a rocket to a moon, he’s mixing music.

His approach to move quickly and boldly comes in large part from his personality and his past success, but I think the real key here is that he is having fun.

Whether you have 5 Grammy awards or 5 adoring family members who love your music, shouldn’t you be having fun while you mix? We sure have fun listening to all of CLA’s mixes on M&K Sound.