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Education » Video Tutorials
PUREMIX Chris Lord-Alge Mixing Rock In The Box TUTORiAL-SYNTHiC4TE screenshot
SYNTHiC4TE | Oct 04 2018 | 2 GB
Chris Lord Alge is one of the most renowned mixing engineers in the world. His style can be heard on records from legendary artists such as U2, Aerosmith, Prince, Bruce Springsteen, James Brown, The Who, Green Day and dozens more.

Those who study his work, know that Chris Lord-Alge is a champion of the famous SSL 4K console. He has mixed thousands of songs in the analog domain and amassed a literal wall of Grammys in his studio, Mix LA.

However, he has also created some of the world’s most popular plugins in the digital domain and has never been known to fear a digital workflow.

In this pureMix.net exclusive, we take CLA off of his SSL 4K and park him in the box, where he shows you how he:

Translates his analog workflow with familiar routing and plugins
Simplifies sessions for lightning fast mixing
Maintains focus and perspective on the song and the story it tells to support the theme with the mix
Sets up his 2bus chain inside of Pro Tools for the same feel of his hardware
Adds creativity to the mix and explains his theory on artistic mixing




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comments

  Resident 1.03.2015 3 322
+614
That's very useful,
Thank you!
M.Leys
  Banned 10.07.2014 1279
+589
Advertisement for waves plugins?
  Member 29.09.2018 12
+4
Pretty much what I though too lol
  Member 28.11.2016 965
+344
And most waves plug suck vs their more modern, better emulated rivals. No wonder CLA isn't a big fan of ITB if he's been mostly stuck with waves (and the occasional slate back hander) all these years instead of branching out.

That and he REALLY likes saying "My SSL" every 5 minutes... :P
  Resident 18.11.2017 1 532
+204
Is this Chris Lord-Alge mixing in the box, or Chris Lord-Alge assistant mixing in the box?
  Member 4.04.2018 109
+11
hahahaha, ikr?? lol
  Member 20.12.2015 37
+2
I always wonder, if any of these guys actually mix a song in "real life" with those plugins.
To me, it always seems like they just do it for advertising.
I would like to see a video, where they mixed a real session, a song, that was mixed in the box with those plugins, that actually appeared in shops and as download, not only in a Mix-Video!
Then I would believe, that they USE the plugins they advertise in such videos.
  Member 4.04.2017 2 40
+27
I'm pretty sure he replaces all these plugins with outboard analog gears behind him after the video
  Member 17.08.2016 5 240
+89
I think if you capture the signal with quality analog gear:
treated room > mic > pre > compressor > adc,
guitar > amp in treated room > mic > pre > adc,
drums > mic in treated room > pre > adc,
you end up with QUALITY signal

then with that you can process ITB and get good stuff. specially with nebula

most people doing ITB stuff, since the barrier of entry is so low, don't spend on room treatment so their input signal is bullshit

that and they use ITB distortion which sucks
If you can dream it you can do it
  Member 28.11.2016 965
+344
I have to disagree with some of what you said, while agreeing with the first part mostly. It's all in the recording, and good pre-amps, quality gear, the mixing side is a cinch even with plugs (and even ITB distortion/sat if it was recorded well).

Again many pro mixers use ITB sat, Tchad Blake for one. But the things he mixes were recording in great studios with quality gear so it's a lot easier to 'just mix itb' for the mixer then.

People recording badly with clean inputs no analog mojo will have to work HARD itb to reach that quality, and often overdo it that's why it's hard. A couple of decent hardware pieces in your tracking chains can make a nice difference.

I disagree on ITB distortion 'sucking', it's fine if you don't overdo it, but it's not as nice as OTB saturation true... but you made it sound like it was a lost cause which it isn't. Again, the pros who heavily rely on things like decap, tape sims and even the old basic sans amp plug prove this over and over again.

As an aside, even 10 years back when I had the bare minimum outboard, a steinberg interface, an SM58 and ONLY plug-ins, I made a couple of tracks that even today are played on TV/Radio (shows sync etc) that get heard by millions (on a top US TV show) all ITB, and it sounds pretty damn good TBH, even 10 years later and now with outboard neve and other stuff at my disposal.

Some people will always find it impossible to record/produce/mix a great song ITB *OR* OTB, others will make it work and while not always ideal it can still connect well with people and a decent ITB mix can still out-do a boring OTB mix.

FTR while I respect CLA and quite like him and his slight arrogance, many of his mixes sound like wallpaper to me. That is possibly due to the songs he tends to mix rather than him but still... his mixes tend to sound cookie cutter to me on that bland US rock stuff he does over and over.
  Member 28.11.2016 965
+344
Go check the Tchad Blake mix with the masters - Last Shadow Puppets 'Bad Habbits' vid (MWTM1!) the album sounds great btw, all mixed in PT ITB with plugs.

He uses nothing but plugs (mostly good ones). Other than one SRS (cheap hardware) for some widening on certain sends.

The thing is it's how it was recorded, that's where the real analog mojo comes in, if it was recorded well and has lots of baked in analog richness then sure, you can mix ITB just fine. Esp if you're as cool as Tchad Blake. Scheps also mixes purely ITB these days.

As for CLA? NO! he doesn't release mixes from ITB, he loves his hardware and his SSL that he likes to namedrop all the time, even though the SSL is doing barely anything for the sound (it's all the outboard behind him if anything that's supplying the juice). So again, he could print into pro tools through that outboard gear and mix ITB if he wanted... and release. If you do the printing or recording well, the mixing ITB can be quite minimal anyway.
  Member 17.08.2016 5 240
+89
Thanks for the tip I'll check out MWTM1 and see what's up

Regarding distortion. I think saturation (or very subtle distortion) can be done with decapitator, manny, you-name-it. But outright distortion like fuzz, or amp tube breakup is just too intricate to emulate. It has too much "resolution"

Guitars for example when done through amp sims can sound fine when lost the mix. But some sounds just can't get done without a real amp and pedals. 100% ITB guitars sound bland and generic. Now layering with real amps with sims that a another deal
If you can dream it you can do it
  Resident 14.11.2011 711
+90
i don't believe he can beat me in this game!
Software is like sex,it's better when it's free!
  Resident 5.04.2011 5 384
+86
Bottom line is summarized in this quote my computer lab teacher used to say: "garbage in, garbage out". I think this is particularly true when it comes to mixing. You can have the best gear, the most expensive plug-ins, the greatest mix engineers available but if your tracks were poorly recorded or the vst/synth sound selection were poorly assembled with too many clashing frequencies, you will never be able to achieve that quality until you resolve those issues regardless of the techniques and tutorials or whether you mix ITB/OTB...
  Member 28.11.2016 965
+344
OK I tried to watch this, I've watched MANY of these types of vids, inc CLA on MWTM (analog) before, Tchad Blake (Awesome), Scheps (Awesome) etc..

This was painful to watch. It's got no real useful stuff at all. It really is an advert for the SSL waves channel (which is hideously outdated , never sounded great to start and there's a ton of better bespoke plugs out there), and worse.. his own stupid 'black box' waves plugs (CLA guitars, CLA mix, CLA drums etc).

The advertising side isn't so bad, what sucks is:

A. He's beyond patronizing in the first part of the video, which results in a tedious, long winded and never should have been filmed 'set up' sessions that has absolutely no value to anyone. Anyone mixing at a level to glean info from CLA will already know how/why/where to set up and colour code etc. I swear the guy talks down to the viewers like he's talking to 8 year olds. That's 45 mins down the drain

B. The use of the black box plugs results in basically not learning anything useful (unlike Blake and Scheps who will use explicit saturation, compressors, wideners etc and tell you WHY they do.. here CLA just slaps on those horrible sounding/stupid/dumb plugs , moves some sliders till it sounds ok and that's that). Well gee thanks CLA, we could have done that ourselves. That isn't mixing, or teaching to mix, that's pushing stupid plugs to idiots who can't mix nor want to learn why they can't mix.

C. The video style and interaction between CLA and his long suffering assistant. Basically CLA isn't doing any hands on, almost as if to touch Pro Tools would infect him, barking out orders that have very little value to real mixers (it's all irreverent and time consuming discourse that isn't really a part of mixing for most people who are doing it all themselves). And the style is very drab, grey.. as is his pro tools window. He hasn't even got the mixer channels colour code activated so it's literally all grey, making it headache inducing to scan for info. Have no idea why he insists on running it that way when you can make PT look great with a bit of subtle colouring, reduced sat and decent brightness.

Combine all that and this video is probably one of the most dry, useless and boring of these types of videos. Clearly CLA is making cash from these the amount he's doing.

Even if you mix ITB I think you're better served getting a CLA vid where he's working on his console/analog because at least there you can see him properly working, the overall idea, why etc and apply the concepts to your mixing/plugs.

I wish CLA would just leave ITB to the mixers who are great at it and enjoy it (Scheps/Blake and co). CLA is doing is hardest to make ITB seem pointless and sub-par when it's not.

5/10.


and also, it's a god-awful song he's mixing. Utterly bland, vacuous and formulaic. I think if I was making songs like that I'd prob go do a Kurt Cobain and save everyone from it.
  Member 14.12.2014 8 80
+233
Very interesting! I really like the way CLA works. Ignore the nobodies whining about plugins and advertisements, they are extremely sad people.
  Resident 17.04.2008 318
+33
I'm playing the 2nd vid and its all out of sync. Just me or anyone else
  Member 1.09.2013 455
+21
CLA Class Act
  Member 2.06.2023 139
+22
all links down, please someone reup this one...thankssss

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