Tom Lord-Alge

Tom Lord-Alge (born January 17, 1962) is an American music engineer and mixer. He began his career at Unique Recording at 20 Times Square in Manhattan. Then he was the resident mixer at what was South Beach Studios on the ground floor of the Marlin Hotel in Miami Beach, Florida. Chris Blackwell was the original owner of SBS.

Lord-Alge received two Grammy Awards for working on Steve Winwood's Back in the High Life (1986), and Roll with It (1988); both won in the 'Best Engineered Recording – Non-Classical' category. His third Grammy was for Santana's Supernatural (1999), which won Album of the Year. He has mixed records for U2, Simple Minds, The Rolling Stones, Pink, Peter Gabriel, OMD, Sarah McLachlan, Dave Matthews Band, Blink-182, Avril Lavigne, Hanson, Sum 41, Live, Manic Street Preachers, New Found Glory, Story of the Year, Marilyn Manson, and others.

Career
After being in live sound engineering, Lord-Alge joined his brother Chris at Unique Recording in New York City in 1984. Tom began working as an assistant for Chris, who at the time was a staff engineer. Tom later became a staff engineer there until 1988.

Tom Lord-Alge's first major project was engineering Steve Winwood's Grammy winning album Back in the High Life (1986) including its number one hit song "Higher Love". He engineered Winwood's follow up Roll with It (1988) including its chart-topping title track. Lord-Alge left Unique Recording to work as a freelance engineer and mixer.

Lord-Alge'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 after that he mixed Live's multi-platinum Throwing Copper, which has sold over eight million copies to date in the United States. The success of the albums was the beginning of Lord-Alge's professional career as a mix engineer. He mixed out of South Beach Studios prior to it closing; he is represented by Global Positioning Services Management in Santa Monica, California.

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

Personal life
Lord-Alge is one of four brothers, two of whom are audio and mixing engineers (Chris and Jeff Lord-Alge) as well as two sisters (Meg and Lisa). Their mother, Vivian Lord, was a jazz singer and pianist; their father sold jukeboxes for a living. Tom Lord-Alge credits his brother Chris as being a strong influence on his early development as an engineer and mixer.