Chris Lord-Alge mixing guitars for Green Day | Sneak Peek
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- Опубліковано 7 лют 2025
- Chris Lord-Alge mixes and processes electric guitars from “Boulevard of Broken Dreams” using his SSL4000 console as well as various analog tools.
Watch the full series mwtm.org/DM-44
This extract comes from a 6-part series in which Chris revisits the original recording of ‘Boulevard Of Broken Dreams’ by Green Day. Watch Chris remix the song using his signature SSL4000 console as well his impressive collection of hardware at Mix LA. You will learn all of his signature techniques for mixing hit records including how to use EQ, compression, automation and more.
Join Chris Lord-Alge for an all-analog mixing Masterclass in Paris from May 27-30. For the first time, the Grammy-winning engineer will host a four-day Masterclass focussed entirely on his signature SSL4000E console.
Apply here : mwtm.com/events/masterclasses/registration/chris-lord-alge-four-day-paris-masterclass
Woah, the plugins were so popular they actually made a guy named after them.
hahahahahaaha
It's been 20 years and CLA still can't let it go . . . . his mix sounds old school same tone same punch same of everything . . .boring.
@@hellofx Hey it works for rock music, so why stop?
😂
@@hellofx see ya on grammy nominations with your new tone my friend 😂
Anyone who’s an audiophile or just a pure fan of great listening music whether it be hip hop, electronic, rock, classical, etc can appreciate this album.
One of the last great “concept albums” of the 2000’s that each song picked up where the last one left of musically, lyrically and vocally.
Green Day wrote a masterpiece & CLA sonically delivered masterpiece in dimensional sound.
Except for the over the top mastering compression
@@keithmoran8004product of the times, innit?
Hardly it - nothing else was compromised with compression quite like this
Anybody who values good sounding music or considers themselves an audiophile in any sense of the word should see this guy, along with his partner in crime Howard "Autotune" Benson, as being largely responsible for the hyper-processed, dynamically featureless and ultimately tiring to listen to sound of modern pop music.
It's not necessarily a criticism because he knows what he's doing, but it's his philosophy (rightly or wrongly) that pop music should primarily be mixed to sound as loud as possible coming from a 4" speaker on a cheap FM radio (or increasingly, the tiny speakers in a smartphone), rather than sound as full as possible on higher quality equipment.
I know it's rich coming from a nobody like me, but I would go so far as to say it's why (in my opinion) his mixes sound like garbage, I mean really over-compressed dynamically barren crap, on anything other than cheap, shitty speakers, yet he is able to summon seemingly impossible amounts of volume and presence from those same shitty speakers.
I recently listened to Jesus of suburbia and thought vocals where kind of dark and lacked a little bit of presence. Not necessarily in a bad way - I kind of liked it. But that's nothing you would hear today, in modern mixes everything sounds super bright and sizzly I would say. I don't know but mixes from the 2000s and earlier just sound much more reasonable to me.
I love how in these videos of Chris, when he's tweaking EQ, he doesn't appear to concern himself with how much he's adding or cutting, just what sounds good. What a great and informative video.
Exactly what I was gonna say! He’s not mixing in a technically minded sort of fashion, it’s all based on feel. And THAT’S what makes a good mix engineer.
That’s the way to do it!
The speed at which he navigates on the console is so ridiculous 🥹
🤣
Some 40 years of experience on the console
way faster than in "modern" click click click scroll scroll ITB daws...
What great production this album has.
Always a treat to watch Chris working the knobs 🙂
Watching Chris (and Tom) mix is INCREDIBLY awesome! You can tell immediately these guys know what they want from a mix and they know how to get there. Similarly, I watched Tom mix a Sum 41 mix at NAMM this year, and he knew how to use the new SSL board better than all the reps. Not sure what momma was feeding these cats, but it worked. Great vid, as always! ✌🤟🤘
And people say never eq in solo and this legend do it all the time
I love these videos, the creative process is crazy...
It's easy to forget how good a setup and ears like Chris's are. You can make records on a laptop and we have so much available, but man, the level of professional sound going on with all those hardware LA3A's, Distressors, SSL, etc. etc. along with his choices sure make for a big, professional sound. It's incredibly inspiring to watch and listen. Also...speedy! Try that with a mouse sometime, lol.
Well you have all the patchbay and recalls to deal with too.
Which makes the « mouse » mixing quicker in the end.
Imho, from still doing both methods.
@@WheelieMix Workflow is definitely an issue on both sides. The 100% recall and no need for patching is great on the DAW side for sure. Chris's setup is almost an assembly line though. No re-patching for him ever, and all of the sessions are built so his track layout is identical for every song. Then again you're talking about having an assistant to do that work too. Believe me, when I was working on Guitar Hero and we had to do recall for sessions that Activision needed a revision tweak on it was super painful on the SSL and the outboard gear. I don't miss those days but I do love the way CLA's setup is. He's FAST with it!
Watching Chris mix is therapeutic, having pristine information on the way in and a interns to file prep for him, just doing what he does best and taking what’s already energetic and pushing for more of that. CLA and his brother Tom really took the SSL 8kHz band and said “how far can we push this”, and I for one am thankful they did.
Those processing decisions glued together with that focustrite for mix bus comp. present a sound that evokes such a familiar, euphoric feeling.
@@SteveOuimette I agree 100% with your ✋.
CLA is so awesome. I don’t tend to watch interviews with him. He comes off a little frustrated in interviews.
But in these videos, he is so down to earth, so comfortable at his console. He is literally talking to us like a human. I love it
Butter to my ears
I've never imagined a movable chair can be one of the most important equipment in the studio
I actually laughed after reading this 😂😂
😂😂😂😂
Those guitars sound great! The again, the entire mix is off the chain. I love how Chris just reaches for the knobs and tweaks away. That's exactly what I do. Others will tell you that the phase this and that. If it sounds good, then it rocks!
Awesome candy for the ears! Awesome candy for the ears but I bet you can't accurately say whats happening @ 1:28 the soloed swishing sound?
The entire album is perfectly mixed
Parallel EQ on guitars, really a great technique, I just tried it. Greetings from Argentina.
Love his analogue approach
Will love to see him work its ridiculous how fast on the console❤❤
That feeling when CLA unmixed tracks sound better than your final mix. 🤭
😂😂
Which is the unsaid true for any record 😢
Which highlights the importance of recording great sounds at the source 😎
CLA is always the extra, essential member of these incredible bands.
wow! amazing production! didn't know there was three pairs of guitars in the chorus.
wow this is 1 of the best records of all-time
Really? They just stole ‘Wonderwall’ and made it worse.
@@tonyh8965did wonderwall get grammy?)
@@tonyh8965 🤣🤣🤣
I always use the CLA-3A on guitars. It's magic. You want push to a solo or get perfect glue on your guitar buss that's what you need.
ahhhh.... hahah so short...well always a pleasure watching him
Still an incredible mix 20 years after its release. Love the snare replacement that thing is crisp.
I wonder does he really only use SSL and outboard gears for the mix. The whole thing sounds too good with such simple processing.
this is killer thank you for doing this chris lord alge
Masterful job
What he does not mention is most of the guitar tones is already done during recording
Everyone knows about it. Rob Cavallo's amps are solid.
The way it should be... commitment during tracking. Mix starts from day 1 of the recordings.
Any info on his amps? Modded?
@@heythere6983 Marshall superleads
@@heythere6983they used John suhr’s Crunch and SE Lead mods on this record. Blended a v30 cab and a g12m 25 watt reissue cab.
Wauw, I feel guilty when using more than 4db on the EQs and here +10db but mostly I use the same compressors for guitars, in short that is GTR, small words is indeed the way to go. Sounds great this song, and the song itself is also dope. Btw I mix on a self restored API 16ch with 500 transformers, the 550B EQ and half console FET and the other half the VCA compressors. Great work here.
Same lmao. I was like "maybe I should use more" lol
Sounds so nice!!
It’s just sooo Damm good to listen to !!!
love watching this guy work lol
Woah, those guitars sound amazing!! So clean and perfectly played!
Belly button - new mixing feature from CLA.
Amazing job... Hi from a Brazilian singer/songwriter/producer
i would have loved to hear the Wah/Phaser tracks
cuantas veces mas lo vas a mezclar CLA???
❤
Anyone else hear that crackle on the left at 2.08 ?
The hook of this song for me has always been the trem guitar
❤❤❤
So I’ve been building a home studio and feeling pretty good about my gear.
*sobs into the wall of compressors*
Impressionante!
is there a big difference between learning in a streaming platform and in the studio?
🐐 goat
He certainly knows what he is doing.
it looks easy and hard at the same time
what does he mean by parallel EQ?
wonder if this is for a remix and remaster 20th anniversary AI that green day spoke about a few weeks ago
So damn good ❤🔥❤🔥❤🔥❤🔥
How many guitar layers does a usual hard rock band like Green Day record for a studio session?
@@DavidOakesMusic Thanks! I know some also like to have a layer of rhythm guitar being played an octave higher or lower than the primary rhythm sound being heard. Also some like to have a track of the amp through a room mic for ambience.. I guess the ones I mentioned can as well be combined with ones you already mentioned
Depends on the song and the parts. Majority of their music is just double tracked electric guitars, left and right.
Big parts of songs you'll very often hear one extra guitar track come up the middle to accentuate, (chorus of American Idiot is a great example). Sometimes there's layers that are double tracked and panned as well, so you'll have a lead/layer guitar double tracked left and right on top of the 2 rhythm tracks left and right. And then obviously whatever leads and solo's will come up the middle as well. Maybe double tracked acoustics if the songs has acoustics on it (Holiday's chorus is double tracked acoustic, double track electric with an extra electric up the middle).
This song is probably an outlier in Green Day's case where there's like 6-8 guitar tracks going on in the outro of the song, double tracked acoustics, 4 rhythm electrics all panned, and then the wah guitar up the middle.
I'm working on one right now with a client...16 guitar tracks... no more than 6 playing at any given time.
L/R main rhythm
One section has an night heavy crunchy power chord section L/R
We then tracked a slightly cleaner single root note of the riff
Then tracked an octave higher chord riff
And then for about the last 4 bars of this section added a single note 5th above root for additional clarity. Sounds big, heavy without being in the way of the bass or vocals.
Amazing how a three piece band can sound so big 😊
with 100500 layers of guitars (and a piano)
The first minute sounds exactly like The Rock's WWE theme music 😉
Suena brutal!!!
dude is a genius
EL MEJOR !!!
Great work but you better fix that pot on the board at 2:10
Oh, thought the speech will be about fresh Saviors record actually.
Was the album tracked to tape or digital?
Recorded to tape and dropped into protools.
all those layers of guitars and then you have the Ramones
That's how you mix a damn record!
Any way of mixing is the right way as long as the results are good.
Why doesn't he use waves cla plugins? 😛
Because its very old song
Waves CLA didn't exist back then
Did that say 10db boost?
Yes, cla isn't shy of heavy eq
CLA is a Legend!!
Just put everything on 10, man.
I think i have watched this years ago 🤔
How many effin 1176’s are there ?
Yeah but the hardest part is getting that original tone. I wonder if he edits the tone first and then shows these parts after.
The guitars are just very smooth and not frizzy. I found this was something him and his brother tended to do
In that time frame . 90s rock, even 90s greenday with the same producer sounded much more brash and less polished.
How to get a polished guitar tone that isn’t too scratchy or frizzy is the question
I think the main tone you hear is a "DI" input, meaning the tone dosent go through a speaker cabinet. it goes right into the console to play with. plus theres obviously that huge treble boost that he gives it that makes it have that strong high end. it could have been through a cab though its hard to tell
@@tonestorrnot accurate at all. They tracked this album through 2 modded Marshalls into a v30 cab and a g12m 25 watt cab. I own both heads that they used, and they are the key component in the tone from the album. They also used a 1073 mic preamp which colored the sound even further. 99% of the tone is how it was tracked, the last 1% is CLA adding color to make it pop.
@@jacobgainor5219 like i said hard to tell... also depends on which part of the album you are talking about. Theres no doubt the usual tracking (v30's and greenbacks with modded marshalls) are blended into it, but its much more nuanced then just that. Obviously the tone is more than 90% there (go listen to the first minute of the video) im simply pointing out that CLA adds more 9k then what is already added with an attenuator in the studio
Again?
CLA is a music surgery with very good ears and taste, what I notice is that he takes part of the song and treat them as an individual song for emotion, that's interesting.
I would love to subscribe to a membership, but I don’t want to plop down so much money at once. That said, I also don’t want my card being tapped monthly for $30. I would rather be able to pay into the full amount after reaching a certain point. But you guys don’t allow that. Something to consider?
✊🏽✊🏽💯💯❤❤💯💯✊🏽✊🏽
2:50
Damn, late for my first lecture at UCLA... whadimiss?
Hello. What's the Green Day? You mean - St Patrick's Day, or something else?
00:50
👌
Ssl 4000 is one of my fav console. But I’m more of DAW guy.
Remember kids: The most important thing is the *labeling*!
I am running an old Digi/Focusrite Control 24 as a control surface via V-Control in Logic Pro. It has scribble strip implementation, but only for four characters per channel. That does require some forethought regarding naming conventions in order to keep things straight.
Imagine the electricity bill
He says less is more ok then let’s trade studios then
he looks like chris from family guy got old
I wonder if he gets tired of mixing this song
Reupload
But why does the new album done by the same people sounds worse than this one?
(C) CRAVING - (L) LUSH - (A) ANALOG
lord🤎
Lol he's doing a whole lotta nothing and making it look like he's doing something. Its those analog compressors and Billie's guitar panned with open chords on one signal and power chords strummed on the other. That's it kids. Obviously it was mixed and mastered but this video otherwise makes no sense and only seems to try and intimidate with how seemingly complex it is. It's actually really funny.
Awesome candy for the ears but I bet you can't accurately say whats happening @ 1:28 the soloed swishing sound?
Uppps, in some parts sounds like Mana from Mexico!
Kinda beating the dead horse already with CLA and Green Day.
It never gets old to see a master in his domain.
@matijatatomirovic3351
I would have to disagree.
Agree. Its getting old
Mr Ed has entered the chat
First time for me.
Yep,
Just like that 😂 Mr.Chris…
Hope you have found a person to hand over the knowledge before ⏰ as what you know is already long forgotten or have died during the pandemic of laptop generation….
Oooooh Oasis.
They just stole Wonderwall and made it worse.
Jezus christ, so many buttons
All of them repeat. It's channel strips mainly, meaning you learn 1 row of buttons/sliders and you know how to operate the whole board. If you're talking about the outboard gear behind him, most of them do pretty much the same thing console does but with different flavours, and buttons there named the same as on the board so there's also little additional knowledge needed. It's not as complicated as it seems.
@@alexeytereshonok Cool to know! Thanks!
reruns zzzzzz
my guy chris showing love to our lord and savior Jesus Christ love to see it
yes, he's showing love to absurd greek mythology.
Green Day sucks, but Chris is a legend.
Dude is amazing, Green day...not so much
Best live band ever and it's not even close
@@battmarn AHAHAHAHAHAHA
Wow thank you for that laugh.
How many hit songs and platinum records you got?… that’s what I thought.
@@0101-g3q Yeah that’s true too.