Chris Lord-Alge, aka CLA, must be one of the most recognisable figures in the world of music production. His confident, concise mixing style has graced countless hit records, seen him win multiple Grammys and earned the respect of his peers. Something very important to CLA’s ‘sound’ is his use of compression, and if you look at images of his Mix LA studio, you can’t fail to notice his enviable selection of outboard compressors. Among these, he has several of the ‘Blue Stripe’ versions of the UA 1176 FET limiting amplifier. These ‘Blue Stripe’ compressors were the earliest ‘revisions’ of the famous Universal Audio 1176 — head to UA’s website for more detail on the different revisions: www.uaudio.com/blog/1176-la2a-hardware-revision-history. CLA favours one particular unit, which he feels exhibits a little more ‘mojo’ than the others and which he estimates has been used on over 14,000 vocal recordings!