Alexander Tumay (born July 19, 1986) is an American audio engineer and DJ from Atlanta, Georgia. He has recorded and mixed songs for major artists across the American hip hop industry, including Young Thug, Travis Scott, Future, Kanye West, Drake, and 21 Savage. He won a Grammy award for engineering the track "This is America" by Childish Gambino.
Alex Tumay | |
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| Birth name | Alexander Tumay |
| Born | July 19, 1986 Queens, New York |
| Origin | Atlanta, Georgia |
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| Years active | 2010–present |
| Labels | That Sounds Better |
| Website | http://www.alextumay.com |
Early life
editAlexander Tumay was born on July 19, 1986, in Queens, New York City, New York. He is of Armenian and Puerto Rican descent. He was raised in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, for most of his teen years. He learned to play piano and guitar growing up, as Tumay's father is a classical pianist, which influenced him to do so. He also listened to hip hop and heavy metal. He was in his high school's band and in small garage bands.[2]
Tumay struggled to find a college major that met his desires, ultimately switching between eight or nine majors before dropping out. He then worked various restaurant jobs, including as a pizza delivery driver for Domino's Pizza.[3] A friend introduced him to Logic Pro, a digital audio workstation program, sparking his interest, though he initially struggled to understand how to use it. This experience inspired him to enroll in Full Sail University in Winter Park, Florida, just a month later, to study audio engineering. Tumay graduated from the Full Sail in 2010 with a bachelor's degree in recording arts, and then scored an internship at Maze Studios in Atlanta, Georgia, to where he later relocated, and worked frequently with another record producer, Ben H. Allen, who taught Tumay more about recording and mixing for an additional three years. He also assisted Allen on projects for the experimental pop band Animal Collective and experimental musician Youth Lagoon, before fully going into working in the hip hop genre.[2][4]
Career
editTumay visited many recording studios around Atlanta with his résumé looking for another internship, and got one as a technician at DARP Studios (later renamed as UAMG Studios) through his manager, Monica Tannian, due to his work with Allen. As he was in DARP Studios often, he got the opportunity to work with major artists such as T.I., Waka Flocka Flame, PartyNextDoor, and Tinashe, among others. In 2012, he met Metro Boomin at UAMG Studios, which lead to Tumay working with more artists and record producers such as Young Thug, Rich Homie Quan, Migos, DJ Spinz, Southside, TM88, 808 Mafia, Sonny Digital, and many more.[4]
Tumay is Young Thug's personal and most trusted recording and mixing engineer.[according to whom?] He met Thug in early 2013, and the first song they worked together on was "Some More" from Metro Boomin's debut mixtape 19 & Boomin' , on which he also mixed most of the songs and executive produced it. Metro approached Tumay and asked him to record that song due to Thug having issues with his former recording and mixing engineer, whom Thug removed from that studio session.[5] Tumay has been working with Thug closely ever since, as well with Metro Boomin and more recently, 21 Savage, for which Tumay recently recorded and mixed their debut EP, Savage Mode.[6][7][8]
Selected engineering discography
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References
edit- ^ "Blogger: User Profile: Alexander Tumay".
- ^ a b "How Engineer Alex Tumay Turned Young Thug's Entire Year Around". Complex Networks.
- ^ "alex tumay on Twitter".
- ^ a b "This Is What It's Like To Make A Young Thug Mixtape".
- ^ "This is What It's Like to Engineer for Young Thug". May 31, 2023.
- ^ "Engineer Alex Tumay on Channeling Young Thug's Creative Process – Mass Appeal". November 20, 2015. Archived from the original on September 15, 2016. Retrieved September 10, 2016.
- ^ "Young Thug Is Terrifyingly Quick in the Studio". November 11, 2015. Archived from the original on September 21, 2016. Retrieved September 10, 2016.
- ^ Richards, Chris (September 12, 2014). "The real rap stars of Atlanta: A new generation of producers working at the speed of sound" – via washingtonpost.com.
External links
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