Tools of the Trade: Leapwing co-founder talks new ventures

Two-time Latin Grammy nominated mix and recording engineer, Emiliano Caballero recently joined Headliner on a Zoom from his home in L.A. to discuss bridging the musical gap between Latin and US artists in his production work, and his role managing artist relations as one of the co-founders of elite plugin developer, Leapwing Audio.

Could you start by telling us about your background in music?

I was born in Montevideo and was then brought up and raised in Spain, playing guitar from the age of maybe 10 or 12 years old. I started off writing songs, forming my first band when I was 16 and releasing my first studio album when I was 19. I wanted to get into music production, and started looking for internships in recording studios, eventually landing one at Galaxy Studios in Belgium.

How did you first meet the other co-founders of Leapwing?

When I started as an intern at Galaxy in 2012, Robin was working there at the time, and Jeroen was working on Auro Technologies there. After a few years working there, I moved to the USA in the Christmas of 2015 to start working as Michael Brauer’s assistant at Electric Lady Studios in New York. It was during that time period when Leapwing was founded.

Tell us more about your role at the company.

I’m in charge of artist relations, where I connect with other creatives, and build a community around our values. Since I arrived here in the US I became a friend of Al Schmitt. He was one of my mentors, and would often invite me to Capitol to just sit with him – to learn and spend time together. We had a lot of respect for each other as engineers and as friends, and out of that friendship our first signature plugin was born.

That’s one of the proudest things I’ve done in my career, and I am so humbled that I was able to spend time with Al.

What do you think makes Leapwing’s products unique to the plugin market?

Besides Leapwing, I am a musician, producer and engineer. The same goes for Jeroen and Robin. It’s important for us to be able to put ourselves in our customer’s shoes, because essentially, we are the customer!

Could you describe your creative process in the studio?

The only rule that I apply to myself is to enjoy the process, and really have fun doing it, because otherwise there’s no point. It’s all about experimenting, and throwing everything you know out of the window to see if you can come up with something new. Every project is different, but every project presents an opportunity for one to reinvent and rediscover. If I record drums without ever trying anything new, I will not surprise myself and create happy accidents.

What are you working on at the moment?

One of the main things I’m focusing on right now is finishing the new album for my artist project ‘Zelmar’. It’s alternative music in Spanish language – electric and bass guitars, drums, Juno and Prophet synths. I play all the instruments and write all the songs, and when I perform it’s set up like a band. I’m an old school kind of guy! My first single Mi Sustento just got released, and there is one song out every month until summer and then I’m going touring in Spain doing some festivals.

Regarding production and mixing projects for clients, at the moment I’m working with a great Colombian artist called Angel Bleu, making some urban Latin pop with her which is fun.

I also just did a Netflix soundtrack recording for a new movie called Rustin; it’s made by Barack and Michelle Obama’s production company and it’s about the civil rights movement in the ‘60s. I’ve recorded a couple of the title tracks on the soundtrack for that which has been cool, because I do love film scoring.

More recently, I became the co-author of Modern Recording Techniques. We just finished the 10th edition with the author and my dear friend David Miles Huber. So there’s been lots of things keeping me busy at the moment!