Kings of Chaos, a super band consisting of members of arena rock groups Guns N’ Roses, Collective Soul, Deep Purple and Velvet Revolver visited South African shores recently to deliver an otherwise once-off collaborative concert, helped in no small part by their touring FOH engineer and Production Manager, Eddie “el Brujo’ Caipo.
Peruvian and therefore Spanish-speaking by birth, ’el Brujo” translates to ’the Sorcerer”, a fitting pseudonym for a man with a big smile, a twinkle in his eye and a sensibility for BIG, magical sound. Throughout his career, Eddie has worked with such top names as Enrique Iglesias, Smash Mouth and Tears for Fears and is a veteran of the industry not only in the live sound arena but in studio work as well. Pro Systems journalist Greg Bester caught up with Eddie in the Super Bowl at Sun City to find out more.
There isn’t a lot of information online about you, Eddie, but I did see that you’re from Lima, Peru. How did a young man from Lima get into doing sound for top acts?
Everyone in my dad’s family are musicians. He owned a night club restaurant and there were always like five or six acts a night so I was the guy in charge of sound. Also any time he had gigs anywhere else I would do sound, back when there were still knobs instead of faders! So that’s kind of what I did. I have cousins that are artists, engineers and producers in Peru as well as my brother producer/songwriter/drummer Juan Caipo in San Francisco. I just followed the same path.
When did you move to the United States?
Well, I was born in Los Angeles but when I was five years old my parents moved us back to Peru. Then I came back to the States when I was 18. I started working for a jingle house doing jingles and voiceovers for the Latin market and that was around 1991.
So you’ve been a professional sound engineer since then?
Yeah, I was doing mostly studio stuff back then but later when I moved to San Francisco I started doing sound at famous venues there like Slims, Paradise Lounge, Yoshi’s, the Fillmore, etc; just working the club scene at night and doing studio stuff during the day.
They call you ’el Brujo”, which means ’the Sorcerer”. Why do they call you that?
I was in a band with my brother and my cousin. Before I was in the band I was their sound engineer and of course back then they were just starting out so they were playing in really crappy bars and the sound was really bad. Sometimes they couldn’t even get it to work. So they would always ask me to help them with that and it didn’t matter how bad the PA was, or how badly wired it was, I would somehow make it work. The singer gave me the nickname ’el Brujo”. He said: “You’re like a warlock!’ It just kind of stuck and when credits came around people started using it.
You have album credits on allmusic.com for El Rey, Avance, Cell Block Five, Conga Club and Skull Funk Tribe. Have you worked on a lot of Latin music in the past?
Yeah, as far as the records go, a lot of them are Mexican punk rock, funk, metal and ska records. At one point I was producing every Spanish rock band in the Bay area in San Francisco. I was kind of like the go-to guy for that.
So it wasn’t like the more traditional Buena Vista Social Club-type of Latin jazz?
No, I was more on the rock/alternative side but I have done records like that. That’s something that I really like and I’m really happy to have worked in a lot of genres. I did do a record with Karl Perazzo and Raul Rekow from Santana. That was an amazing experience, recording and mixing two of the best percussionist in the world.
So making the transition to King of Chaos was quite easy for you in terms of the rock approach?
Oh yeah, I’ve always done all kinds of music. Like I was saying earlier, doing the club scene and working the Bay area in Berkley Square, which was another place, you really get your feet wet a lot because it’s like four bands a night, always with different backline. One day it could be all death metal, the next day it could be all punk rock, the next day it’s pop or Latin, etc, which made me find good things about all styles of music. Music is music, after all. I’m very lucky to be able to handle all styles.
Do you play an instrument?
I play a little of everything but I always like to play percussion.
Do you think it’s important to have a musical ear in order to be a good engineer?
Absolutely, I think it’s very important. If I had to choose a guy to sub for me, I would go for the musical guy as opposed to a guy who’s purely technical. Of course you have to have the technical knowledge but ultimately the people listening to it don’t know about that. So if it’s pleasant to them they’ll go: “The band was great!’ So I would say you have to be musical when you mix. It’s not always a technical problem. Sometimes it’s just a balance issue. I think having a musical background has helped me a lot and I think it would help any engineer, even if it’s a love for music or knowing the differences between the instruments. Everything starts at the source so therefore it’s very useful to know what an instrument is supposed to sound like.
So you would say the technical aspects are incidental to purveying the music?
Yes, absolutely.
I noticed that a lot of your subs are flown. Is that something you usually do?
No. I don’t normally but that’s just kind of how this setup came about. I have mixed experiences when the subs are flown. They actually just brought me more today because we were having issues with covering holes so now we’ve got 20-something subs strewn all over the place not for volume but for coverage. Plus, those flown subs are part of the PA.
I noticed the PA is a d&b J series. Is that your go-to PA?
No, I’m usually an L-Acoustics guy. I love the V-Dosc and K1 systems but I like d&b too. In Cape Town they provided a Vertec system, which is very good for rock. d&b is a bit smoother so you have to push it a little bit more.
I’ve heard through the grapevine that you’re a big Avid VENUE guy. You spec them for FOH and monitors on all your shows. However, I’ve seen on some of your pictures that you’re standing in front of big analogue consoles. Do you miss those days?
No, not really. Those were old pictures and I was probably thinner, too (laughs). Analogue consoles are amazing but to be honest I don’t miss them too much. What we’re able to do with digital consoles today is pretty amazing. My preference has always been the VENUE Profile, pretty much since they came out.
What about the VENUE consoles drew you to them?
The flexibility, the sound and of course the biggest thing, which most people say, is the fact that you can use your plugins. Coming from the recording world, that’s a big thing. The fact that I can use my favourite processors without lugging around racks and racks of gear is great. All the good stuff that digital consoles bring; Avid is just really good at that. It’s also super stable. I did a tour with Julio Iglesias a few years ago in Syria where it was about 120 degrees outdoors and it was flawless. It didn’t even budge.
What are some of your favourite plugins?
I like the Bomb Factory 1176 and the Fairchild emulations. I like the SSL bundle as well, especially with Enrique. He likes the compression on his vocals. I like the Waves C6 multiband as well. I try to use the stock stuff a lot of the times for when we’re travelling to keep show file compatibility consistent. We use the Crane Song Phoenix tape saturation a lot and I often ask for the Eventide Harmonizer stuff for doubles.
You have a fantastic drum sound and your kick drum is fat and present without getting in your ear. How do you process your drums?
I have two stereo sub-groups where I apply parallel compression. On one I have the Avid Smack! plugin doing some heavy squashing on the Opto setting and the other one is wide open so the blend of that makes the drums sound in your face. However I do have separate processing that do at the channel level, but just with the on-board stuff. As far as the kick goes, I’ve put a lot of top on the kick for metal but this is hard rock so it doesn’t really apply here. I also go for more of the mid part of it like around 1kHz to 2.5kHz. There’s a bit of top end on the kick too but just enough to get clarity. Of course, we have two mics on each kick drum.
What mics are you using for the drums?
There’s a SM91 and D12V on each kick. Matt Sorum is endorsed by AKG so all the mics are AKG except for the snare where I’m using a Beta57 on top and an SM57 underneath. I was pleasantly surprised with the tom mics, which are AKG C518M. I used to dislike the previous model but this new model is pretty good. Great top end and the new mounts are way superior than the previous version. For overheads we used AKG 414XLII. I really like them. It allows me to use them in any form. Sometimes I used them for the whole kit and sometimes just for cymbals and with the pattern options it makes it an easy choice for me.
What about guitars?
I’m using Shure SM57s and KSM32s. I like to put them together on one speaker. I listen to the cabinet until I find a good spot and then I put them together until the phase is correct. Sometimes I’ll pan them or sometimes I’ll be crazy and delay one of them, depending on the situation. It just allows me to separate and manipulate the guitars without EQing.
The bass guitar is quite growly and distorted for the most part. How are you handling that?
He’s got a pedal. He’s also a hard hitter so the way I route the bass is, I go from the bass to the DI, from the DI to the pedal and from the pedal to the amp. That way I have one clean sound and a distorted sound coming from the amp, which is mic’ed. It allows me to balance it depending on what the song requires.
What do you do on your time off?
I play video games (laughs)! Call of Duty: Black Ops 2 is my favourite while on the road. Also, hanging with the family and getting some quality time with them is also important to me. And maybe having a glass of Scotch.
Being from Peru, have you ever been to Nazca?
I never made it to Nazca or Cuzco. I’m actually planning a trip for the family to go to there so I’m looking forward to that.
