Without contradicting himself in the least, FOH engineer Jason M. Tarulli describes how his job is not hard, yet is difficult at the same time. The Black Keys are a two-piece band that’s a four-piece, and at the end of the day can take up to 60 inputs.
But mostly, when talking to Tarulli, you get another contradiction of sorts: On the one hand, he was in the right place at the right time in Ohio when the band was playing small clubs; on the other, when he got that call to hit the road with them, he watched the band ride their meteoric rise to superstardom.
“I haven’t seen anything but arenas for the last eight months now,” Tarulli sighs. “For me, that’s been a learning curve going from small and medium clubs to two sold-out nights at Madison Square Garden. It’s just unfathomable how it’s progressed!”
A Good Kind of Falling
Tarulli’s rise to such an envious spot started uneventfully. “I kind of fell into this,” he shrugs, noting that he had no trade school training, but rather started working for friends’ bands around his home town in Akron, Ohio. A friend owned a club and he started mixing there a couple of nights a week, and that led to mixing at other clubs in the region. Naturally, he crossed paths with fellow Akron boys Dan Auerbach and Patrick Carney. “I ran into Dan and Pat along the way and worked with them locally. Fast forward a couple years later, and I got a call from them to go on the road. Of course, I jumped on the opportunity!”
File this under trial by fire: his first official large-scale gig was when the Black Keys were opening for My Morning Jacket at the notoriously challenging Red Rocks Amphitheatre outside Denver. “I went from mixing small clubs to that — a sell-out crowd of 10,000. I had no idea what I was doing…I guess I did okay, because I’ve been with them ever since!”
The gear he used at first was not ready for prime time. “It was terrible in the beginning. We had a lot of things that at any certain gig would or would not work. We had boards made in the 1990s, and weird off-brands from the 1980s.” But four years later there has been an evolution. He got better because of the mix of gear he was using, which was either low-level club gear or whatever was coughed up by the lowest-bidding/barely-meeting-the-rider local sound company. But it was all “good to cut my teeth on” and when the time came for him to make some choices, he was more than ready.
Going First Class, Gear-Wise
“We did a tour through Canada where I used a different console, and we had no problems,” he says. “But then we did have a chance to A-B it with a DiGiCo SD10 and that sounded better to me. It was clearer, had more headroom. We put in a few Wave plug-ins and everything is real simple. We rarely had issues, except occasional software things but [DiGiCo’s people] were on point to help me with anything right away.”
To put it all out for the audience to hear, the Black Keys went with a PA package from d&b audiotechnik. There are J8s for the side fills and J12s for the Mains. “Then we use J Subs, B2 Subs, and Q10s for the front fills along with their amplifiers.” He adds that a Dolby-Lake processor and Rational Acoustics’ SMAART are in the toolbox as well.
The band has an endorsement deal with Shure, so in addition to lots of SM57s and SM81s, the mic setup includes an Audix D6 on the kick drum with a Shure Beta 91 inside it. Plus there’s a few Sennheiser 421s on the bass cabinets and one of the guitar cabinets.
Tarulli laughs when asked if it’s safe to assume that mixing two guys is simple. “We use between 40 to 60 inputs!” For the current tour, they brought on a bass player and a keyboardist. But considering how Auerbach likes to go through four different guitar amps at the same time, he burns through inputs pretty quickly. “It’s simple in some ways, but there’s a lot going on.” A key to the guitar sound is a Palmer The Junction PDI-09 passive filtered direct box out of the guitar amps.
“The Black Keys are fairly consistent as a band, doing basically the same set every night, so the challenges come in the details and making it as good as it can possibly be in whatever venue we’re in that night,” he says. “The guitar sound is key, and with eight inputs [total] it sounds good. Best of all, since they are nice guys, they are willing to spend the time they need to sound the way they want. And they will let you know if something is off.”
Otherwise, there’s the common challenge of different venues with wildly different acoustics. He gives credit to sound tech Chez Stock who works through Eighth Day Sound. “She does a great job. She’s been with us about a year and comes through every night.”
Tarulli was finishing up a section of the tour, taking a short break before an appearance on the MTV Movie Awards then off to a summer of festivals including Lollapalooza. The group is doing plenty of TV gigs, and the band likes Tarulli to at least be in the control room. “We work with the studio engineer, and I spend time in the booth just making sure we get what we’re looking for. When we were in Europe, sometimes [the television producer] would just set me in front of the board.”
He’s glad to have monitor engineer Fabian Quiroga as a regular. “We just picked him up about a year ago through Eighth Day, and he’s doing a good job.” For years when they were more on a budget they would use the local guy, “but it got to the point where we could stretch out and hire him, and all of us appreciate the consistency he brings.”
“It’s a Great Gig.”
Quiroga was born and raised in Colombia, and arrived stateside when he was 13. He immediately started doing music and sound for his church and then studied music at North Park University in Chicago. He worked with different bands and did jingles and commercials in the studios. He’s had a diverse background — including handling sound for the Harlem Globetrotters and Ringling Brothers Circus.
“It’s a great gig,” Quiroga says of The Black Keys. “The music is the main thing for these guys, and there’s nothing better than mixing music you enjoy.”
Naturally, the monitor mix is drum- and guitar-centric. Yet Quiroga notes that, with their recent album and now the tour, their taste has changed a bit and they want to hear a different mix. “Now there are harmonies, keyboards, bass… my job is creating a balance on stage. Pat [Carney] will beat the crap out of the drums every night, and there’s so much energy coming from that. [Keyboard player] John [Wood] is a quiet guy, so that’s different. And it’s a challenge to know what the guys like to hear and how to compensate in whatever space we’re in. For example, in Europe, sometimes we’d be on a six-foot stage and sometimes a 22-foot one!”
The band members rely mostly on traditional monitors, with plenty of wedges and side fills. But they also have Ultimate Ear 18s and Shure PSM. For the in-ears, “they only pop them in their ears when they sing harmony.”
Quiroga mixes on a DiGiCo SD8. “My first one with them was [another digital board], which I didn’t like so much because it was so big, and I didn’t get that warm analog feel. The DiGiCo is a really good board and I love getting around it.”
At the end of the day for both, the trick is representing the duo’s guitar/drums sound with the additional two musicians on tour with them. “It’s always going to be Dan and Pat — they are the band so they are the focus,” says Tarulli. “It’s an unusual balancing act because you bring the drums up front, so they are especially powerful and lock with the guitar. They want to be as loyal to the albums as possible.”
Gear
FOH Console: DiGiCo SD10 with WAVES Rack
MON Console: DiGiCo SD8
Main PA: d&b audiotechnik J8 side fills, J12 mains, J subs, B2 subs, Q10 front fills, d&b audiotechnik amplifiers, Dolby-Lake processor, Rational Acoustics SMAART
Monitors: d&b audiotechnik M2 wedges, Q10 side fills, B2 subs, C7 drum fills, d&b audiotechnik amplifiers, Dolby-Lake processor, Rational Acoustics SMAART
IEMs: Shure PSM, Ultimate Ears UE-18
Mics: Shure SM57 (guitars, snare top, key amp); Beta 57(snare bottom), Beta 58 (backing vocals), Beta 56 (percussion), SM58 (main vocal), SM81 (drum overheads), Beta 91 (kick), SM7 (guitar); Audix D6 (kick); Sennheiser MD 421 (guitar and bass), 904 (toms)
DIs: Palmer PD I09 (guitars), PDI CTC (bass guitar), PG A05 (guitar); Radial Pro D8 (keyboards)
Multitrack: Apple MacBook Pro, Cockos Reaper DAW software, RME MADIface
