The Feat Of FireAid, Part 2: Streaming To The World

Don’t miss Part 1, focusing on the live sound of FireAid!

Los Angeles, CA (March 11, 2025)—The first that Scott Pederson, Nashville-based president of Remote Production Group, heard about FireAid was when RPG mixer and producer Tom Davis received a call from the show’s executive producer, Joel Gallen, just a few days after the fires broke out. At the same time, RPG’s John Harris, an A-list music mixer, was learning about the show from Emily Wolfe, executive in charge of production.

Artist representative Irving Azoff, his wife, Shelli, and their family, together with production partner Live Nation, were proposing an all-star benefit concert in Los Angeles on January 30 to support the thousands made homeless by the wildfires and help rebuild their devastated communities. Steve Ballmer, owner of the NBA’s L.A. Clippers, was onboard to host the event at his venues, the Kia Forum and the Intuit Dome. Gallen, founder of L.A.-based production company Tenth Planet and a veteran of live music events such as the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony and the Taylor Hawkins Tribute Concert in London, had been tapped to oversee the production.

“January 10 was the night that we started talking about it in earnest,” barely three weeks ahead of the event, Pederson recalled. “We started putting together a package of two trucks that we thought was going to be enough to support the show. We ended up adding another truck a week prior to the show, which came from TNDV; Rob [Devlin, TNDV president] was kind enough to send it.”

By show day, the list of FireAid artists, the majority of whom had L.A. connections, numbered more than 30, split between the two neighboring venues. Twenty-eight platforms, including Apple TV, Max, Paramount+, Spotify and YouTube signed up to stream the six-hour show live.

RPG assigned its Gemini truck to the Forum, where the likes of Anderson .Paak, John Mayer, Dawes, Graham Nash, Green Day, John Fogerty, Joni Mitchell, No Doubt, Pink, Stephen Stills and The Black Crowes were scheduled to perform. Uniquely, the 50-foot Gemini mobile unit houses two identically configured mix rooms, each equipped with a 56-fader Lawo mc²96 console, two 192-track Pro Tools HDX 3 recorders and a Genelec 7.1.4 Dolby Atmos monitor system. A total of 336 Lawo microphone preamps are available.

“After a few conversations between ourselves, we agreed that the smoothest way to execute with the least chance of error would be to ask [mixer] Bob Clearmountain if he was willing to walk between the rooms,” Pederson said. “We would have an engineer in front of him prepping and doing line checks on the side of the turntable stage that wasn’t active. That same A2 could be in the room to assist, along with Bob’s assistant, Ira Becker, who was incredible.”

There was also a Pro Tools operator in each room, he noted. During rehearsals, as the production tempo dictated, then on the show, Clearmountain and Becker could move between the rooms as the stage setup changed, joined by artist representatives. Having to walk no more than 40 feet between the two mix rooms—which are separated by a machine and patch room—during the stage changeovers was helpful, Clearmountain said: “The Gemini truck is amazing, especially for this show, because the turnarounds were quick, just a few minutes between sets. I would get up, walk through this little door, and there I was in the other control room.”

Clearmountain and his wife, Betty Bennett, founder and CEO of Apogee Electronics, were among the many who lost their homes in the recent fires. His Mix This! studio in their house in the Pacific Palisades was equipped with a customized SSL 4000G+ analog console. His mix room at Apogee, which is not far from the house but thankfully escaped the fires, features a vintage Neve 8068. One might imagine that there would be a learning curve for someone so used to working on analog desks when faced with a digital worksurface, but Clearmountain has had plenty of experience with Lawo consoles mixing for Saturday Night Live at NBC and in Music Mix Mobile’s trucks at events such as the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. That said, Gemini’s Lawo consoles were the biggest model he had worked on to date. “It’s deeper and has five auxes on every channel, so that made it a little quicker to get around,” he noted.

Further easing the transition from analog to digital surface, Becker added, “The thought was, ‘Let’s see if we can make it as much of an analog console as we can, and not have lots of layers and banks.’ I think there were just two acts where we had to have another layer. From my experience working with Bob, I know how he likes the console set up, so we tried to mimic that. The RPG guys were great; they gave us a quick tutorial—me, especially, because I needed it—then we worked together on setting it up before the show, tested it in soundcheck and it was great.”

Although Gemini’s consoles were integrated with Waves and UAD plug-in servers, Clearmountain said, “I just used the onboard processing. It was such a complicated show that I just wanted to keep it as simple as possible.”

Two hours into FireAid, the show began switching back and forth with the Intuit Dome, where RPG positioned the group’s single-control-room unit, Orion, alongside TNDV’s Vibration mobile unit at the venue. “Bob Wartinbee was the EIC [engineerin- charge] and Biff Dawes was mixing, and we had experienced Pro Tools op Fernanda Starling and A2 Bill Mims, who Bob supplied from his local L.A. talent pool,” Pederson said “EIC J.J. Hacker came with Vibration, and Tenth Planet selected Carl Glanville to be the mix engineer. He did a bang-up job; it sounded amazing.”

With much of L.A.’s audio talent busy at the Grammy Awards setup, Dennis Breckey (EIC), Zak Denham (Pro Tools), Mark Duvall (EIC), Sam Haiman (truck A2), Rob Macomber (Gemini master), Jamie Macomber (Pro Tools), and Jonny Masenna (truck A2) were brought in from back East to round out the audio crew. Tom Davis (Kia Forum) and Paul Wittman (Intuit Dome) sat in the production A1 seats in All Mobile Video’s Epic and Sterling TV trucks.

Ultimately, the hard work of all involved paid off as FireAid was a massive success, raising millions of dollars for those in need. While the show itself is over, it will continue to make an impact as it streams on multiple services, raising additional money for recovery efforts. Donations are still being accepted at FireAidLA.org.