Firehouse "Eases on Down the Road" with Yamaha CL Digital Audio Consoles

	Dan Gerhard and asst. dialog mixer, Ellen Fitton

For the third year in a row, Firehouse Productions (NY) has provided audio production for the NBC December live events of The Sound of Music, Peter Pan, and this year, The Wiz. With a celebrity-heavy ensemble, including Queen Latifah (the Wiz), Mary J. Blige (the Wicked Witch of the West), Uzo Aduba (Good Witch Glinda), Common (Emerald City's gatekeeper), Ne Yo as the Tin Man, Elijah Kelley as the Scarecrow, and David Alan Grier (the Cowardly Lion), this year's production again included three CL5 Digital Audio Consoles, each utilizing two Rio3224-D input/output racks.

"The CL5s worked great," says Mark Dittmar, Firehouse Productions, who functioned as the audio producer for the show. "The reason we decided to use the CL consoles again this year is because The Wiz was a major live performance on TV, and the reliability of Yamaha consoles is legendary. The built-in Dugan auto mix and array of premium plug ins, means we need no outboard gear at all."

Dittmar says the set up of each CL was identical, all using 56 inputs. The monitor CL console used 24 outputs and the two CLs used for dialog used 12 outputs. All of the Rio racks were connected via DANTE, but for added redundancy they used three separate networks. Dan Gerhard engineered the dialog mix, Charles Vorce handled the RF pre-listen, and Erik VonRanson mixed monitors.

Firehouse provided all audio gear required for the production of The Wiz including the Monitor System and IEMs, 44 RF mics, 160 speaker actors call system, and a Riedel Intercom System.