Lashkara 2013

Over the weekend, we mixed for Lashkara 2013 – a fundraiser for the Children’s Wish Foundation which raised more than $14,000 for the foundation!

Elisha Jackson, pictured left, is a fundraising coordinator for the Children’s Wish Foundation. She says, “This is the first event like this that the Children’s Wish Foundation has been a part of in Alberta and the Northwest Territories.”

The audio was a bit tricky to deal with for this event, as there were a few people switching microphones and there were so many bodies in the room. The trouble with artists and speakers switching microphones is that we have to adjust the volumes and gains to each speaker – and their confidence with the mic. Considering this challenge, our on-site sound technician says this vocals are always the toughest.

“You can only add so much gain,” James says. So we’d tested the threshold during soundcheck to see what may cause future feedback – such as the microphones being too close to the monitors, the gain being too high, or having to scoop out certain higher frequencies.

We were also able to mic a few other instruments – such as a harmonium, pakhawaj, and a few other percussion instruments.

The challenge with mic’ing instruments like the pakhawaj is that the attack of the instrument is so strong, but there are also the resonating low-to-mid frequencies. So we’d scooped out the high-to-mid frequencies, yet were careful to include the booming lower frequencies.

We’d also stopped to interview a young videographer, 12-year-old Simran Ghotra, who was controlling the centre-stage videocamera at times. He’d politely asked us if he could run audio from our mixer, which we were certainly able to help out with. Their power cable was two feet shy of reaching the wall in a high traffic area, so we’d also provided two power bars we’d had handy to reach the outlet – then used gaff tape to hold them down, with red tape on top to bring attention to it as a potential hazard. Nobody tripped, and we were able to hide the power cord under people’s seats as well.

Asking him if there was any song that sent shivers down his spine, he’d responded with one of the toughest answers I’d heard yet. “There is no song that sends shivers down my spine,” Simran says.

Another challenge we’d faced was balancing the intensity of the lights – there’s certainly a fine line between allowing folks in the audience to see, and burning the retinas of the performers. After a few songs, we’d realized that with the equipment specified for the event wasn’t ideal – so worked with the coordinators to get side lights turned on. We could then lower the intensity of the lights on the performers, and the audience in the back was able to see.

Overall, it was a great event with plenty of dancing and donating. We were proud to be a part of the success of the event, and wish the best to Children’s Wish Foundation and the hard-working organizers who put it all together.