Alongside lecturing in audio at the University of Wisconsin, being a board member of the Chicago chapter of The Recording Academy, Audrey Martinovich is a member of its Producers & Engineers Wing, an active member of the Audio Engineering Society and an advocate for the SoundGirls organisation. Martinovich also is co-owner at Audio for the Arts, a recording studio in Madison, Wisconsin, where she serves as audio engineer and music producer.
Martinovich aspired to be an opera vocalist singer whan her interest in audio intervened. ‘I discovered that I had this very deep interest in how to make things sound good and how to translate what I might hear in my head to what we could hear then with our ears,’ she recalls. ‘In the audio programme, I was usually the only woman in all of my classes, and that gave me the drive to excel. I took it very seriously and looked around for studios around Madison that might have internship opportunities.
‘I came across Audio for the Arts, one of the only studios that really specialised in classical music and acoustic music, which aligned with my interests and expertise. I started at the studio as an unpaid intern and then eventually worked my way up to being a full-time engineer and one of the owners.’
In part due to the studio’s niche in the classical world, Audio for the Arts has since become a go-to remote recording service, often venturing outside the studio to record orchestras, chamber ensembles, classical voice recitals and jazz performances, all the way to stand-up comedy sets, live theatre and lectures.
Among Martinovich’s go-to tools are the Focusrite Clarett+ 8Pre 18-input/20-output audio interface and Scarlett 2i2 2-input/2-output interface. Both are key to how she approaches on-site remote recording.
‘The Scarlett 2i2, in particular, you can just throw in a bag with your laptop and a few mics, and I have all I need for lots of these gigs. They’re just plug-and-play. And the 8Pre isn’t quite as small, but it’s still plenty portable. I set up wherever the gig takes me, set up however many mics we need for the gig, and just record directly onto my laptop. And sometimes those recordings end up on commercially available albums. Fundamentally I’m able to deliver a release level of recording quality with a very small, convenient, portable set-up.
‘The 2i2s often get used in an audio feed for something being livestreamed, whether in the studio or out on location. I’m able to give a stereo feed to the video engineer, and the audio and video get matched up easily and go out to the world with no fuss at all. At University of Wisconsin, they are in the process of equipping their audio lab with a whole arsenal of those, at my encouragement. The students are going to love that development.’
She first encountered Focusrite as an audio student and found it highly useful, reliable. ‘The ease of use is why it’s particularly easy to introduce Focusrite interfaces to students without overwhelming them. Furthermore, the sound of Focusrite mic preamps is definitely something that keeps me coming back. It’s transparent, clean and accurate, but warm. Other brands might give you some harshness or noise floor issues, but never with Focusrite.’
More: https://focusriteplc.com
