Hi-Res Records Launches With Focus On Analog Recording

When producer and engineer Matt Linesch (Edward Sharpe & the Magnetic Zeros, Lauren Ruth Ward, Mika) purchased the studio beside David Swartz’s California Classic Guitar in Sherman Oaks, CA, 5 years in the past he had no plans to enter enterprise along with his neighbor, however that’s precisely what occurred. Swartz, whose retailer has been a mainstay in the neighborhood for greater than 20 years, and Linesch immediately bonded over their mutual love of drugs and high quality recording. That kinship grew to become the inspiration of analog-focused label, Hello-Res Data.

The pair met Calling Cadence’s Oscar Bugarin at California Classic Guitar the place the singer was enjoying guitar. Impressed at his expertise and songwriting accomplice Rae Cole, the music business veterans teamed as much as produce the band at Linesch’s Infinitespin Studios subsequent door. Calling Cadence’s self-titled debut, out there as we speak, was recorded, combined and mastered straight to analog tape on the studio. Computer systems had been solely used for streaming prep and CD replication.

On the spot followers of Calling Cadence’s expertise and eager to get the band’s music to the lots, Linesch and Swartz brainstormed the concept of a label that targeted solely on analog recording. With the world shut down as a result of Covid-19, the boys determined to place a group in place to launch the music themselves.

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“It wasn’t only a manufacturing deal, it wasn’t only a glorified demo, this was going to be one thing totally different and particular,” Swartz tells me of signing Calling Cadence as Hello-Res’ first act. “With the know-how and with the Web giving individuals the facility to distribute and get issues out [we decided], ‘Let’s go forward and put a group collectively and get this factor going.’”

Earlier than the concept of a label got here collectively, Linesch and Swartz determined that Calling Cadence was going to be an analog undertaking as a result of “it served the music,” Swartz says. “On this context, in a creative sense, the undertaking lent itself to it and analog offered one thing that digital would not have.”

Linesch notes that recording in analog saved the file trustworthy. “It is clearly capturing a second,” he says. “The analog recording actually captures that vitality a lot in a different way than if we had pieced it altogether within the digital world.”

Linesch assembled the musicians to play on the undertaking, largely associates and former shoppers, whereas Swartz locked in Elusive Disc, Inc. as a distributor. They discovered a radio rep, employed a advertising group and publicist, and with the distributor as the ultimate piece of the puzzle, Hello-Res’ label group was in place.

The preliminary objective for Hello-Res was to be an imprint of a significant, Swartz says. Whereas that hasn’t occurred fairly but, he hopes the label turns into a tastemaker and helps different artists embrace analog. The pair are already trying to signal one other act, however proper now their focus is on Calling Cadence and sharing the advantages of analog recording.

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“It is nonetheless a superior high quality so far as content material of the sound itself,” Linesch says. “Dave and I are noticing when individuals hear the merchandise, hear the songs, hear the expertise, it actually stands aside. It has a power to it, and you actually join emotionally with it, and I believe plenty of that’s the skill to take time on a manufacturing and take time constructing a profession.”

Provides Swartz: “We did it as a result of it served the music. We may have achieved this digitally, however it will have sounded and felt totally different.”

Each Linesch and Swartz say launching a label in a pandemic was a blessing. When the world shut down, they had been mixing Calling Cadence’s file. The added down time helped the boys lay the inspiration for the corporate and make selections on the label with no outdoors distractions.

Swartz says there was no strain to create or end the file. The most important problem, nonetheless, was the unknown. The boys had the instruments to finalize the undertaking and market the expertise however on the time couldn’t predict the way forward for music in a post-Covid world.

Now, the pair is able to see what the remainder of the world has to say about Calling Cadence with the label’s first launch.

“We’re taking a shot and placing this factor out,” Swartz says. “I believe there’s a place for it on the planet and for individuals to get enjoyment out of it. We consider within the music.”

Provides Linesch: “We do not quit on something that we put our minds to. I believe it is one thing we acknowledged in one another a very long time in the past. [We don’t] minimize corners and do all the things with intention. … I am actually excited to see this subsequent chapter.”