Chesky Records: An Audiophile’s Adventure

"I would walk into a recording studio and see fifty microphones set up,” explains co-founder David Chesky on the website of Chesky Records. “When I realized that people don't hear music that way, and that musicians play differently when they are recorded like that, I decided that if we ever started a company, it was going to have a different and unique recording philosophy."

The label started reissuing classical and jazz music on audiophile-quality vinyl from original master tapes, and later expanded to world music, folk, pop vocalists, new orchestral recordings and chamber music. But the Chesky brothers were always ready to go the extra mile for their philosophy of sound.

Avoiding traditional multitrack recording methods, David preferred to cut live to stereo and multichannel with top-of-the-bill gear, as well as carefully placing mics to allow the most natural sound experience.

The most interesting examples of that are their binaural recordings: high-resolution (192-kHz/24-bit) recordings with a “dummy human head” with calibrated microphones where the ears would be. This way, listeners hear the music three-dimensionally as perceived by the “ears”, enabling to hear the position of the musicians in the studio, as if the listener is in the same room. Fun fact: Chesky Records’ dummy human head was called Lars.

So we have to thank Lars for our exclusive Featured Download of “Grooves From The Underground” with David’s quintet, Jazz In The New Harmonic. It was recorded with their Binaural+ head and torso simulator. Get a pair of headphones to do this smooth jazz track justice, and make Lars proud with your sampling.