Red Hot Chili Peppers - Californication [2LP VINYL]

Product Information

As its title implies, the “Rough Mixes” are just that: mixes currently in-progress before completion, and thus have a lot of differences between its mix and the retail release, though the timbre of its instrumentation is generally the same.

Red Hot Chili Peppers – Californication (1999, CD) - Discogs Red Hot Chili Peppers – Californication (1999, CD) - Discogs

At The Disco’s song High Hopes also sounds like a big block of noise and it’s really hard to listen to. Sadly, there are countless records out there (particularly from the late 90s and 2000s) that are the victim of poor quality mastering. I tend to lean on the side that they tolerated it to work with Rick Rubin, though I absolutely may be incorrect in that assessment. The choruses especially sound like a band trying to fit both themselves and their instruments into a telephone booth. However, it often can be hard from an outsider perspective to pinpoint the band’s preferences, whether they pushed for the such clipping/compression, simply tolerated it to work with Rubin as a producer, didn’t care, or actively liked it.I am probably the least confident in my removing of the distortion in this album though, mainly because selecting the parts that are distorted with “Perfect Declipper” is much more difficult when these sections aren’t horizontal, and when they seem to be the result of production, rather than mastering. Clipping is present all throughout Californication, and I find it the most apparent during the choruses of “Parallel Universe”. Easily", meanwhile, might just be the best realization of both side of their sound that the band have ever managed. The (largely) mono mix and distorted sound is a part of the aesthetic of this record, but even then there should be room for improvement with less clipping and better dynamics.

Red Hot Chili Peppers – Californication (1999, Vinyl) - Discogs Red Hot Chili Peppers – Californication (1999, Vinyl) - Discogs

Also, I've seen Elusive Disc list Bernie Grundman as the mastering engineer as recently as the One Hot Minute reissue and then it was pulled down.

None of this is guaranteed, of course — there are plenty of poorly mastered vinyl records on the market — but when all is said and done, the commercial incentive for labels to try harder is arguably a factor. Vote up content that is on-topic, within the rules/guidelines, and will likely stay relevant long-term. I could lie with the shit sound, but I must have cleaned the record 10 times and my needle thinking I was crazy. s Californication especially left many consumers scratching their heads from how it sounded, many convinced there was something wrong with the disc itself.

Californication by Red Hot Chili Peppers ( Vinyl, Oct-2012 Californication by Red Hot Chili Peppers ( Vinyl, Oct-2012

How pathetic that after almost 1/4 of a century after its release, a fan-made remix is still the best way to hear this masterpiece of an album. Mix wise everything still sounds super hot, slammed to the ceiling, especially the drums which are absolutely shocking, and Anthony’s vocals are still bad.

I just finished a comparison among this, the CD (and streaming version), and the famed "Unmastered" version of this album. Coming off the rough and odd production stylings of Californication and By the Way, Stadium Arcadium is absolutely a breath of fresh air.