I have created a Petition to try and encourage Warner to fix the recent Red Hot Chili Peppers CDs. I know it is a long shot, but I love this music, but think the current CDs bare no relation to the quality of the master tape.

As members of this forum know, recent RHCP albums such as Californication and By The Way feature a huge amount of compression, and in the case of Californication, almost constant clipping.

The petition is located here:
http://www.petitiononline.com/RHCPWBCD/petition.html

Read more about bad RHCP CD mastering here:
http://rhcp.infopop.cc/groupee/forums/a/tp...667/m/533102047

The text of the petition is as follows:

To: Anthony, Chad, Flea, John / Warner Bros. Records

This petition promotes the re-issuing of the Red Hot Chili Peppers back-catalogue from their Warner Bros. period (1991 - Present).

We feel it is necessary for all of the music to be carefully re-mastered, and possibly re-mixed, under the close guidance of the band members, and a suitable engineer such as Steve Hoffman (http://www.stevehoffman.tv/).

The main objective is to release new versions of the albums that do not contain excessive compression, and are free of digital distortion (clipping) that is sadly prevalent on current CD, and even LP copies. (For more details on excessive CD loudness and digital distortion see: http://tinyurl.com/96eh7 and http://tinyurl.com/3jak)

The band's 1991 album 'Blood Sugar Sex Magik' represents the highest sound quality of any Red Hot Chili Peppers album. It features wonderfully written music, superbly produced, arranged, performed, recorded, mixed, and mastered. The current CD communicates impressively the outstanding performances of the band members during those memorable sessions.

Unfortunately, later albums such as 'Californication' and 'By The Way' do not live up to the exacting standards of that earlier album. The later albums feature extensive mastering deficiencies that significantly detract from the performances of the band, and ultimately make the albums sound overly processed. The current CDs, and LPs, do not accurately reflect the talent, skill, and spontaneity that the Red Hot Chili Peppers are renowned for during live performances and studio sessions.

We hope this petition influences the mastering choices made for the forth-coming album, and feel its impending release presents an ideal time for Warner to revisit the band's back-catalogue in order to present it, for the first time, how it was meant to be heard.

Each song should be mastered in a way that enhances the varying qualities of the different styles, and musical techniques used by the band. Proper mastering should reflect the variations, and dynamics, that exist both between, and during songs. The music should not be mastered simply to make all of the songs sound as loud as possible when broadcast on radio.

We encourage Warner to release the complete albums, and all non-LP tracks as previously issued on various CD singles. We hope Warner will release the material on CD, high resolution (192 KHz 24 bit) DVD-Audio, Direct Stream Digital sourced Hybrid SACD, and vinyl LPs cut from analog, rather than digital tapes. It may be possible to include multi-channel versions of the albums on SACD and DVD-A, however the main objective must be to present properly mastered stereo mixes.

Re-issuing these albums after careful re-mastering will prove profitable for the label and the band, and crucially, it will provide the music loving community with the best possible copies of this important music.

Thank you

Sincerely,

The Undersigned

as a concept this is pretty optimistic - as if labels will have albums completely remastered because a few hundred internet geeks would rather have them sound different...

i think a different approach would be to push the actual problem of the loudness race and simply not purchase albums that sound like crap.

something like "dear mr music label, i am not buying your album WHATEVER because it sounds like crap. ETC ETC ETC..."

just my $0.01


later

I agree, it is a huge long shot.

However, I think this situation is slightly different. For the last album BY THE WAY, the guitarist John Frusciante has gone on record as saying he was very annoyed at the way the album was mixed and mastered. He feels that the released CD was of inferior quality to the master mix that he approved. In other words, it seems that the record company had significant influence in the final master.

Also, I am happy that there seems to be a bigger support for this than I expected. even on the RHCP forums about 80% of people want new CD versions, because they don't think the recent albums (Californication and By The Way) sound very good...

That RHCP bb post requires a login with no registration link.

Just so you know... the first tinyurl link goes to a page that requires registration and the second one points to an error page.

Crap, I didn't think of that.

The previous liknk worked before, but I'm going to have to figure out how to change it :-(

Thanks for pointing this out.

I just want to add that the Rush album Vapor Trails is set to be re-released to coincide with the release of a new Rush album.

This album was famously criticised for featuring extensive clipping. The main reason it is being re-mastered is because of fan criticism generated on the internet.

There is hope that if enough people complain changes can happen.

bump