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anonymous 17 January 2005

Anyone know of any burners that permit writing of discs with a hidden track at the beginning of the disc? (ie. permits Track 1 Index 1 to begin somewhere after 2 seconds?)

I know a lot of folks on the board use Toast/Jam on the Mac. I use CD Architect 5 on WindowsXP. :oops: (please be kind :) )

According to the CDA5 manual, the application supports projects like this as long as the drive does. They list no drives it works on--the manual only says "unfortunately very few". Sony tech support is no help--they cite a policy against recommending specific pieces of hardware. I suppose this is because they want people to buy their rebranded stuff made by who-knows-who. It's ironic because to actually say the software supports it, somebody at Sony's gotta know what drives work--otherwise they couldn't test it. :roll:

Thanks

--Bob

Comments

anonymous Mon, 01/17/2005 - 20:06

"Hidden tracks" at the end don't really end up being hidden--just an overlong last track with a big gap of silence (unless there's a CDA5 trick that hasn't been obvious to me to do so otherwise)

(some releases' "Hidden Tracks" are really another separate track that just isn't listed on the booklet or tray card)

The hidden track at the beginning is *really* hidden. As I understand, inserting the CD and hitting play, the player will look for Track 1, Index 1 and begin there. To hear the hidden track, one would need to start Track 1, then hold the fast reverse to rewind into the audio recorded before it.

To do this requires a burner that permits Track 1 Index 1 to be somewhere else than the standard 2-seconds from the start of the disc. I believe this type of hidden track is part of the "CD Enhanced" specification, sometimes used for mixed CD's with music and data.

You ask why??? One reason is for a CD that has an alternate demo version of another track that the artist wishes to include, but not in the normal tracksequence. An "easter egg" of sorts. I'd also like to do it for personal reasons as well. I'm looking to burn a copy of a family member's CD for rotation in the family car changer. There's one tune containing---umm--language malfunctions :wink: that I'd like to substitute the FCC-approved version and hide the original for the times I'm feeling less--umm--parental. :)

anonymous Mon, 01/17/2005 - 20:51

Thanks John.

Internal or External? I've heard non-specific anecdotal comments from some CDArchitect users that the IDE drives tend to be stricter.

I've been considering the Plextor Premium--I asked their tech support the question. The person I talked to didn't seem to know a lot about that, nor the application.

--Bob

Massive Mastering Mon, 01/17/2005 - 22:45

mixandmaster wrote: I've got one in a firewire enclosure. It's incredibly reliable. I think it could write a good CD on a paper plate.

That's awesome... :lol:

Mine are internal.

CD Architect *might* not allow the process... Not sure about 5x, but I remember that 4x was a real stickler for the rules... Even if you wanted to get around some of them, it wouldn't allow it.

BTW - Before you find out the hard way, make sure you have a good lead-in to that hidden track - I'd suggest 1 minute or more of blank before the track starts. Keep in mind that when you play the track, you're going to have to start playback of track one, THEN scan in reverse through the hidden track. If you get to the disc's "head" it will likely just go to either the first or last track.

That minute or more buffer gives you a chance to take your finger off the button.

And you could always get creative - Use 69 seconds for a song about sex, 187 seconds for a song about death or murder, 4:20 for a song about weed, etc.

If you're going to "break the rules" you might as well give it some "meaning," right? :)

anonymous Tue, 01/18/2005 - 03:55

mixandmaster wrote:

I've got one in a firewire enclosure. It's incredibly reliable. I think it could write a good CD on a paper plate.

That's great to know, although these days blank CD-R media can be cheaper than paper plates--especially if a client specifically asks for Chinet. :D

john wrote:

That's awesome...

Mine are internal.

CD Architect *might* not allow the process... Not sure about 5x, but I remember that 4x was a real stickler for the rules... Even if you wanted to get around some of them, it wouldn't allow it.

BTW - Before you find out the hard way, make sure you have a good lead-in to that hidden track - I'd suggest 1 minute or more of blank before the track starts. Keep in mind that when you play the track, you're going to have to start playback of track one, THEN scan in reverse through the hidden track. If you get to the disc's "head" it will likely just go to either the first or last track.

That minute or more buffer gives you a chance to take your finger off the button.

And you could always get creative - Use 69 seconds for a song about sex, 187 seconds for a song about death or murder, 4:20 for a song about weed, etc.

If you're going to "break the rules" you might as well give it some "meaning," right?

Great tip, John. :cool: Yes CDA4 did not support it and it was a sticker. CDA5 actually says it supports it. According to the manual you create a single wav file that contains the hidden track followed by the regular track 1--and per your tip all that would be preceded by the subject-appropriate amount of silence. Place that file at the 0:00:02 mark in the playlist and drag the start of track 1 in the PQlist ruler to the start of the audio of the "official track 1". A screenshot of my project (sans the silent buffer at the start) follows:

Thanks all. I'll be heading out for a Plextor drive very soon. I'l let you (and folks on the CDA forum know when I have success!)

--Bob

anonymous Tue, 01/18/2005 - 08:22

Yes, I'm exceedingly proud to say that "freight train" isn't my mastering job! :shock: :? :roll: :!:

I'm sure the copy I have is just an early quick'n'dirty slam-the-mix-through-L2 version and that more attention was given to it before it was sent off to the duplicators. Besides the obvious lack of dynamics, there's more pumpin' goin' on in there than an Amway convention! :lol:

--Bob

anonymous Tue, 01/18/2005 - 09:09

No offense ever taken. 8-)

After all, when sombody shells out their hard-earned $15.99 for a CD, they wanna get the most bits for the buck! :D Dynamics? Heck no--look at all those unused bits gone to waste!!! :lol: Probably causes global warming too. :shock: Besides you can get all those dynamics back if you put weights on your speaker cables and coat your sofa with C-37 lacquer.! :roll: :lol: :lol:

--Bob

Massive Mastering Sun, 01/30/2005 - 08:44

I could never get one to play on a computer... The hidden track, anyway. Not that I've spent hours and hours looking for a workaround, but I assume most programs just won't quite hack it as they tend to ignore spaces between index points. They''ll play through them, of course, but WMP for example, seems to only care about start points and ignores stop points completely.

Seeing as a track hidden in this manner has no start point...

anonymous Mon, 02/14/2005 - 13:59

I just purchased a Plextor PX-716A drive. I haven't yet tried burning a CD on a paper plate :wink: but attempting to create a CD-Enhanced audio disc from CD Architect 5 produces this error:

'SFMMCX'-(17)
'IdeChnDr'-(2)
-'PLEXTOR DVDR PX-716A 1.03'-(0)
Module sfmmcx.cpp Line 1199
This drive requires the start time for track 1 to be exactly 2 seconds.
Status: 00000000
Command:
Sense: 00 00 00
Info: 00 00 00 00
Specific: 00 00 00
Extra:

As I mentioned before, the desired outcome is a disc with a hidden track before Track 1. Any other Plextor users know if there is some setting I need to change to enable the drive to complete the burn?

(BTW, I also posed the question to Plextor, but they may not be as familiar with CDArchitect as the denizens of this stellar forum.)

Thanks

--Bob

anonymous Tue, 02/15/2005 - 06:50

The CDA5 manual goes into detail (with screenshots) how to set up hidden tracks. No mention of settings. I tried the only obvious preference setting, disabling strict Red Book checking, to no avail. It still doesn't work.

The tech support guy at Plextor guessed that since the PX-716 is a new model, I may need an updated rev of CDA5 from Sony to use it. I contacted Sony tech support--awaiting their response.

I'll pass on anything I find out. Until then, mixandmaster, how does one cut the Chinet into a perfect circle to fit in the drive? :wink: :lol: :lol: :lol:

--Bob

mixandmaster wrote: I've got one in a firewire enclosure. It's incredibly reliable. I think it could write a good CD on a paper plate.

anonymous Tue, 02/15/2005 - 11:14

It does indeed. [[url=http://[/URL]="http://home.comcast…"]See here for a snippet of Page 84 from the manual.[/]="http://home.comcast…"]See here for a snippet of Page 84 from the manual.[/]

No word from Sony yet. Still waiting....

Regardless, thanks all for the great tip on the Plextor drives. In very little time, I burned a CD in it that plays flawlessly on a circa-1989 CD player that has never been able to play a non-replicated CD!

--Bob

Massive Mastering Tue, 02/15/2005 - 21:17

Bob - Hate to keep bugging you on CDA - Is there somewhere in there that gives it some "room" to move?

I just remember some setting (in CDA4) somewhere about "strict" compliance or "loose" compliance or something like that... If you had it on "strict" it wouldn't allow for gaps that weren't two seconds, or audio between tracks.

It was a good feature for the most part, but it bugged you on everything - Just wondering if there's a similar setting in CDA5... It would be hidden away somewhere I'm sure...

Then again, maybe they got rid of it. I dunno...

anonymous Tue, 02/22/2005 - 10:42

First off, I came across this while trying to find a drive that supports hidden tracks before a song... I was very happy to find this, because the author of the thread perfectly described what I've been trying to do, I've gone through the same processes but with CD Architect 4, but didn't have a CD burner that supported it. I got the same popup message as well, about it not complying with standards. Only difference is, I want to do it for an album and not a mix CD.

The manual for CD Architect is extremely useful, I read the whole thing last year, but I don't believe it talks about strict or loose compliance for Red Book standards like the 2 seconds in between. Personally I'd like to be able to do away with the 2 seconds myself, it becomes a problem when you want tracks to fade into each other. I still don't see why they'd tell you how to fiddle with the 2 second gaps when they don't tell you (that I know of) how to change settings to allow it.

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