CD burning question....

[OrangeGlow]

I am burning a series of music CD's at home as part of a give away. I have 18 tracks coming it an roughly 72 minutes. I want to add a hidden bonus song to the CD. But I don't want the typical bonus track at the end. I want to add the track to the very beginning of the CD. I want it to be part of the pause. Basically, nobody will know about it unless they rewind Track 1. If anybody doesn't believe this is possible, check out the first track of Queens of the Stone Age's "Songs for the Deaf" album. The first track must be rewound 1:33 to hear this little bonus.

I am working on a MAC using Adaptec's Jam 2.6.2. I've combined the first two tracks to one track. I then created the pause to the length of the song I want to hide and told the program to start the audio in the pause. I have two problems with this: 1. The track starts from the first song and only plays the amount of time the pause is set too, 2. or it only plays 4 seconds of the track. Both problems will not allow me to rewind the 3:54:52 and to have that amount of audio play there. I even tried burning a copy to see if it would work and I get error message stating that i need 00:02:00 of pause to burn a CD and I need silence and no audio.

I know this is a bit convoluted, but basically, I want to have a hidden track in the beginning of my audio CD that starts in the pause. Anyone with ideas, suggestions or exact knowledge of what I should be doing?

On a side note. I have heard that I would need to crack Redbook in order to this and home technology doesn't accomadate this dilemma. I don't know what to believe.

Thanks to any that help.

[Massive Master]

It's certain that some CD players will argue with the disc... Most will be okay, but expect a few grumblers...

You need software AND hardware that will write it the way you want...

On a Mac, I have no idea... On PC, WaveLab, Samplitude... Plextor Premium Series drives.

The other issue is a double-whammy that I've never tried before... A disc of over 74 minutes is still breaking RedBook protocol. The first pause being anything other than exactly 150 frames is also. Doing both, plus having to add quite a bit of "black space" to accomodate a "buffer" to stop in (I'd suggest at least one minute if you don't want to piss people off)... I'm just not sure how well it'll work, that's all.

[bblackwood]

Originally Posted by Massive Master

A disc of over 74 minutes is still breaking RedBook protocol.

I'm not aware of anything in redbook that defines max length, can you point to red book page number for me?

[masteringhouse]

This very same question came up in Brad's forum this past week. I guess the hidden track "trick" is getting popular again. Also a client of mine asked for it last week, but in the middle of the CD.

It's all in how you place the index of the track. Have a look here:

http://www.cdrfaq.org/faq03.html#S3-36

[ecktronic]

Ive tried to get a hidden track at the start of a song using wavelab but couldnt manage it. Could be something to do with classing the hidden track as track 0. not sure. I read the article but it didnt realy tell how to go about it.

[masteringhouse]

Originally Posted by ecktronic

Ive tried to get a hidden track at the start of a song using wavelab but couldnt manage it. Could be something to do with classing the hidden track as track 0. not sure. I read the article but it didnt realy tell how to go about it.

You can specify the start position of an audio track anywhere within the track. The start position is at time index 00:00 (in minutes and seconds, MM:SS), so the music before the start point is usually displayed with negative time values. When you seek directly to a track, the player jumps to time index 00:00, but when you play through from a previous track you hear the entire track.

Generic instructions granted, but setting up indexes should be explained in your software manual.

The following section in the FAQ gives an example for a CDRWIN but using data in the pregap:

http://www.cdrfaq.org/faq03.html#S3-14

[shiatzu]

I wouldn't recommend doing it.. it may cause compatibility issues with some players and on a personal note i've never heard a bonus song worth listening to. either add it as a track on your album or cut it out.. honestly, it's a waste of space because noone is going to bother rewinding track 1 to hear it.

just my 2p.

[ecktronic]

Cheers mastering house.
Shiatzu, its just really a cool gimmik i think. You only tell a very few people about it and then you see how fast the word gets around. Suppose it can get people talking about your CD even if it is just for a secret track.

[shiatzu]

Hey, do what you want to do, but I'm just saying that the novelty probably won't be worth some people wanting to bring your CD back because it doesn't work in their player.

we put a secret song on one of our cds a long time ago and considered doing the before track 1 trick, but our mastering engineer talked us out of it. we just left 40 seconds after the end of the last track and inserted it there.

[MadAudio]

Originally Posted by shiatzu

and on a personal note i've never heard a bonus song worth listening to

LMAO!.....

[mshilarious]

Originally Posted by shiatzu

I wouldn't recommend doing it.. it may cause compatibility issues with some players and on a personal note i've never heard a bonus song worth listening to.

It's not hidden, but Jah Live is a bonus track on Rastaman Vibration

[Massive Master]

Originally Posted by bblackwood

I'm not aware of anything in redbook that defines max length, can you point to red book page number for me?

Don't have a page, but every reference I can find still notes that 74:44 is the spec. That, and just about every replication plant has a disclaimer that needs to be signed before they'll move forward on anything longer...

[bblackwood]

Originally Posted by Massive Master

Don't have a page, but every reference I can find still notes that 74:44 is the spec. That, and just about every replication plant has a disclaimer that needs to be signed before they'll move forward on anything longer...

I didn't rally expect an answer as it's not in the red book. There is an adopted max length used by many, but red book in no way defines max length, fwiw...