secret track

[dobro]

How do you do that 'secret track at the end of a CD' thing?

Here's my cunning plan: create a new recording session in my software, and then dump both songs into the session, one at the beginning, one at the end, and a space of quiet time between them.

That's the way, right?

[scottboyher]

Dobro I was thinking of doing the same thing and that was the conclusion I came to.

That way the CD will continue after the illusory last song and the hidden track will start at any time you want down the road!

[moskus]

That's almost the way I do it, but I prefer to record each song as their own project and then export both of them to wave, fire up SoundForge, open the first song, insert the requiered amount of silence and then insert the last song...

[Son of Mixerman]

Here ya go Dobie, a cross link to another source of info.

http://recpit.prosoundweb.com/viewtopic.php?t=3097

I hope this helps, its quite informative.

SoMm

[Osbick Bird]

If I like a CD that has a bonus track enough to listen to it often, one of the first things I do is burn myself a copy with the silence removed and the bonus track changed to its own separate track so I don't have to deal with it. I started doing this when I got a copy of the Cowboy Junkies "Miles From My Home" and found that the bonus track was my favorite song on the record.

That said, inserting the silence will work. I know I have also seen one album where the regular tracks ended at, say, 12, and then tracks 13-98 were maybe a second of silence each, with the "bonus" song at track 99. This made the named tracks finish at track 12, then the CD player's display started counting ominously upward as it played through all the "empty" tracks, to arrive at track 99 and start playing the bonus track. It was kind of neat, but again if I owned a copy of it (I can't remember what CD it was) I would probably burn a disc without the gimmicks right away if I liked the song.

[stonepiano]

I did the same thing as Osbick with Her Majesty on Abbey Road.
Had to have it.

Another interesting thing Under the Table and Dreaming by Dave Matthews Band did was insert something like 25 silent half-second tracks so his song "38" would be track thirty-eight. nuther method..

[ebeam]

For the record, I think bonus tracks are stooopid.

Its an old, tired gimmick and never was a very good one at that.

I don't think there's anything wrong with putting some extra silence (more than a couple seconds) between songs if the songs or the album as a whole calls for it, but bonus tracks are so 1993.

[stonepiano]

doode,

way to fart on the birthday cake.

[Ah2]

I can understand how to add silence or blank tracks to get a hidden track at the end of a cd....but how do you hide one at the beginning?
I have a cd (Burn by sister machine gun) that has a hidden track before track one... it is a pain in the ass to listen to the song because you have to manually rewind through the track to play it.
I supposed since I am so annoyed by it I wouldn't do it, but I was curious as to how to do this.

[Ah2]

Ok maybe if I read the links in the other posts I might not have to ask questions which are already discussed....

[donkeystyle]

Osbick Bird..........was that a nine inch nails c.d.? just kidding....well kinda.......back when i was into that stuff i had a nine inch nails c.d. that did that same thing, but it had a 2 "secret tracks" 98 and 99.

[dr.colossus]

Ah2.. the Queens of The Stoneage album has a hidden track before track one too, thats more intersesting than... the old 30min of silence thing..

best hidden track (technique) ever is mr. bungle "disco volante" 12" l.p. one of the songs has two paralell grooves and occansionally jumps from on track to the other..

[muskgrave]

yep it was the broken album by NIN, tracks 98 and 99 are "secrets"...but the cooler "hidden" track wasn't really hidden at all..the last track on further down the spiral has a bunch of noises and really stretched out screaming..when you hit the FF button on your CD player you can clearly hear him screaming "erase me" and everything else of course is bleeping past in the familiar cd ff manner..it's pretty cool.

tool also has a track 69 on the undertow album..and one time i made a secret track on a cd i made that started at 7 minutes and 16 seconds (for june 16th..a date of signifigance). yeah yeah pin a rose on my nose. i know it's old but still fun to do

dlv

[sjjohnston]

Originally posted by muskgrave
... started at 7 minutes and 16 seconds (for june 16th..a date of signifigance)....

Wouldn't that be July 16th?

For what it's worth, there used to be a bunch of vinyl-groove tricks. Multiple grooves: Monty Python, "horse race" records. Locked grooves. Something on the locked groove in the center of the record.

[Slackmaster2K]

No secret to hidden tracks. You either make the last track very long, or add extra tracks without listing them in the table of contents (e.g. the physical table on the CD jacket).

Personally I don't like hidden tracks at all. It just kind of makes me laugh...."keep playing for seeecret muuusic!"

Anyhow, if you do use a secret track, *please* don't extend the last track! There's nothing more irritating than that, especially if your CD ends up in a multi disc player or a juke box. You end up either wanting to listen to it and having to fast forward through the last real track, or not wanting to listen to it but being forced to because your CD player is on random. UGH!

Slackmaster 2000

[muskgrave]

yeah..you're right.....well..i screwed up on the post but I know i did it right on the cd...it might have been actually 6 17 instead of 7 16..hmm..well just goes to show you how signifigant the date is nowadays!

OH Yeah!

Speaking of grooves and whatnot..i might be lightyears behind everyone but I was reading up on the CED format today and it was pretty interesting..i believe it was one of the first attempts at movies on a disc like apparatus..it was basically a record with many more grooves that played movies! pretty wild huh...

dlv

[Osbick Bird]

Originally posted by dr.colossus


best hidden track (technique) ever is mr. bungle "disco volante" 12" l.p. one of the songs has two paralell grooves and occansionally jumps from on track to the other..

Didn't know about that one, but I have seen this sort of thing before. I think one Monty Python or Firesign theatre record has a "Side 3" concentrically grooved into one of the sides of the record.

When I was a kid I had a Mad Magazine record that played the beginning of a song, then had like four or five separate endings that "randomly" (sort of) played--I guess the groove branched at some point....I can still remember the way that annoying song started..."It's...a....great big beautiful, wonderful incredible, super-spectacular day..."

You guys are probably right on the CD I was thinking of. This was in the early nineties that I saw it and the guys who played it were big fans of that kind of thing.