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How CD pregaps gained their hidden track superpowers
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Re: How CD pregaps gained their hidden track superpowers
#12Earlier quoted context omitted.
Sometimes CDs would have a long piece of silence at the end of the last song and then another song on the same track. Other CDs really experimented with the shuffle feature. They Might Be Giants’ Apollo 18 had a bunch of very short tracks that would usually play between songs when shuffle was used.
I had that CD and remember the short tracks but never thought of playing it on shuffle that way. I think it was nine inch nails' Broken EP that had the hidden tracks on 98/99 rather than after a long silence, but I could be wrong.
I think it tells you in the liner notes that you should use the shuffle button.
My copy in the UK at the time didn’t have the individual tracks. Just one track.
Re: How CD pregaps gained their hidden track superpowers
#13I read this whole thing twice and I now know what pregaps are and the history but still have no idea why people would put them on a CD or why they’re useful for hidden tracks.
Basically cd audio tracks have a base sector and a start specified. That allows sectors representing audio before timestamp 0:00 to be represented the track. The reason for this originally was probably to allow the drive to get synchronized before the track started. Enterprising cd masterers put actual hidden audio data in that area which would allow you on some CD players to rewind past 0:00 and then play the hidden…
How much hidden audio could be stored?
Was it limited to something negligible like a couple of seconds?
Or could you store a whole five-minute recording in there or something?
Re: How CD pregaps gained their hidden track superpowers
#14I remember my friend accidentally found the negative track on a CD and called me up out of breath like aliens just landed. I think it was one of the early AFI albums.We spent the whole weekend checking for negative tracks on every CD we could find.
The negatives between songs were also pretty cool sometimes, Mediocre Generica by Leftover Crack makes very good use of them. Listening to it over streaming or even mp3s ruins the effect, unless someone captured the entire album as one file.
Re: How CD pregaps gained their hidden track superpowers
#15I remember discovering “hidden tracks” on the Beastie Boys intergalactic album with my cousins… we were like what on earth is happening as the CD player display glitched out and played this stuff we hadn’t heard.
Re: How CD pregaps gained their hidden track superpowers
#16Earlier quoted context omitted.
Basically cd audio tracks have a base sector and a start specified. That allows sectors representing audio before timestamp 0:00 to be represented the track. The reason for this originally was probably to allow the drive to get synchronized before the track started. Enterprising cd masterers put actual hidden audio data in that area which would allow you on some CD players to rewind past 0:00 and then play the hidden…
How much hidden audio could be stored? Was it limited to something negligible like a couple of seconds? Or could you store a whole five-minute recording in there or something?
There doesn't seem to be a limit, this https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_albums_with_tracks_hid... mentions a 27 minute live recording.
Re: How CD pregaps gained their hidden track superpowers
#17Earlier quoted context omitted.
How much hidden audio could be stored? Was it limited to something negligible like a couple of seconds? Or could you store a whole five-minute recording in there or something?
There doesn't seem to be a limit, this https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_albums_with_tracks_hid... mentions a 27 minute live recording.
Incredible! Songs in the Key of X was the only album I ever knew to do this, and it wasn't even the first. I had no idea so many others did the same thing.
Edit: Son of a *, I've had a copy of Sister Machine Gun's Burn for almost 30 years and never knew there was a hidden track!
Re: How CD pregaps gained their hidden track superpowers
#18Abusing the standard to put songs in gaps was such a bad idea.
I have no idea how they got a patent for such a thing and, even worse, anyone ever did it on actual commercial discs.
Re: How CD pregaps gained their hidden track superpowers
#19I read this whole thing twice and I now know what pregaps are and the history but still have no idea why people would put them on a CD or why they’re useful for hidden tracks.
Basically cd audio tracks have a base sector and a start specified. That allows sectors representing audio before timestamp 0:00 to be represented the track. The reason for this originally was probably to allow the drive to get synchronized before the track started. Enterprising cd masterers put actual hidden audio data in that area which would allow you on some CD players to rewind past 0:00 and then play the hidden…
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Re: How CD pregaps gained their hidden track superpowers
#20I remember my friend accidentally found the negative track on a CD and called me up out of breath like aliens just landed. I think it was one of the early AFI albums.We spent the whole weekend checking for negative tracks on every CD we could find. The negatives between songs were also pretty cool sometimes, Mediocre Generica by Leftover Crack makes very good use of them. Listening to it over streaming or even mp3s r…
> I think it was one of the early AFI albums
I wouldn't call it an “early” album but I found one of these (untitled 18-second intro) on AFI - DECEMBERUNDERGROUND: https://i.imgur.com/XAsFMSR.png
Some others I've run across in my CD collection include…
— on Jonathan Katz - Caffeinated https://i.imgur.com/4ghQadv.jpeg
— the track "Every Time Is The Last Time" on Bloc Party's Silent Alarm https://i.imgur.com/knhbZhA.png
— a kid606 remix hidden in the first track pregap of The Locust's eponymous https://i.imgur.com/sXVFrQI.jpeg
— the "Theme of Coon" (aka Riki) on the third disc of the SaGa Frontier soundtrack https://i.imgur.com/CqTTqpV.png
> The negatives between songs were also pretty cool sometimes
And one of these, the interlude at the end of “High Roller” on TCM's Vegas which is part of the pregap for “Comin' Back” https://i.imgur.com/G5PSCy3.jpeg
