Hidden Tracks

Posted by: Dungassin on 30 April 2016

I really hate it when the stupid record company (or the record producer), decides to have a 'hidden track', starting often many minutes after the putative last track on a CD has finished.  In the days before owning a streaming device, I would be listening from in the kitchen to a CD playing in the living room, and think the CD had finished, only to be startled by a sudden loud burst of music much later.

If I came across such a CD I would rip it, and attack the offending track with Audacity, splitting it into two 'proper' tracks, losing the silent space, then burn a CDR with correct tracks..  Still do this now that I stream, but don't bother to burn the CDR any more.

Sorry, but rant caused by recent  purchase with an offending track, which I only noticed after playing it on my NDS.  Needless to say, I have now done the necessary track editing.

Posted on: 30 April 2016 by ChrisSU

Agreed: at best, it's a pointless gimmick. 

Posted on: 30 April 2016 by Drewy

The one that springs to mind is the one on the Travis album. Whatever it was called was the best song on the whole album. 

Cant think of any others at the moment, do we have any examples?

Posted on: 30 April 2016 by dayjay

Jagged Little Pill and Life Thru a Lens both have them.  I remember with the latter falling asleep mid way through the album and then waking up with some alarm when he started speaking on the hidden track.  To be honest I thought both worked ok as hidden tracks and added to the album

Posted on: 30 April 2016 by Dungassin

Well, the CD that caused my post was Carpenters - As Time Goes By.   Sorry if not rock, metal, country, classical or Opera (my usual listening fare), but I just love Karen Carpenter's voice.

Posted on: 30 April 2016 by dayjay

I doubt I have ever heard a smoother, more beautiful female voice 

Posted on: 30 April 2016 by Dungassin

I have another pet hate, BTW.

Why do those designing album art often seem to try to make the writing as difficult to read as possible :  strange colour combinations, text overlying pictures, fonts which are difficult to read or have ambiguous characters, text in circles ... etc.  Makes it very difficult sometimes when trying to figure out what a track is called!   All aggravated by the much smaller text on CD artwork as opposed to LP sleeves.  I keep a credit-card sized Fresnel lens on my desktop to decipher the CDs!

Posted on: 30 April 2016 by Drewy
dayjay posted:

Jagged Little Pill and Life Thru a Lens both have them.  I remember with the latter falling asleep mid way through the album and then waking up with some alarm when he started speaking on the hidden track.  To be honest I thought both worked ok as hidden tracks and added to the album

Oh great, just what I need on a Sunday, digging out jagged little pill. Must have listened to it hundreds of times back in the day but can't remember the hidden track on it. 

Posted on: 30 April 2016 by Erich
Dungassin posted:

Well, the CD that caused my post was Carpenters - As Time Goes By.   Sorry if not rock, metal, country, classical or Opera (my usual listening fare), but I just love Karen Carpenter's voice.

Agree. Beautiful voice.

Posted on: 30 April 2016 by Sloop John B

Dbpoweramp has a setting that handles these hidden tracks, effectively ignoring the "silence" before the surprise. 

 

 

 

SJB

Posted on: 30 April 2016 by Dungassin
Sloop John B posted:

Dbpoweramp has a setting that handles these hidden tracks, effectively ignoring the "silence" before the surprise. 

Not present in DSP TAB in CD ripper part of dBpoweramp for Mac, AFAICS.  Perhaps only in the PC version?  Can't be bothered to load up the Windoze version to check that.  Anyway, it wouldn't split the track with the long silence into 2, which is the logical thing to do - then you can have the correct title for the hidden bit.

Posted on: 30 April 2016 by Bart

Someone told me that Her Majesty's a pretty nice girl.  What that has to do with hidden tracks eludes me.

Posted on: 01 May 2016 by Sloop John B
Dungassin posted:
Sloop John B posted:

Dbpoweramp has a setting that handles these hidden tracks, effectively ignoring the "silence" before the surprise. 

Not present in DSP TAB in CD ripper part of dBpoweramp for Mac, AFAICS.  Perhaps only in the PC version?  Can't be bothered to load up the Windoze version to check that.  Anyway, it wouldn't split the track with the long silence into 2, which is the logical thing to do - then you can have the correct title for the hidden bit.

Are you sure, it's one of the DSP settings ?

 

.

DSP (Digital Signal Processing) allow audio effects to be applied, example effects are ReplayGain, Volume Normalization, etc (there are more than 20 effects). Effects are performed in a top to bottom order. Specific to CD Ripping:
Audio CD Hidden Track Silence Removal, which searches within the track for long periods of silence and removes it (often the last track has 4 minutes of silence before a 'hidden track'

SJB

Posted on: 01 May 2016 by Dungassin

Yup.  According to their website, it's "Audio CD Hidden track removal", and found under DSP effects.  Not present in my version of the program v. 15.1.1.  Perhaps its in later versions only?  Must check their website to see if they've upgraded it.

Posted on: 01 May 2016 by Dungassin

Just upgraded to latest version of the program for Mac.  Still no such option.