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[imeric]

When an Album has a "Hidden Track" or Track 0 it should appear at the beginning and not the end when sorted by track #.

[Matt]

Options > Tree & View > Sorting > Sort empty strings last

[blgentry]

I've got a pretty good number of physical CDs and most of them have been ripped and imported into MC.  I have several with tracks near the end (like track 98 and 99) and nothing in between.  I've got several with giant passages of silence in the middle and then music at the end, to try to trick you into thinking the song is over (hidden in that way).

But I don't know what you mean by track 0 or "hidden track".  I've never seen this.  What is it?

Brian.

[imeric]

They're not that common but I do have a few I ripped that have a Track 0 or "Hidden Track".. You'll find a snapshot attached.

[imeric]

Options > Tree & View > Sorting > Sort empty strings last

-> I unchecked and...

This works Matt thank you !!!

[Frobozz]

I've got a pretty good number of physical CDs and most of them have been ripped and imported into MC.  I have several with tracks near the end (like track 98 and 99) and nothing in between.  I've got several with giant passages of silence in the middle and then music at the end, to try to trick you into thinking the song is over (hidden in that way).

But I don't know what you mean by track 0 or "hidden track".  I've never seen this.  What is it?

Brian.

This sort of hidden track is called HTOA for Hidden Track One Audio. The hidden audio is put in the pre-gap area before the first track on the CD. When you play a CD in a regular audio CD player the CD will start at the end of the pre-gap. So it will start playing at the beginning of the first track, essentially hiding any audio that happens to be in the pre-gap area before the first track. To play that audio you have to start playing the first track then use the back button on the CD player to go backwards all the way into the pre-gap and keep on going to get to the beginning of the audio that is hidden there. It's an effective way to hide a track. If you don't know the HTOA is there you'd never find it in normal playback of the CD.

Here's a hydrogenaudio wiki article on HTOA: http://wiki.hydrogenaud.io/index.php?title=HTOA

Here's a wikipedia article that lists CDs that have an HTOA: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_albums_with_tracks_hidden_in_the_pregap

Ripping a HTOA track can be tricky. You need a CD drive that is capable of reading into the pre-gap before track 1. Not all drives will. And you need a ripping program that will read into that pre-gap area. Not all will.

I rip an HTOA track by first ripping the CD as a single WAV and CUE file using EAC (Exact Audio Copy). Then I use CUETools to split that CUE rip into tracks. There is a setting in CUETools to keep the HTOA track and make the HTOA a separate track. The setting is in Gaps handling >> Gaps appended + HTOA.

[Frobozz]

Most HTOA tracks are something that doesn't fit with the rest of the album. It's a track that you don't necessarily want to play when you play the album.

What I've done to organize the HTOA tracks I have is to make the HTOA a separate "bonus CD" that contains just the HTOA track. For example, I have "Anchor Drops" by Umphrey's McGee. It has a 20 second HTOA. I created two discs for this album. One disc called "Anchor Drops (Disc 0: HTOA)" and one disc called "Anchor Drops (Disc 1)". That way the HTOA track is it's own album. The HTOA track is not something I want to listen to each time I play the album. When I don't want to listen to the HTOA I start with Disc 1. If I do want to listen to the album with the silly HTOA track I start with Disc 0.

Here's what the HTOA track is on Umphrey's McGee "Anchor Drops"
There is a 20 second track before track 1. It is a computer voice spelling out the letters T H I S A L B U M E A T S
Then has some backwards spoken letters that spell out H I P P I E S
The hidden message is "This album eats hippies"
I had to open the track in Audacity to reverse it to hear what the reversed letters were.
 

[imeric]

Thx for sharing Frobozz! Very interesting reading!!

[blgentry]

Thanks for all of the detailed information.  That was fun to read.  I also read through the list and found that I don't have any of these in my collection.  Not super surprising I guess. 


Brian.

[Frobozz]

Thanks for all of the detailed information.  That was fun to read.  I also read through the list and found that I don't have any of these in my collection.  Not super surprising I guess. 


Brian.

HTOA tracks are not that common. The list on Wikipedia is not a complete list. There are a few I know of that are missing (like my Umphrey's McGee CD). Still, it's unlikely that you'll have a CD in your collection that has an HTOA. I have around 3000 CDs. Only three that have an HTOA. And two of those I bought specifically because they had an HTOA and I wanted to experiment.