I have written a tool (http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index.php?showtopic=97643) for encoding EAC WAV images to FLAC.
It splits them according to the CUE with shntool.
shntool will produce a separate track 0 for any HTOA, no matter how long it is.
I have run my tool over around 220 EAC rips of genuine CDs and around 70 of them contained HTOA. Non of the HTOA was longer than a second, it is usually around ~32 frames.
I will post the full list of frame lengths in a reply.
The used EAC settings are fully documented here. (https://raw.github.com/leo-bogert/settings-exact-audio-copy/master/exact-audio-copy-configuration.txt)
Is this a bug in EAC or is the mastering of that many CDs wrong?
Album: Angélique Kidjo - Ayé
Hidden track one audio found. Length: 33 frames
Album: Angélique Kidjo - Logozo
Hidden track one audio found. Length: 33 frames
Album: Beck - Mellow Gold
Hidden track one audio found. Length: 33 frames
Album: Bryan Adams - Reckless
Hidden track one audio found. Length: 32 frames
Album: Chuck Berry - The Best Of
Hidden track one audio found. Length: 32 frames
Album: Deep Blue Something - Breakfast at Tiffany's
Hidden track one audio found. Length: 32 frames
Album: Deep Purple - Nobody's Perfect
Hidden track one audio found. Length: 32 frames
Album: Deep Purple - The Compact Disc Anthology (disc 1)
Hidden track one audio found. Length: 33 frames
Album: Deep Purple - The Compact Disc Anthology (disc 2)
Hidden track one audio found. Length: 33 frames
Album: Die Ärzte - Das Beste von kurz nach früher bis jetze (disc 1)
Hidden track one audio found. Length: 32 frames
Album: Die Ärzte - Das Beste von kurz nach früher bis jetze (disc 2)
Album: Dire Straits - Brothers in Arms
Hidden track one audio found. Length: 32 frames
Album: Dire Straits - Live at the BBC
Hidden track one audio found. Length: 32 frames
Album: Dire Straits - Love Over Gold
Hidden track one audio found. Length: 32 frames
Album: Dire Straits - Making Movies
Hidden track one audio found. Length: 32 frames
Album: Dire Straits - On Every Street
Hidden track one audio found. Length: 32 frames
Album: Dire Straits - Remastered
Hidden track one audio found. Length: 32 frames
Album: Eagles - Hell Freezes Over
Hidden track one audio found. Length: 32 frames
Album: Emerson, Lake & Palmer - Black Moon
Hidden track one audio found. Length: 32 frames
Album: Eric Clapton - The Cream of Clapton
Hidden track one audio found. Length: 33 frames
Album: Fury in the Slaughterhouse - Mono
Hidden track one audio found. Length: 32 frames
Album: Guns N' Roses - Use Your Illusion I
Hidden track one audio found. Length: 32 frames
Album: Guns N' Roses - Use Your Illusion II
Hidden track one audio found. Length: 33 frames
Album: J.J. Cale - 5
Hidden track one audio found. Length: 32 frames
Album: J.J. Cale - Grasshopper
Hidden track one audio found. Length: 33 frames
Album: J.J. Cale - Naturally
Hidden track one audio found. Length: 33 frames
Album: J.J. Cale - Okie
Hidden track one audio found. Length: 33 frames
Album: J.J. Cale - Troubadour
Hidden track one audio found. Length: 32 frames
Album: Jean-Jacques Goldman - Traces
Hidden track one audio found. Length: 32 frames
Album: Jethro Tull - Farm on the Highway
Hidden track one audio found. Length: 33 frames
Album: Jimi Hendrix - Experience Hendrix_ The Best of Jimi Hendrix
Hidden track one audio found. Length: 32 frames
Album: Johannes Brahms - Ein Deutsches Requiem, Op. 45 (Berliner Philharmoniker, Schwedischer Rundfunkchor, Eric-Ericson-Kammerchor feat. conductor Claudio Abbado)
Hidden track one audio found. Length: 33 frames
Album: John Williams - Schindler's List
Hidden track one audio found. Length: 33 frames
Album: Khadja Nin - Ya Pili...
Hidden track one audio found. Length: 32 frames
Album: Manfred Mann - The Greatest Hits
Hidden track one audio found. Length: 33 frames
Album: Manfred Mann - The Singles Plus
Hidden track one audio found. Length: 32 frames
Album: Mannheim Steamroller - Fresh Aire Interludes
Hidden track one audio found. Length: 2 frames
Album: Mark Knopfler - Last Exit to Brooklyn
Hidden track one audio found. Length: 33 frames
Album: Mark Knopfler - The Princess Bride
Hidden track one audio found. Length: 33 frames
Album: Mike Oldfield - Crises
Hidden track one audio found. Length: 33 frames
Album: Nirvana - Nevermind
Hidden track one audio found. Length: 42 frames
Album: Peter, Paul & Mary - No Easy Walk to Freedom
Hidden track one audio found. Length: 50 frames
Album: Pink Floyd - A Momentary Lapse of Reason
Hidden track one audio found. Length: 32 frames
Album: Pink Floyd - Animals
Hidden track one audio found. Length: 33 frames
Album: Pink Floyd - A Saucerful of Secrets
Hidden track one audio found. Length: 33 frames
Album: Pink Floyd - Delicate Sound of Thunder (disc 1)
Hidden track one audio found. Length: 33 frames
Album: Pink Floyd - Delicate Sound of Thunder (disc 2)
Hidden track one audio found. Length: 33 frames
Album: Pink Floyd - Meddle
Hidden track one audio found. Length: 33 frames
Album: Pink Floyd - The Dark Side of the Moon
Hidden track one audio found. Length: 33 frames
Album: Pink Floyd - Wish You Were Here
Hidden track one audio found. Length: 33 frames
Album: Rory Gallagher - Deuce
Hidden track one audio found. Length: 32 frames
Album: Shadows - Wonderful Land
Hidden track one audio found. Length: 43 frames
Album: Spencer Davis - Keep On Running
Hidden track one audio found. Length: 33 frames
Album: Suzanne Vega - Solitude Standing
Hidden track one audio found. Length: 32 frames
Album: The Alan Parsons Project - Pop Classics
Hidden track one audio found. Length: 33 frames
Album: The Beach Boys - California Gold_ The Very Best of the Beach Boys (disc 1)
Hidden track one audio found. Length: 33 frames
Album: The Beach Boys - California Gold_ The Very Best of the Beach Boys (disc 2)
Hidden track one audio found. Length: 33 frames
Album: The Beatles - Please Please Me
Hidden track one audio found. Length: 33 frames
Album: The Byrds - The Collection
Hidden track one audio found. Length: 33 frames
Album: The Jimi Hendrix Experience - BBC Sessions (disc 1)
Hidden track one audio found. Length: 32 frames
Album: The Jimi Hendrix Experience - BBC Sessions (disc 2)
Hidden track one audio found. Length: 32 frames
Album: The Kinks - The Singles Collection
Hidden track one audio found. Length: 32 frames
Album: The Shadows - Dance With the Shadows _ Sound of the Shadows
Hidden track one audio found. Length: 33 frames
Album: The Shadows - Guardian Angel
Hidden track one audio found. Length: 33 frames
Album: The Shadows - The Shadows _ Out of the Shadows
Hidden track one audio found. Length: 33 frames
Album: The Spencer Davis Group - The Best of Spencer Davis Group Featuring Stevie Winwood
Hidden track one audio found. Length: 33 frames
Album: Mark Knopfler - The Princess Bride
Hidden track one audio found. Length: 33 frames
Album: The Troggs - From Nowhere the Troggs
Hidden track one audio found. Length: 33 frames
Album: Traveling Wilburys - Traveling Wilburys, Volume 1
Hidden track one audio found. Length: 33 frames
Album: Yann Tiersen - L'Absente
Hidden track one audio found. Length: 30 frames
I asked (http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index.php?showtopic=83863) a couple years ago, I never got an answer
That 32-33 frame pregap doesn't seem to serve any purpose.
@leo-bogert:
It's perfectly normal.
It's perfectly normal.
I can see that it's "normal" (as in, relatively widespread), but WHY?
Edit: it matters because it fucks up my script that computes a Musicbrainz DiscID from FLAC files, since rippers ignore that pregap.
WHY?
Fuck if I know.
The OP asked if it was a bug. It is not a bug.
His question suggests the mastering is wrong if it is not a bug. I'd say that's presumptuous.
it fucks up my script
Fix your script.
Good to know that I am not the only one who observes this. This at least shows that my ripping setup is not flawed. Thanks.
Edit: it matters because it fucks up my script that computes a Musicbrainz DiscID from FLAC files, since rippers ignore that pregap.
You might want to check out my perfect-flac-encode (http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index.php?showtopic=97643) script which I have advertised to you several times already
The goal behind it is to produce single track FLACs which can be re-joined to an image which matches the original image checksum. And I guess thats what you want when computing the MBID - an image which matches the original one.
It joins track 0 with track 1 if it is shorter than one second and keeps it as a separate track if it is not. Nothing is lost.
His question suggests the mastering is wrong if it is not a bug. I'd say that's presumptuous.
I was explained that the red book does not allow an INDEX 00 on Track 1 (= hidden track), which is why I claimed that the mastering is wrong.
Correct me if I'm wrong?
Fix your script.
I can't invent data that's not there.
The goal behind it is to produce single track FLACs which can be re-joined to an image which matches the original image checksum.
Except that I don't want to do single file rips. They're poorly supported and downright inconvenient for various reasons (IMO).
I was explained that the red book does not allow an INDEX 00 on Track 1
Reference?
Fix your script.
I can't invent data that's not there.
The goal behind it is to produce single track FLACs which can be re-joined to an image which matches the original image checksum.
Except that I don't want to do single file rips. They're poorly supported and downright inconvenient for various reasons (IMO).
You just gave the explanation of why single file rips are the way to go before telling us that you don't want them.
I can't invent data that's not there.
Use a program that can extract it.
Seriously, stop acting like a victim.
You just gave the explanation of why single file rips are the way to go before telling us that you don't want them.
Nah, I think he's just trying to hijack the discussion.
You just gave the explanation of why single file rips are the way to go before telling us that you don't want them.
Advantage of single file rips: you can compute DiscIDs, you get fewer files.
Drawbacks: poor playback support, poor tagging support, parallelizing encoding is not possible without a codec that supports threading natively (and even then, you get lower performance than when parallelizing transcoding of separate tracks).
Seriously, stop acting like a victim.
You trolling now?
For calling you out on your off-topic whining and snark? Not really, no.
As to whether it is invalid for TRACK 01 to have a pregap: It would be trivial to resolve this question if we were not expected to pay $372 merely to read the Red Book. However, I am almost certain it is false. It is widely cited that the first track should have a silent pregap of two seconds in length. Thus, I highly doubt that it is invalid to add an INDEX 00 to TRACK 01—quite the opposite, most likely.
Showing my lack of experience (or interest) in such technicalities of the format, but according to various (http://www.digital-inn.de/exact-audio-copy-english/25357-2-second-gap-before-track-one-lead.html) sources (http://blowfish.be/eac/Rip/rip14-cuesheets.html), burners will write an initial two seconds of silence regardless of whether or not it is specified in the cuesheet; thus, any pregap specified would be added afterwards. Assuming this is correct, for which I would welcome confirmation, a declared INDEX 00 to TRACK 01 of 32 frames in length would actually correspond to an additional 32 frames of silence after the standard two seconds.
On a related note to these general sentiments, and also raising the worthwhile question of whether support in players need actually reflect any standard (or the lack thereof), I found this post (http://hydrogenaudio.org/forums/?showtopic=13447#entry136393) that I think is worthy of quoting:
A minority of regular CD players can play the hidden track of Factory Showroom - I suppose your CD is something similar. Actually, in my experience, older players do the best on it (you can't skip back a track, but rewinding one minute from the beginning of the first track does it). OTOH, just because CD players have trouble with it, does not mean that it's doesn't conform to a standard. I've seen a CD player that will have trouble with any CD with more than 32 tracks and another that had trouble with more than 60 (I think there was a "The Offspring" CD with a hidden track at 69 that would give it trouble). Redbook allows up to 99 tracks IIRC.
In conclusion, the standard is proprietary, possibly quite cryptic or vague even for those who can afford to access it, and not necessarily supported equally well across the board! So I am unsure whether worrying about strict compliance is always worthwhile. However, as I indicated above, any demystification by users who have the relevant technical experience can only be a good thing.
Heh, this conversation made me recall that I have one CD with 40 minutes of HTOA. THAT can't be Red Book compliant.
Why can't it?
The topic is about HTOA, not FUD.
burners will write an initial two seconds of silence regardless of whether or not it is specified in the cuesheet; thus, any pregap specified would be added afterwards. Assuming this is correct, for which I would welcome confirmation, a declared INDEX 00 to TRACK 01 of 32 frames in length would actually correspond to an additional 32 frames of silence after the standard two seconds.
It's been a while and I no longer have all the documents and research, but the 2 second pregap is mandatory (http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index.php?showtopic=57010), and any additional pregap comes after that indeed.
Heh, this conversation made me recall that I have one CD with 40 minutes of HTOA. THAT can't be Red Book compliant.
As HTOA is simply an index in a track, it shouldn't matter whether it is half a minute or 40 minutes. But some CDs have data in the pregap (sounding like static). It could be by mistake, but allegedly such schemes were implemented as an attempt at copy protection, where CD-ROM drives would read this first (while audio CD players would not).
I have no idea if this copy protection scheme would actually work if Red Book compliant, and – apart from legal issues – there is hardly any reason for the manufactorers to comply with the specification farther than to the point where the vast majority of audio CD players would find and go to track 01 index 01.
Answering the OP - your data would make me assume that there's some commonly used professional mastering software that just does that by default. Maybe it improved compatibility with some dodgy CD player(s) in some way, and didn't harm any others, so they added it?
The standard is important, but at some point practicalities take over. Some of the copy protection methods are all about what mostly works in practice, and don't care too much about the standard.
Cheers,
David.
Not sure if this will be relevant for the discussion, but the CTDB website includes a page with a few stadistics regarding the submissions, including one about the pregap lengths: http://db.cuetools.net/stats.php (http://db.cuetools.net/stats.php)
Looks like more of the 80% of the CDs in the database with pregaps are sharing a value between 32, 33 and 37 as the main ones, although there are a lot of different values as well beyond those.
Curiously enough, out of my 200 CDs collection the most common pregap is 37 frames which I assumed it was the usual value until I saw that graph.
It needs to be mentioned that it is mostly older CDs (from the 80s and 90s) that have these 32, 33, 37 pregaps... I haven't see a newer CD with it for a long time. It was probably some old mastering hardware systems that added it automatically.
I was explained that the red book does not allow an INDEX 00 on Track 1
Reference?
I know one CD mastering book says audio content is forbidden in track 01 index 00, but that's much different from saying the index can't exist.
The Red Book (at least, in its IEC 60908 / BS 60908 form) implies that audio content is divided into "program items" called tracks, and it says that every track is preceded by a pause, indicated by a start flag ("1" bit) in the P subcode and by index "00" in the Q subcode. The pause must be at least 2 seconds (150 frames), and it must be between 2 and 3 seconds (225 frames) for the first track and for the lead-out.
So, the spec doesn't just permit track 01 index 00 to exist, it requires it. I'm not sure how this squares with the SCSI/CD-ROM standards governing DAE; I have them, but am too lazy to look it up now. It may be that the first 2 seconds are actually not accessible, and what we think of as track 01 index 00 is really just the portion after those first 2 seconds.
Elsewhere in the Red Book it says that the entire program area contains encoded audio data. Implicitly, this includes the index 00 portions. It doesn't say they have to be digital silence, nor does it impose any requirements on the player for interpreting those sections. So whether actual audio content is truly "forbidden" in the pregaps is up for debate.
My guess is that it is linked to the PQ offset settings used by the (pre-)mastering engineer.
It was recommended in the early days of cd-mastering to put the marker a bit before the actual start point to avoid cd players with slow fade-in or mute "features" chopping off the beginning of the audio. The mastering software I use has global settings to automatically adjust the offsets. About half a second for track 1 seems a plausible value to me, but there are no rules. This will added to the minimum 2 seconds pre-gap for track one that can't be modified since AFAIK it's required by the red book standard.
These are quite common features for pre-mastering software. I found this on the Roxio website (http://www.roxio.com/enu/support/toast/v8/prof_mastering_features.html).
Track 1 Start Offset: Track 1 Start Offset is a special start offset option that affects only Track 1.
[/size]Below is an example of the start of a PQ sheet, generated by my Sonic Solutions pre-mastering DAW. It shows the PQ offset values (all zero here since I prefer to set them by hand).
PQ Log:
Delivery Type:CD, DDP or Image - (CD Times are 75 fps)
Time Format: 30/NDF
PQ Track 1 Offset: 00:00:00:00 PQ Start Offset: 00:00:00:00
PQ Splice Offset: 00:00:00:00 PQ End Offset: 00:00:00:00
PQ MinIndex 0 Width: 00:00:00:00 PQ UPC/EAN CODE:
PQ Track / Index Information:
————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————
T-X TITLE/ISRC COPY EMPH NO OFFSET OFFSET OFFSET CD
TIME TIME DURATION TIME
hh:mm:ss:ff hh:mm:ss:ff hh:mm:ss:ff mm:ss:ff
————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————
1
0 Pause -00:00:02:06 -00:00:02:06 00:00:02:00 00:00:00
1 No.1 -00:00:00:06 -00:00:00:06 00:02:52:20 00:02:00
Total: 00:02:54:20
————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————
[/size]
The pause must be at least 2 seconds (150 frames), and it must be between 2 and 3 seconds (225 frames) for the first track and for the lead-out.
The latter was news to me. Any source?
I've always started individual tracks with 0.5s silence* (because so many crappy CD players and mp3 players fade in the start of tracks when you seek to them), but that's in the track - it's not a pre-gap - if it is a pre-gap, it doesn't solve the problem.
* - 1 second for the first track. Can't remember why. I must have once owned something that took that long to settle down.
Cheers,
David.
The pause must be at least 2 seconds (150 frames), and it must be between 2 and 3 seconds (225 frames) for the first track and for the lead-out.
The latter was news to me. Any source?
As for the former, I think many people ignore this when writing CDs, especially when gapless transitions are in use. It’s common for burning programs to attempt to enforce a two-second-long gap that does contain silence, but that isn’t usually compulsory. Sure, one could leave in the pregap even when it does not contain silence,
i.e. has no relevance to the material, but do many discs actually do this?
Good old logical Red Book.
The burning apps that put two seconds of silence between tracks do so starting after the first track. They don't add silence after the two-second lead-in, which is what is under debate.
Also, David is right, HTOA of silence does no good when it comes to problematic players that fade-in. What's worse is when the beginning of the first track actually starts in the ~32 frame extension of the lead-in (which I have experienced). Now there is no doubt in my mind that that is a mastering error. The problem is solved by padding the beginning with silence, not by moving the start point further into the beginning of the track.
Now there is no doubt in my mind that that is a mastering error.
It would be interesting to find out if it's an avoidable (human) error, or that the mastering software was to blame. TBH I can't see any reason why a mastering engineer would deliberately create such a short HTOA.
Goratrix mentioned earlier that mostly old masters were concerned. If that's true it might be possible to narrow down the problem to the (pre-)mastering tools. Before 1990 mostly (Sony) U-matic format was used. After 1990 cdr/pmcd, Exabyte and later also DDP image gradually became more popular, where the PQ data was created in a DAW (computer). The large variety in systems can make it difficult to trace the problem.
Did anyone else notice a link between this HTOA problem and the year of mastering ?
I don't think the problem is a short HTOA. Rather, I think it was a lack of silence before the beginning of the first track which caused the beginning of the audio to fall into the HTOA. Had the HTOA been any greater I imagine it would have been even worse.
In case I wasn't clear, Kees, I have to back up in order to play the track from the beginning. Otherwise you only catch the tail end of a cymbal crash.
Artist: Iron Maiden
Album: Powerslave
Track: Aces High
Another disc in my collection with the same problem is Steve Morse Band - The Introduction.
These discs were likely manufactured in the late '80s or early '90s.
I'd love to hear an explanation as to how this could not have been an avoidable human error.
I'd love to hear an explanation as to how this could not have been an avoidable human error.
Last week I ripped an old Philips Classics CD from 1990 that I recorded. Lo and behold, track 1 has a 33 frame pregap. I know for sure that this was a U-matic (Sony 1610) master. Then I checked a few more old cd-rips which I know to be U-matic sourced and they all have this short pregap.
While I do have quite some pre-mastering experience, I've never attended a glassmastering session in the cd-factory. AFAIK U-matic tapes were transferred in real-time to the LBR (laser beam recorder), making them popular amongst the bits-are-bits sceptics who didn't trust higher-speed transfers. U-matic tapes used a time-code signal to synchronize with other equipment. The Sony U-matic based audio editing system DAE3000 was sample accurate, so the sync can't have been the problem. Perhaps there was a delay somewhere in the path that caused this offset. I'll try to ask a friend who owns a cd-pressing plant if he has an explanation.
To be continued
Thanks Kees.
FWIW, I'm pretty sure that I was able to reorganize the audio data in order against an alternate pressing which did not have the issue and verify it against the AR database. In other words, the data that ended up in the HTOA exists in at least one other pressing where it was not in the HTOA. I know this because the AR database does not include hashes from HOTA.
In any event, careful QC should have caught the issue. Maybe it did and it was decided to go ahead and sell it anyway.
Regarding bits are bits skeptics, I fall into that category as I own a disc from a pressing that contains errors that are not present in other pressings from the same digital master (master as in the digital data prior to it being pressed). I know it isn't just my disc because of AR data combined with the ability to extract the same data from multiple drives and programs with multiple settings without even the hint of difficulty. This is assuming the immaculate physical appearance of the disc isn't adequate enough evidence.
Update: I've just found a cd with a track-1 pregap that is too recent to have been mastered on U-matic, probably on cdr. Sigh.
Next step is to compare a pre-master and a pressed cd, to check where the problem creeps in. I'll try to find and analyse some old masters (most cd-factories don't send them back though).
In any event, careful QC should have caught the issue. Maybe it did and it was decided to go ahead and sell it anyway.
I agree that if the problem occurs on the pre-master, it's the responsability of the pre-mastering engineer. OTOH a chopped off start of track 1 is hard to miss, so I'd be surprised if it would go unnoticed.
The pre-mastering engineer's job is to create a master that is approved by him/her and the client/artist. What happens after that is beyond his control and AFAIK he's never asked/payed to do QC of the final product (vinyl might be an exception). Just imagine productions with a surround master, stereo master, iTunes master etc. Replication is supposed to be transparent. That's what makes this thread so interesting to me.
Regarding bits are bits skeptics, I fall into that category as I own a disc from a pressing that contains errors that are not present in other pressings from the same digital master (master as in the digital data prior to it being pressed).
With "bits are bits sceptics" I mean ppl who "hear" differences in bit-identical signals. From what you describe those two pressings are not bit-identical (checksum), right ?
That's correct. They are not bit-identical.
I do not pretend to know the reason for the errors (all of which I raised are indeed audible), so when you mentioned high-speed transfers I wasn't in any position to dismiss it as a possible source for error.
My hunch is that things weren't as easy 20+ years ago, especially as it relates to ensuring data was free from corruption, and it seems the process was less than fool-proof; far less than what some in the business may have believed to be to the point that it was maybe even taken for granted. That or some of the people involved were sloppy and/or just didn't care.
Can the offset issue explain it, or are the mistakes too far off? If it sounds good in my end on my CD player, then I'm sending the master to you, and finally it ends up with a customer whose player starts into the first transient ... ?
It's about 3,500 samples for the Iron Maiden title.
Here's a CT log:
[CUETools log; Date: 6/4/2013 12:56:02 PM; Version: 2.0.9]
Pregap length 00:00:33.
Offset applied: 4100
[AccurateRip ID: 000d3835-005a3db7-630bf308] found.
Track [ CRC ] Status
01 [74e319cb] (25/25) Accurately ripped
02 [411b3a99] (25/25) Accurately ripped
03 [9a65e404] (25/25) Accurately ripped
04 [36435385] (25/25) Accurately ripped
05 [4987bf36] (25/25) Accurately ripped
06 [67b63155] (24/24) Accurately ripped
07 [c3803e0e] (24/24) Accurately ripped
08 [39750ba0] (24/24) No match but offset
Track Peak [ CRC32 ] [W/O NULL] [ LOG ]
-- 100.0 [6158DF5D] [21D3F87B]
01 100.0 [5DA607FB] [6C8C1421] [612AA18E]
02 100.0 [6B15AA1C] [DF03A376] [BDC19FBC]
03 87.7 [958E7133] [8EB90C18] [2566AD66]
04 100.0 [A5371478] [18D2C817] [5A1F6A22]
05 99.5 [6602A575] [A5E40345] [BA6821B0]
06 98.4 [F7751F7B] [BC1B6592] [312EDC82]
07 96.4 [33221F0B] [92B2E742] [F75B87EE]
08 93.1 [A2A699D8] [565BCF6F] [0A5F3435]
I ripped these tracks with a configured offset correction of -4070 samples (the remaining 30 samples are attributed to the drive based on the reference used by AR) to get rid of the issue with the first track. The beginnings of the rest of the tracks all play fine. I don't recall if they did before the offset was applied. I definitely had to scan backwards into the HTOA to play the beginning of the first track on the various hardware CD players I've used.
The Steve Morse Band title needed an offset correction of about -2000 samples. It also has a 33-frame HTOA index.
I have a double-disc title which requires a similar offset in order to correct the start points for all tracks on both discs. Neither have an HTOA index. I ripped these with with an offset correction of -3500.
That's a lot. And certainly not the most common Powerslave AR-ID – could they have caught the mistake and silently pressed a new batch?
These discs were likely manufactured in the late '80s or early '90s.
I've been trying to find a pattern and all of the discs with a track-1 pregap I could find were made in the 80's and 90's. It doesn't seem to be linked to pre-mastering equipment/software or Record Company. My best guess at the moment is that it's a (historical) glassmastering issue.
Does anyone have a problem-cd which was made after the year 2000 ?
Does anyone have a problem-cd which was made after the year 2000 ?
Discovery by Daft Punk (2001)
Drukqs by Aphex Twin (2001)
Those are the only ones from this century that I could check. I no longer have cue sheets from my other albums.
Are we now qualifying discs with a small HTOA that doesn't affect playback sound quality as problematic, calling it an "issue"?
That would be silly!
I see no reason to give any credence to what has so far only been unsubstantiated FUD. That it may inconvenience people attempting to manipulate ripped audio for whatever purpose hardly qualifies.
An easy fix would be for ripping software to rip those pregaps as track 0, systematically (or giving the option to do it).
It's not like there's a big button with HTOA on it but with EAC you can rip it in a couple of ways, none of which are all that difficult. This has been discussed before on multiple occasions.
The thing is that most of the time there is really no real rational reason to rip HTOA when it is small like this. When size of the HTOA exceeds a certain threshold that, IIRC, was completely reasonable, the GUI in EAC will display the first track in red.
Looking at the dBpoweramp website, HTOA extraction has been available since v13. From what I've read, the functionality appears to be user-friendly and direct, unlike that in EAC.
Aren't there some open-source ripping programs to which the functionality can be added? Have at it.
Sorry about the edits, sometimes things occur to me after I've posted. I know that annoys at least a few people.
CUERipper also can rip HTOA to separate track and it is opensource
http://www.cuetools.net/wiki/CUERipper (http://www.cuetools.net/wiki/CUERipper)
Looking at the dBpoweramp website, HTOA extraction has been available since v13. From what I've read, the functionality appears to be user-friendly and direct
Yes. Insert the CD and it pops up in the track listing as track 0, above track 1, with title
Hidden First Track (ability to rip depends on CD drive). Will be ripped as such too. Not unlike the way you explain that EAC works (what is wrong with that one?) Ordinary 2-sec pregaps do not, so I assume that is length-based like EAC too. I have one that is as short as 10 seconds.
dBpoweramp will add 1 to the totaltracks field, opinions will differ on whether that is a good thing, and otherwise tag the file with those tags which are common through the album.