Hello all,

I'm a Pre-Mastering Technician (by accident of course :-) for a local replication/authoring house in my home city. I've been learning alot about the business, the in's and out's,...about what CD's and DVD's are really all about. Well, one of the things that has caught my attention the last couple of weeks is CD's that were mastered/authored with a hidden track. For those that don't know, that's a track that's written into index 0 of track 1 (pre 2 second pause audio). Well, I've been doing my homework trying to figure out what I'd need to make these kinda CD's at home, becuase we don't and won't make them at work, and I think it would be kinda cool to know how to do it. Well, I've got Sonic Foundry CD Architect 5.0 and went and tracked down a drive that I thought would do the job (all drives won't allow such Red Book violating). I purchased a brand new Yamaha CRW-70 Spyder drive (based on the spec information at the feurio.com web site). After two days of playing around with CD-Architect, I finally figured out the process of laying out a hidden track (they don't make it that easy for you in the Help section BTW). So, I go to burn this after much dismay, everything seems ok,...my Yamaha drive is recognize with no problems,...and then. I get a warning from CD Architect about how I'm violating the whole Red Book standard (as if I don't know enough about Red Book standards from work), so I bypass that and let her rip! She goes about 'rendering' the audio files, and prepares to burn them. 98, 99, 100%,...she goes to burn and!!!....error. This drive apparently 'DOES NOT' support writing into index 0, and I'm now wondering if ANY of the drives on feurio's web site actually do,..the ones they claim do (maybe only with their software). Well, if they only work with fuerio, then I need some help because I'm not using feurio, and in my opinion, CD Architect is much more user-friendly and professional. I've said all this to say this,....does anyone know (from experience) which drives (make, model and firmware version) out here in the free world ACTUALLY DO allow you to burn hidden track (index 0 index 1) audio? and if so,..what software (make and version build) did you use along with the drive? Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks all

I've just burned 3 songs, 1st as index 0 track 1, 2nd as index 1 track 1, and 3rd as index 1 track 2. I used LG GSA-4120B with firmware A104 and EAC v0.95prebeta5. I don't have a stand-alone CD-player here, so I tested it only on PC's internal CD drive, and it plays back correctly, except that I cant make it play the song which is supposed to be index 0 track 1 - can't play it with EAC nor Windows CD-player nor Windows Media Player nor foobar2000. Only index 1 track 1 and index 1 track 2 are playable. Perhaps the hidden track is playable on stand-alone CD-player, but at the moment I can't check it.
I may be wrong, but I think that drive doesn't matter when burning such a hidden track, if you can't do that then it's probably lack of such a feature in software, or poor support of the drive in software that you're using.

Almost all burners can burn audio between index-0 and index-1 of track 1.

You only have to check the "Track 1, Index 1 > 00:03:00:" column in Feurio burners database:
http://www.feurio.com/English/Writerdb/Dat...maha_crw70.html

I have done it with an ancient Teac 4x and an LG 32x.
Any TEAC, Plextor or modern LiteOn or LG drive will do it.

The problem is to read that part (only few drives do it), but burning is really easy.

http://www.feurio.com/English/faq/faq_voca...dex0music.shtml

Just set the special index-0 mark in Feurio Track Editor in the desired position. One click.



I don't know CD-Architect, but you won't find any better support for any drive than with Feurio!
If your drive has been tested, you can be sure that burning that kind of disc will work.

Does CD-Architec officially support that Yamaha drive?
Or it just uses generic MMC commands for all drives? (This is what Feurio does better than anyone)
USB drives are more "delicate" for software to support.

I'm pretty sure EAC will let you make a custom CUE sheet to burn an index 0 hidden track.

Of course.
Any program that burns cuesheets will work... if your drive is supported.
Does EAC correctly work with Yamaha Spyder?