Hi Folx

One for all you audiophiles and sound engineers.

Wasn't too sure where to post this, so opted for here.
This'll sound weirder than my normal posts and NO I've not been at the amber nectar.
And No I'm not mad.
Today I suddenly remembered .....
years ago I decided to burn a two CD disc of Heathen and all the extra trax and b sides all in a nice little easily accessible package to save me having to load in countless CDs into my magazines to play all the trax.
Nothing strange there I hear you say !
The strange thing is that when I went to record 'Heathen' disc 1,I rewinded the CD from somewhere during 'Sunday' and it went back further than 0.00 secs, and when I played back my first burned disc it had an unidentified extra track as track 1.
Thinking it was an Easter Egg I immediately tried to repeat the process to get the track to play on my proper copy and couldn't and have never been able to since?
Looked in your discography Ruud and searched the net to see If I could find any info about this track but so far there doesn't seem to be any mention of it anywhere.
To make sure I wasn't going mad,today I went and searched for the CDs I burned thinking I had no chance and actually found them, and the track was there.
It doesn't sound like a 'Heathen' track,but more like something that would've been on 'Contamination'had it been released or from 'Omikron'.
I'm 98% certain it's Bowie but the vox are heavily treated and it's like a rhythmic ongoing chant with Bowie singing "All Of The Spoils Of A Wasted Life'" (I think?)
And it's 3.29 seconds long, and definately sounds like a 'finished song'.
I sent this to my friend 100% back in 2002 but never heard anymore,so assumed it was in circulation.

Have I got a ghost in my machine or does anyone else know about this track?


Jack

PS For all you sound engineers out there,is there anyway this track could accidentally be put on my CD without moi being able to access it again?.

This seems unlikely as record companies abandoned that type of hidden track when CD player technology changed in the mid 90s. It's also hard to believe that everyone else missed it for 8 years, but.....

How old is your CD player?

Did you buy your limited edition in the UK?
What's the barcode/catalogue number?
What's the matrix number on the playing side of the CD 1?

Did you copy the CD on a computer or a standalone/HiFi CD recorder?

Can you upload a short clip from the mysterious track?

The entire mysterious track is OK as well

This is fascinating, Im going to check my copy tomorrow

i tried my two copies, no dice.

looking forward to seeing this one solved. and heard...

I read in the net that HEATHEN SACD has a hidden track.

maybe a coincidence but that's a line from The Great Below by Nine Inch Nails...

Hi shooky et all

I'm getting more confused rather than getting an answer.

If no one here has heard of this track and no one else's disc has played this track it all seems rather dubious that it's a secret Easter Egg Bowie track,moreso when I can't replicate how I first recorded it?
Yesterday before remembering about this weird track I'd been playing a CD I have containing tracks from Omikron which sounds in a similar vein ie more like a rhythmic soundtrack (see below)which got me to thinking it sounded like it had come from around this era?
This a.m. when I got back in I played it again and I got to thinking "this sounds like some NIN/Trent Reznor mix ala 'Ghosts I - IV'/'Year Zero' mixes and this was before I read any of the comments here.
So it is very conincidental that I should decipher the lyrics as "All The Spoils Of A Wasted Life"???
On first few plays I thought he was saying "All Of The Spoils Always Delight"
I didn't have the track you mention shooky at the time,though since I now have the live 'The Fragile' version.
On seeing your post shooky I went on Youtube and none of the versions there sound remotely like my weird track! I thought I'd struck lucky when I found a version measuring 3.29 seconds,but that wasn't it either.
If anyone can find a 3.29 seconds mix of NIN's 'The Great Below' then maybe I'm partly there to solving this little anomoly?
Like said Bowie/Trent Reznor or whomever just recites the line "All Of The Spoils Of A Wasted Life" over and over again,and twice recites the line "Could They Be At Any Price?"
Later today I'll go through my 20 CDs of NIN mixes to see If I can find anything similar there?
Anyway I've nearly reached the amount limit of of characters I can put in this reply,so I'll sign off here and post one more comment about recording and samples.

Jack

Morn Folx

Pt 2.

It's very strange that I can record a track I don't own and have never heard before?
You guys can spot a bum note or a phased mono track 20 metres away,and now you've got moi thinking I can't distinguish If that's Bowie or Trent Reznor doing vox.
My recording set up then was I have two Pioneer multi play CD players which go through an 8 channel mixing desk and then onto an equaliser and stand alone CD recorder,so I could therefore record from any one of eight sources at the same time.
On the day I only had channel 1 & 2 programmed.
I had the run of the mill Heathen deluxe edition CDs in CD player 1.
(COL 508222 9/5082229000 ?)
And had the three versions of 'Everyone Says Hi' & the Canadian 'I've Been Waiting For You' in CD player 2.
(In those days I didn't have many NIN CDs or mixes)
My track is a complete track from start to finish,so is not a case of me mistakenly making another channel live whilst recording.

Even although I have this track on a CD and as a music file on my PC I don't know how to sample it,but If anyone could send me idiot proof instructions on how to do this I would gladly send a sample If only to stop me thinking I'm going mad,and to clear this up.

As said, If no one else has heard this track then I wouldn't hold your breath on it beng a Bowie track.
More a case of a ghost in my machine?

Jack

email an mp3 of the complete track to Ruud or Maarten. Also *.zip the mp3 file before sending it. In Windows, right click the file and select "Send To; Compressed (zipped) Folder".

Ive checked mine and no joy

Im gutted as would love to hear this myself, will try it on my in laws CD player later, maybe they have an older CD player?

I tried with my Japanese release .......NOTHING.
BTW how is that NOMAD SONGS ...?

Hi KD et all!

I had a prowl through my NIN mix CDs and nothing there.

Even although it was eight years ago I recorded these CDs I'm still positive I recorded 13 trax on my first recording of Heathen when it only contains 12.
Wether it's Bowie or not,for this reason I'm reticent about sharing the whole track, hence why I'd rather sample it just so folx can judge for themselves what it is from part of it.

As for the Nomad Soul songs, I have no idea where I got that from but would assume in this file sharing age it'd be all over the place by now?
For those that have not heard it, it's a strange affair with parts like the segues from 1.Outside,ambient movie trax and adverts for the Omikron world and the general trax that Bowie and Gabrels made for the game.
It also contains the two trax 'Omikron' and 'Last Of The Dreamers' that appeared with the '1.Outside','Earthling''Hours' box set as bonus trax but here they seem to be in their correct context.

I don't think I got this from master 100%,so If it's not and If it wasn't widely available I'd be prepared to upload it to my file sharing space and send folx on the forum who haven't heard it the link as long as what I send stays with them.

But still pretty sure it must be out there.
Was actually going to post about this CD before I waylaid myself with the extra 'Heathen' track?? to see If anyone knew any info about this CD as I just know it contains 35 songs and that's all.

Jack

I'm fairly confident there isn't a hidden track, Exact Audio Copy says that track one starts at position 0:00:00:00, the first sector on the disc. Hidden tracks usually reveal themselves with a later start time for track one.



Perhaps you also used an "unfinalised" CDR-Audio disc that already had a track on it?

Hi Alan

I'm as baffled as probably most folx and I also thought about about the scenario of recording onto a CDr that already had 'unfinalised material' on it but I think this would be highly unlikely as like I said somewhere else I'm very averse to touching CDs or contaminating them in any way so I wouldn't partly record something then record on it another day.
It's straight from the packet record in one,finalise then into a case.
Which only leaves the daft scenario that the track was sitting on my CDr unfinalised when it came from the factory.

And like said I hadn't heard this track until the day I recorded it.
All weird.

The more I read that no one else has any knowledge of this track the more I think it's a ghost in the machine.

Once I find out how to sample it,folx can make up their own minds what it actually is.

Jack