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This is also known as “Importing Audio Tracks”… This can be done to Mode-1 or Mode-2 Mixed Mode CD-ROMs. The best way to import or change audio tracks is through recording software that will allow you to extract audio sectors rather than the full audio track. The best and easiest software that I know of has to be CDRWIN 3.7C, which can be downloaded from http://www.goldenhawk.com . This program can extract whole discs, tracks, or sectors… it is the best and most versatile recording software that I’m aware of. For this FAQ, I will only show this process of changing audio track using CDRWIN 3.7C. Why would someone want to change the audio tracks on a mixed mode CD? The only reason I can think of is for entertainment purposes… an individual may want to listen to their favorite songs while playing their favorite game or maybe they dislike the audio tracks that the manufacture used in the development of a certain game. How to do it? Open CDRWIN 3.7C and insert the CD-ROM game either PC or PSX will do. For this example, I will use the full version PSX game called Thrill Kill-NTSC, which contains one Mode-2 data track and 13 Audio tracks. Upon starting CDRWIN 3.7C you’ll get a group of boxes as indicated below (Fig. 1-1)
With the Thrill Kill game located in the CD-ROM drive, select “Table of Contents” indicated above by the Red Arrow. When the “TOC” (Table of Contents) launches, the menu will display the game’s track layout with sector sizes of each track from where they start on the disc. See Fig 1-2. The sectors are actually indicated with “LBA” which stands for Logical Block Address. According to Fig 1-2, the entire disc has 273,626 sectors also known as “blocks”. These LBA numbers by each track shows when the Audio Track starts and continues until the start of the following track, minus 2 seconds for the pregap/postgap. The Pregap or Postgap is the 2 seconds of silence that most games have, by default, between each track and contains no data. They cannot be read nor can they be copied. So taking this into consideration, in order to extract the sectors for an audio track from the disc, one must calculate the length of each track by taking the start time (LBA) of the following track and subtracting the start time from the track we want to extract and then subtract 150 sectors from it for the gap. Two seconds is equal to 150 sectors. Here’s an example, from Fig. 1-2, we want to extract Track2 from the disc so we know Track3 starts at 143725 and Track2 starts at 125165. Track3 143725 Track2 - 126165 Gap
- 150 Total 17410
Track1 = Mode2 Data Track which was extracted from the actual game disc. We will name this “TRACK1.BIN” Track2 = 17410 sectors (We’ll name this “TRACK2.WAV”) Track3 = 11091 sectors (We’ll name this “TRACK3.WAV”) Track4 = 8115 sectors (We’ll name this “TRACK4.WAV”) Track5 = 10690 sectors (We’ll name this “TRACK5.WAV”) Track6 = 11886 sectors (We’ll name this “TRACK6.WAV”) Track7 = 12146 sectors (We’ll name this “TRACK7.WAV”) Track8 = 13155 sectors (We’ll name this “TRACK8.WAV”) Track9 = 11597 sectors (We’ll name this “TRACK9.WAV”) Track10 = 9631 sectors (We’ll name this “TRACK10.WAV”) Track10 = 9631 sectors (We’ll name this “TRACK10.WAV”) Track11 = 13571 sectors (We’ll name this “TRACK11.WAV”) Track12 = 3216 sectors (We’ll name this “TRACK12.WAV”) Track13 = 4200 sectors (We’ll name this “TRACK13.WAV”) Track14 = 19113 sectors Note: Do not subtract the Gap from the last track, it doesn’t exist) (“TRACK14.BIN”) Be sure to write down all the sectors of every track in order to replace them correctly. Also make sure you name the files exactly as they are written above; i.e. “Track8.wav”, etc. or the example Cuesheet I’ve included below will not work. How to extract the Mode-2 Data Track In order to extract the Mode-2 data track, you can do it one of two ways. The easiest way is to “Extract the Track” with the Extract Disc/Tracks/Sectors Utility indicated by the red arrow in Fig 1-3 below. When the program opens the Extract Disc/Tracks/Sectors to Image File Window (Fig 1-4), there are three things to do. First, select the “Select Tracks” option as indicated by the yellow arrow. Second, provide an Image Filename in the spot indicated by the blue arrow and make sure the name matches the name used in the Cuesheet or else it won’t work. Finally, click on the first data track as shown by the red arrow; the track will display a black circle around the number if selected properly. That’s it, now click on Start and the track should extract to your hard drive.
If for some reason you receive an error at the end of the process, that’s because the program is trying to extract the Postgap with the data sectors. The Postgap cannot be copied nor extracted cause it does not contain any data. The Postgap can be either 1 to 3 seconds in length depending on the software developer, although it’s usually 2 seconds long. Knowing this, we can figure out how many sectors the actual data track is by subtracting 75 sectors, for every second of Postgap, from the end of the track. For instance, the data track is 126014 sectors in size and this is figured out by taking the starting point of Track2 (126165) and subtracting 2 seconds of Postgap; remember 75 sectors equal 1 second. This particular game has a 2-second Postgap after the Mode-2 data track because I ran the Sector Viewer utility to find the last readable sector. This is the best way to find the last readable sector of the data track if you have problems trying to extract the whole track. Here’s what to do… Open up the Sector Viewer as indicated by the red arrow in Fig 1-5 below.
Fig 1-6
Then input a sector number approximately 151-160 sectors less than what Track2 indicates where it starts according to Fig 1-2. In this example, Track2 starts at 126165, so if I subtract 155 sectors, which is a little more than 2 seconds in length, I will input sector # 126010. Upon clicking on the “Read Sector” button, Binary Data will be displayed, see Fig 1-6.
Then proceed to increase the Sector number by 1 by clicking on the up-arrow as indicated by the blue arrow on Fig 1-6, until the utility cannot view the following sector. In this example, the last readable sector is 126014. So here is the Mode-2 track layout. TRACK1.BIN starts at sector 000000 and ends at sector 126014 The Postgap starts at sector 126015 and ends at sector 126164 (2 seconds) TRACK2.WAV starts at sector 126165 and ends at sector 143574 FILE TRACK1.BIN BINARY TRACK 01 MODE2/2352 INDEX 01 00:00:00 POSTGAP 00:03:00 FILE TRACK2.WAV WAVE TRACK 02 AUDIO INDEX 00 00:00:00 INDEX 01 00:02:00 FILE TRACK3.WAV WAVE TRACK 03 AUDIO INDEX 00 00:00:00 INDEX 01 00:02:00 FILE TRACK4.WAV WAVE TRACK 04 AUDIO INDEX 00 00:00:00 INDEX 01 00:02:00 FILE TRACK5.WAV WAVE TRACK 05 AUDIO INDEX 00 00:00:00 INDEX 01 00:02:00 FILE TRACK6.WAV WAVE TRACK 06 AUDIO INDEX 00 00:00:00 INDEX 01 00:02:00 FILE TRACK7.WAV WAVE TRACK 07 AUDIO INDEX 00 00:00:00 INDEX 01 00:02:00 FILE TRACK8.WAV WAVE TRACK 08 AUDIO INDEX 00 00:00:00 INDEX 01 00:02:00 FILE TRACK9.WAV WAVE TRACK 09 AUDIO INDEX 00 00:00:00 INDEX 01 00:02:00 FILE TRACK10.WAV WAVE TRACK 10 AUDIO INDEX 00 00:00:00 INDEX 01 00:02:00 FILE TRACK11.WAV WAVE TRACK 11 AUDIO INDEX 00 00:00:00 INDEX 01 00:02:00 FILE TRACK12.WAV WAVE TRACK 12 AUDIO INDEX 00 00:00:00 INDEX 01 00:02:00 FILE TRACK13.WAV WAVE TRACK 13 AUDIO INDEX 00 00:00:00 INDEX 01 00:02:00 FILE TRACK14.WAV WAVE TRACK 14 AUDIO INDEX 00 00:00:00 INDEX 01 00:02:00
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