Customer Reviews

Cakewalk Pyro

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(10)

 

 

I was having a hard time finding the right software to burn CDs (particulary with Adaptec's Easy CD Creator). From the reviews that I have read here, I may be in the minority, but Cakewalk's Pyro has been a wonderful program to work with. I have only had to toss a bad CD a couple times in dozens of instances - a vast improvment from the stack of "coasters" that piled up with other programs.

What I particularly liked about Pyro was its ability to work with different file formats (and in my experience successful complete one). You can burn MP3s right onto a CD without converting it to another file format. Additionally, I have heavily used the "ripping" feature which allows you to convert your own CDs to digital files (MP3s, WAVs, etc.). It also allows you to set a bitrate for your "ripped" music to help control the sometimes out-of-control files sizes (I have well over a gigabtye of MP3s on my computer right now these files tend to take up. Another terrific feature is that when you load a CD to "rip" you can download the CD's song titles and artist(s) via CD Database (CDDB) -- so no typing in file names! (The registration for this service is free and I have not received any spam e-mails from it). The audio player in the program seems more stable than other players (i.e. RealPlayer) I have used - though it certainly is not a full-featured "jukebox" type program. Finally, another nice Pyro feature is the ability to put in customized gaps between tracks prior to burning.

However, I am taking away one star for one fairly consistent problem. Pyro, at times, is unable to recognize MP3 downloads from that very popular online music "sharing" community. Often these MP3 files are said to be "corrupted" or not in the proper format (and thus can not be listened to and/or burned with Pyro). The same files DO work on other players and programs that I have. So this is my only substantive complaint with the program. For those with high speed modems, it might not take long to replace it with another file but for me and my measly phone line modem it is not worth the time.

Overall, I have been very pleased with Pyro. It has saved me a lot of time and aggravation and the ripping ability/features was worth the price of the software alone. Obviously, it appears this is not the case with everyone but I would recommend giving Pyro a try.

I did use a demo version of this and was impressed. It is a combination of Spin Doctor and Easy CD Creator (except you can burn MP3s to CD). This program should sell many copies, especially at its low price...

Pyro is awesome! I had no trouble installing, and was burning CDs within minutes. Pyro quickly found my CD burner, and located my mp3, WMA and WAV files. I've been making my own compilation CDs and converting some of my favorite CD tracks to mp3, now they're small enough for storage or to e mail to friends. The label maker is really cool because you can import your own pictures and text. Pyro automatically finds album and song titles on my CDs. It also records audio, and it was easy to connect my old turntable and transfer songs off some old records and tapes, then enhance the sound with EQ and other effects. This thing is the bomb!

I used to use the trial version of musicmatch Jukebox (from Real) to burn things, and it worked fantastically. Anyway, I accidently deleted that, so I figured, why not buy Pyro? The screenies make it look great, looks like it's got everything I need. Boy was I wrong. There's no option to have just a "library" of songs with this thing, it's all in directory or straight "playlist" format. On top of that the code in this thing is some of the least efficient I've ever seen. While beginners that haven't used any other software may find it "awe inspiring" just to see something that burns and rips cd's (eventually), the more selective customers will think otherwise. Be prepared to wait a few seconds after you push the play button for any song to start, and, oh, did you want to rip an entire CD? That'll take about 5-6 minutes per 3-4 minute song, thank you. Jesus H., Real's Jukebox let's you PLAY the song while you rip because it only takes it about a minute to mp3 encode directly from the cd... Pyro takes forever, and that's no lie. In conclusion, I haven't even tried the burning capabilities of it yet, I'm taking it back right now.

I bought this program thinking of all the great possibilities that this program would be able to do. After installing it over and over again, it kept on launching to an "Illegal Operation". I uninstalled Adaptec DirectCD, reinstalled Pyro, but it still kept giving me the Illegal Operation error. So I made a screen shot of the error, printed it out, brought it back to the store that I bought it from. Even though they have a policy on open software, they still honored my request to return the program because I printed out the error message.

Save yourself some heartache and frustration. Buy something else! Music Match Jukebox is supposed to be pretty solid. I think I'll try that program instead.

I would have given this program zero stars, but I was only given the option to select 1 or more.

I purchased the online download version through Digital River. Although it downloaded and installed fine, I could not get it to run properly, even after uninstalling my other potentially conflicting CD-R software. It may not have been compatible with my Yamaha Cd-R/CD-RW.

I also disliked the look and feel of the product (from what I could tell before it shut itself down). It didn't seem to have any data CD recording/copying features.

Luckily, the company seems to be honest and I think I'm getting my money back.

I purchased this software for two reasons: to let me digitally record old cassette tapes, and to convert those files to MP3 format to save space. The CD Wave Editor is an *excellent* digital recording program, and you can buy it ala carte from Cakewalk's website... I highly recommend it.

The MP3 converter, however, is completely unacceptable. Every MP3 file, regardless of the bitrate, has a very annoying tinny, digital quality to it, and even my old analog recordings, which weren't exactly studio quality to begin with, sound awful after conversion.

My recommendation is to buy the Wave Editor software separately and download any LAME-based WAV-to-MP3 freeware.

This software is truly one of the worst software purchases I've ever made -- it makes Microsoft's first-run products look bug-proof. I have installed this on three computers, so far. It has become a game to see just how many machines this software can crash. Its features sound great, but I have yet to have an opportunity to use them -- just can't get past that "fatal error." I just purchased MusicMatch Jukebox 5.0 -- it installs, runs, converts files, and burns CDs without any fuss or problems. Buy that instead

I bought this for my husband, and he's having a blast with it. He's converting his old vinyl records, and turning them into CDs for the car. He's loaded a bunch of songs onto our PC at home. I bought it on the recommendation from a friend at work. It's nice and simple to use. Now he wants a portable MP3 player though.

This product is great for the beginner who basically wants to copy Cd's and ripping. The audio effects are great. Yon can pick different recording sounds. For a bonus added to the package are a Labeling software and a blank Verbatim CD-R disc. The only dissapointment I had was, you are limited in arranging and organizing the selected format songs you want to record. This is not to say there are ways around this, just takes abite longer. Overall, this software is a start for the beginners who are not familiar with the muiltimedia realm. For the price, this is a simple user friendly software. Stay away from price tags of $20. It probably does not have ripping capablities. (copying from Cd to MP3)