Amazon.com: Cakewalk Pyro 2004: Software

19 Reviews

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

Average Customer Review

2.3 out of 5 stars (19 customer reviews)

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49 of 49 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Extra Features not found in other CD audio software, October 18, 2003

Rachelle Ayala (USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Cakewalk Pyro 2004 (CD-ROM)

The Cakewalk Pyro 2004 offers the usual CD copying, mp3, WMA and wav ripping, data cd creation, playback, file organizing, ID3 tags, CDDB lookup. However it offers a boatload of useful features not found elsewhere. You can record line-in from the microphone, as well as hook up your stereo. Then clean up hiss, cracks and pops, as well as add Reverb, Delay, Chorus, & other effects with Plasma FXPad. You can work with a waveform, tweak the sound effects, graphically edit crossfades, volume, start & end times, and playback segments until you get it just right before burning to an audio CD. Additionally, you can encode entire mix playlist to one continuous MP3/WAV/WMA, or split audio files graphically into multiple tracks.

You can also selectively rip tracks from a CD by preselecting them before ripping. You can easily arrange playlists and then burn them into audio or mp3, wma CDs.

The best feature for me is the ability to record anything playing through your sound card including streaming audio. This is not fully explained in the documentation, but the instructions at their website explain how to set this up. You can either record live, or you can set a schedule timed to start at a particular time, for a particular duration, or end-time. This beats running the output from one computer's line-out into your line-in. You can convert this WAV file to MP3 or WMA, with a choice of quality for MP3 files.

The strongest feature set is the extensive audio editing, enhancement, cleanup, crossfades, and volume leveling controls. This is not found in the other comparable programs. The jukebox feature does not compare to other programs, and is basically consists of playback of playlists. The user interface is not too intuitive, so expect to spend some time with the documentation or to go to the website and newsgroup. For example, to convert audio format, you need to select the files, and then hit a "More" button at the top of the pane. There is no "right-mouse-click" as you might expect. However all in all, I'm highly satisfied with this program for the audio capabilities not found elsewhere.

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8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Very Good for Making CDs from LP/Tape, February 17, 2004

By A Customer

This review is from: Cakewalk Pyro 2004 (CD-ROM)

I almost didn't buy this program based on the negative comments I read here. I run XP and wanted to take my old, out of print vinyls and make CDs from them. I found it to be very good for that. I just record an entire side of an album to a file, split it up into tracks visually by looking/listening to the waveform, and optionally cleaning up, enhancing the sound. I can truncate tracks if I let the record go too long. I found the process to be very easy, and it produced a good quality CD. I also used it to rip MP3s from CD so I could combine a number of audio CDs onto a single data CD (I just got the Cambridge Soundworks table-top radio CD player, that support MP3s; love it). There were a few small user interface things that I thought could have been better. Like automatically putting my ripped MP3s into a folder hierarchy based on artist and album title. But all in all, I'm very pleased so far.

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10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Do you want to be a beta tester?, June 20, 2004

By A Customer

This review is from: Cakewalk Pyro 2004 (CD-ROM)

I am running XP; I bought Pyro 2004 to replace Roxio because I liked the idea of an integrated package. However, there were problems from the start.
In "Record an Audio File" mode, Pyro unpredictably shut down when I hit stop play on an mp3, or when I tried to display an mp3 in the lower panel. In some cases it generated an error message.
I contacted product support; this is what they told me to do:

1. You'll need to uninstall Pyro 2004 or MediaWorks. Remove all
shortcuts also.

2. Click the Windows Start button and select Run. At the prompt type
REGEDIT and click OK.

3. Backup your Registry before making edits - you do this by clicking
the Registry menu, Export Registry File.

4. Now delete the following Registry keys
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Cakewalk Music
Software\"MediaWorks"
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Cakewalk Music
Software\"MediaWorks"

If you have "Pyro 2004" instead of "MediaWorks" delete that folder
instead.

5. To ensure that other programs are not interfering with the
operation of MW or Pyro, do the following.

* turn off auto-insert notification for all of your CD drives (click
Start, Settings, Control Panel, System, Device Manager)In XP, put a CD
in and select "Take No Action" and put a check where it says "Always
Take this Action."
In Win 98/ME/XP, choose Start | Run and type MSCONFIG. Click OK, then
click on the Startup tab at the upper right of the window that opens.
Uncheck all items listed, click OK, then restart your computer. You
can always recheck those items again at a later time. In Win 2000,
click Ctrl+Alt+Del and manually End Task on the items you don't need
running. Restart

6. If you have Adaptec Direct CD, Napster or Roxio's GoBack, make sure
you uninstall or disable them temporarily. Also temporarily uninstall
any other burning software on your machine. Now reinstall Cakewalk.

Other mp3 burners do not need this much nursing; Roxio and Xing work perfectly out of the box.
I'll probably have to go through this procedure, since I won't get my money back. If I'd known then what I know now...

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