Customer Reviews

Cakewalk Pyro 5

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

On December the 20th I received the Pyro 5 software from Amazon.com. I already owned Pyro 2004 and I had been working successfully with it digitizing my collection of LPs. Pyro 2004 however was not perfect as it did not recognize my DVD writer. I had contacted Cakewalk about it and all I got was something that sounded more like black magic than technical advice. Anyway I followed their advice, and after that nothing had changed, I had just wasted my time, which seems to be usual with most software. When the new Pyro came out I decided to order it hoping that the problem had been fixed and I could write directly on my CD/DVD recorder.

First after putting the software on my hard drive I found that the software was only good for 30 days if I did not register before. By the way this is on the box at the back on the lower right corner, I thought that this was a disgusting trick and was most annoyed. I thus decided to register the program which I seldom do because to my experience one never can get good help from so-called customer services.

If that was not enough when registering, the serial number stuck on the software was refused and could not even register.
I immediately send an Email to Cakewalk about not being able to register, and complaining about having to register when I had paid for the software. The answer I received completely ignored my not being able to register, but gave a long discourse on the necessity to require registration to protect their software. I sent another Email pointing out that my problem had not been solved. Their answer was that they needed the serial number to do that. The serial number which I had duly attached on my first Email was still attached to the Email string. Useless to say my next Email was not a happy one. I am still waiting for an answer.

If all this was no bad enough, when I started recording some CDs with music to test the program, the first CD went well but the second just crashed after half of it had been written. It just stopped recording, no message, nothing. When I decided to check whether something was wrong with my hardware using Nero5 which usually works without problem, I found out that the program would not start, the same with Easy CD5. Pyro 5 had crashed those two programs. If you are thinking to get this program stay away from it, unless you like to be disappointed. I for one am not likely to go back to Cakewalk.

These software companies protect themselves, but nobody protects the consumers!!!

I bought this software to backup my cds onto my hard drive, it took 45 minutes to rip a 45 minute cd at top speed. There's no excuse for the lack of quality in this program, cd ripping and mp3 encoding are supposed to be the main features yet it's win95 type slow. I found a freeware program called audiograbber instead for my ripping needs and not only is it much faster (3 minutes for a 45 minute cd) but it has more options as well. My advice, go download audiograbber and forget about cakewalk, pyro 5 is a big ripoff.

I bought Pyro5 to address some issues I have with Pyro 2004, only to find that some trouble spots came over with the newer program. Pyro5 will not recognize titles on a CD I want to rip from. I had trouble getting this burn a CD and it took a couple of emails from cakewalk tech support to get this to work.

I have to give the tech department good reviews, however.

GOING IN CIRCLES TRYING TO INSTALL THIS CRAP ON WINDOWS 7. WILL NOT INSTALL, WILL NOT ACCEPT SERIAL NUMBER. ASKED MANUFACTURER FOR HELP, THEIR SOLUTION TO RIGHT CLICK ON LAUNCH ICON DOES NOTHING, SOOOOOOO, DO NOT GET THIS SOFTWARE, IT'S FLAWED BIG TIME WITH NO SUPPORT FROM THE COMPANY. AND, I BOUGHT THE TURNTABLE FOR NOTHING BECAUSE W/O THE SOFTWARE I CANNOT BURN VINYL TO DISC OR DOWNLOAD INTO COMPUTER. SHAME ON AUDIO-TECHNICA FOR INCLUDING THIS JUNK SOFTWARE WITH A QUALITY TURNTABLE.

I had no problems installing and using Pyro 5. I did have to register the program after I installed it, but it wasn't a big deal. It seemed pretty basic to figure out. I run Windows XP and my computer is 3 years old.