Cakewalk PYRO MP3 and CD Maker

Getting started is a breeze: select media files from your hard drive or CD, click a button and wait as the tracks convert into your desired format. Once converted, the tracks can be played through the integrated media player. Environmental Sound Processing effects optimise the MP3 and WMA audio output (CD audio is unaffected). These effects sculpt the sound for listening via headphones, a desktop system's speakers, or a home stereo. Other settings simulate a concert hall, stadium and orchestra hall, among other environments, adding flavour to certain recordings. Customisable effects such as flange, chorus, delay/echo and reverb are available as well, though the advanced controls interface may intimidate some. Home-recording enthusiasts will benefit most from these effects (and hundreds of additional downloadable DirectX effects), since the settings can be permanently affixed to sound files. General users who simply want to turn their favourite CDs into MP3s will likely play around with these effects a few times for entertainment value, then ignore them.

Moving the tunes off your hard drive is, in theory, a snap: a few clicks send your files to a portable media player or onto a blank CD. However, both options have potential limitations. Only a few portable players--Creative Labs's and S3/Diamond's most popular brands--are compatible with Pyro. The CD-burning function supports a wider range of popular CD-R/CD-RW drives, though in testing our ostensibly compatible model (HP 8100 CD-Writer Plus) refused to successfully burn a CD after numerous tweaks.

When properly configured with the user's hardware, Pyro provides plenty of sound-sculpting options for the amateur music engineer. But for those who simply wish to convert CD tracks to MP3 or WMA files for general listening, one of the dozens of other popular--and often free--programs may provide a more economical, no-nonsense solution. --Eric Twelker

Pyro is the complete system for recording, playing and organising your favourite digital music. Whether you want to burn audio CDs, make MP3s, download files to your portable player, or even record LPs and cassettes, Pyro does it all. Designed to simplify and streamline the process of digital music playback and management, Pyro is the ideal solution for today's music enthusiasts. Pyro lets you easily move your personal music collection to the PC, manage MP3s, create customised CD mixes and export music to portable MP3 players. Only Pyro has ESP-Environmental Sound Processing for optimising the audio playback quality for the environment you choose. Whether you listen through headphones, in your car or on your PC, with Pyro you always get superior sound quality.