I switched to Pyro right after SoFo shit-canned CDA last time and I think it is the BOMB!!...especially the newest version. I downloaded the CDA demo and I wouldn't switch, even if CDA was free. CDA doesn't have anything that Pyro hasn't AND you can even write track names, believe it or not. You might wanna check out the new version of Pyro. Just my 2 resinikoffs, fwiw.

WG

I stopped buying Pyro at v1.5. But the reviews of Pyro 2003 sound good. Unfortunately, Cakewalk doesn't have a trial version for it. Then again, the download version is only $25.

Does it write CD Text song titles?

--- aoc

Hmmm. Any idea when it'll show up in the product?

Thanks,
--- aoc

> Posted by: waynegee (Ignore This User)
> Date: 12/25/2002 2:54:11 PM

>I switched to Pyro right after SoFo shit-canned CDA
>last time and I think it is the BOMB!!...especially the
> newest version.

Is that some different version to the Pyro 2003 on CW's website ? Looks like a toy to me, albeit a pretty useful one for converting stuff to CD from LP, etc ....


geoff

I've got Pyro 2003. It doesn't write CD-TEXT to the disc either; it just uses CDDB to retrieve song names, like Winamp. Pyro is a good program for managing your music collection since it can function as a jukebox player, has seamless support for portable devives, and has a very good RECORD funciton (unlike CDA) (>_<). I found it adequate for tracking my DJ mixes, which is what I mainly use CDA for, it just can't make quite as complex crossfades. The only significant problem with it is that you can't save the pre-rendered images it makes before it actually burns the CD so you have to sit through that every time. However, this is supposed to be added in the next update and *CDA has exactly the same lack of functionality* (see "The Burning Issue") so for the price difference unless you need super exact control over volume envelopes or indexes I'm not sure it's really worth the extra $150+ for CDA at this point. For me, I'm glad I bought both. They're both good for different things. For the price of CDA, I really would have appreciated Sound Forge XP/lite 6 or even 5 bundled, though. It sucks that SF doesn't include that anymore.
-Chris

Oops, I forgot to mention the obvious. There are two programs, CDP Burn and Premaster (written by Colin Hill) which will allow you to burn audio CDs with CD-TEXT from CDA's .cdp/.wav files. The catch is that the current versions don't work with CDA 5 and also don't work with some newer CD burners. You might want to keep an eye on this page for updates though:
http://projecteva.net/

-Chris

Thanks for the very helpful critique of Pyro 2003. I probably would have upgraded to it before buying CDA5 if I'd done more research and wasn't so nonplused by the earlier versions of Pyro.

Also, thanks for the link to projecteva.com. It'll be interesting to see if he can beat SF to the CD-Text feature.

--- aoc

Another thing to consider is that CD-A is very much a mastering application
as well as a CD burning utility. I see no mention of direct-x effects in the
Pyro website. Yes, the program seems to have some built in sound restoration
and EQ tools but nothing like the effects capability (so long as you have the
direct-x effects) that CD-A has. And CD-A comes bundled with all of SF's effects (minus Acoustic Mirror if I'm not mistaken). It also has a second audio layer
for those ultra precise corssfades. Pyro seems to be somewhere between SF's
discontinued Siren and CD-A with a touch of Sound Forge Studio thrown in. The last
two projects I completed were mastered with Waves, Sonic Timeworks, and SF
plugins and burned all within CD-A.

Well worth the price of admission.

Dave

While it is true that CDPBurn will only work for CDA 4 projects. Premaster has always and will always work with either CDA 4 or 5 because the format of the .WAV images has not changed. Both downloads were put back up today.

Colin Hill
colin@projecteva.net