Cakewalk Pyro 1.5

[Rhythmitch]

I'm rerunning this thread 'cause I'm really not sure the best way to go here.
What is the best method to convert live analog cassette recordings (and vinly LPs for that matter)to CD?

By method, I assume that I will need software to actually record the songs from the cassettes to .wav files then convert the .wav files to a format (CDA?) and then burn on CDRs. I understand that Cakewalk Pyro 1.5 will do all of this. Is this product good? Is there any shareware/free stuff (NOT demos)out there that works as well.

I have a soundcard and an internal CD burner on my PC but my PC is only a 200 MHz, 64K RAM, MMX/Pentium II running Windows 98.

[Jackyl]

I have been transferring casettes to CD lately. I own both Cakewalk Pyro 1.5 and Cakewalk Pro Audio 9. I didn't know 1.5 would record until you mentioned it-- I went and checked it out and it looks like Pyro 1.5 will do everything you mention. Pyro includes a Cd Wave Editor inside the program that records the audio data directly to a wave file. The help file suggests that need a steady stream of 174kb/s transfer rate to the hard drive. An Intel 386 or faster is what they recommend. Otherwise you recording may get glitches in it. I use the Pro Audio 9 to transfer my cassettes to wav files and then use pyro to burn the CD. In Pro Audio 9 I am able to apply lot of different plug in effects to "clean up" the tape and vinyl recordings. It all depends how crazy you want to get with this. I usually run my recording through the BBE Sonic Maximizer Plug In. To reduce hiss I am comtemplating getting a noise reduction package (plug in ). Check out www.arboretum.com (http://www.arboretum.com) (Ray Gun)for reasonably priced software to clean up the vinyl and tape recordings. I haven't used it yet but I am considering purchasing. Of course you can spend tons of money doing this or you can just do a basic recording through your current sound card and use your cd burning software to transfer to CD. Most basic soundcards record at a bit rate of 16 bits. But you can get cards that record up to 24 bits with various sampling rates. Hope this helps.