Equipment Review

Product Reviewed: Get It On CD!
Made by: Steinberg
Cost: $49.95 USD
Submitted by Jim Gorin

Rating:


Features:
16-bit/44.1-48Khz stereo/dual-mono editor for Windows 9X/NT. Realtime effects processing and tweaking; unlimited undo/redo; 32/64-bit resolution internal audio processing; creates DAO red book CD's. Effects include (realtime, up to 6 simul.): Chorus, reverb, echo/delay, stereo expander, parametric EQ w/adj. Q, leveler, autopanner. Offline effects include: normalization, DC offset, compressor/limiter/noisegate, harmonizer w/16 max voices, fade-in/fade-out, crossfade, hi-fi chorus, EQ w/two shelving filters, FFT 3D freq. analysis; all effects have presets and are highly tweakable. CD Burning: Sample-rate conversion, sub-index markers both in editing and on-the-fly,ISRC, UPC/EAN codes, PQ codes, adjustable CD track spacing, cue sheet generation, 16-8 bit dithering, mono to stereo wav conversion. Pretty full set of wav editing tools, too.

What I liked:
For $50, you cannot go wrong with get it on CD, as far as I'm concerned. It is great for just popping it up and laying down a quick stereo wav file demo with reverb and EQ realtime. Cakewalk Pro 9 recognizes it as Wavelab on the pull-down, and you can easily bring tracks into it, edit the wav and apply effects and take them back to Cake without a hitch. The recording function box expands at a click to include your soundcard's mixer with mono and stereo faders. Get it on CD has nice realtime stereo level meters that, to me, "feel" musical in their reaction time and "float". If you need to burn CD's with sub-index markers, like CD Architect does(did), this program will do them on the fly; you can also adjust the pauses between the tracks just like the big boys do. The nomalizer works great not only for expansion, but for taming passages that get a little "hot"; just highlight that section of the wav, apply the normalization to the level you want and it performs rather seamlessly to my ears. The unlimited undo/redo allows for painless experimentation. I have used the FFT (fast fourier transform) 3D frequency analysis tool to take a "snapshot" of my acoustic guitar and zero-in on the "boominess" at 175 Hz. Then, using the parametric EQ, I notched it out and got great results! The entire program seems elegantly programmed and worked very well even with a K6-2 350Mhz with 64 Meg PC-100 RAM and an UltraDMA 33 6.1 5400 RPM hard drive (I have since upgraded to Duron 800, 128M). The CD has an excellent 282-page manual w/index, which is becoming far too rare these days even with $400 programs. It says it only works with SCSI CD-RW's, but it never flinched an inch with my Yamaha 8824 EIDE CD burner. I consider this whole program to be "rock-solid" - it has never frozen or glitched or committed a fatal error in four months of usage. Smooth install, too.

What I didn't:
The reverb is probably the weakest link in the effects offering, but it is entirely suitable for demo work and you can tweak it in realtime. The program is 16-bit only and I doubt if Steinberg will ever upgrade it to 24-bit, but the audio quality is great for songwriter demo's, tape to CD dubbing, wav editing, etc. Hey, for 50 clams, this little Swiss Army knife does alot. When I wake up and get that first cuppa joe and a song idea hits me, I don't want to go pull-up the big app and start configging so i can get a little two-track demo down. I just click the program icon, click the record button, slide up a virtual fader with the mouse and I'm cuttin' a track without any techno hassle. Check out Get it on CD!

User Tips:
None - just have alot of fun for the money.


The pc_software review page
The Equipment Review Page
The Recording Website Home Please note: You may need to hit the reload or refresh button for your review to be displayed.