Software Review of:
DART CD-Recorder 
4.0 

The opening screen has a menu bar, a tool bar with huge buttons, a file panel with two windows to acquire and manage the music files, and a playlist manager panel to organize and message the music files with The Producer audio tool kit before the burn.

With DART CD-Recorder 4.0 you can: 

• capture music from CDs, or any analog source plugged into your sound card, or WAV, MIDI and MP3 files from your hard disk
• convert MP3 and MIDI files to wav files
• use DARTs Digital Audio Restoration Technology to clean and improve your sound files prior to burning
• shape your music files with the 9 band equalizer, add fade in/out, and normalize the volume of all the tracks
• unpack (separate) multiple music tracks ripped as one track
• download the song titles for CD tracks from the CD Data Base.

To set up for an analog source, right click the folder in the File Panel where you want to create a sub folder to store the music files. Click the Record button, name the music file, and click save. Click Pause to set the record level. Cue the record track and hit record. You can record an entire record side or tape as one track, and use Unpack to separate the song tracks. Play the new tracks and use the DirectX filters to improve the quality. Then drag & drop your selected tracks to the Playlist panel. Click the Producer button to declick, dehiss, equalize, fade-in, or normalize any or all the selections on the playlist. When you have the playlist all squared away, click the Record button. Select your recorder, the desired burn speed, and my favorite feature, Simulate disk creation. You might remember from my Nero review how I raved about simulate. It will simulate the entire burn process without messing-up the blank CD, and if successful, will then burn the CD. Except for a power failure or act of God, burning coasters should become nothing more than a distant bad memory. It’s the next best thing to Burn Proof (your burner must support it out of the box, I think). Click Write and your custom CD is on the way. After the burn, click List|Print on the menu bar and print an insert of the song titles for the jewel case (no disc cover in the version I have).

The straight skinny
The simulate feature alone makes this very serious software indeed, but these tired old ears are telling me that the CDs I’ve burned with DART are richer, cleaner, better sounding than any software I’ve worked with yet (and I’ve looked at a bunch lately). You really need to download it and check it out for yourself. The price is $50 to unlock the download after 30 days, or $50. plus S & H for a CD, or $25. if already a registered DART user.

System requirements
Windows 95/98/ME/NT/2000; 233 MHz + CPU; Windows compatible sound card connected to a preamp out on a stereo set; 16 MB RAM +; a fast hard disk with 1.2 GB temporary work space and 6.2 MB for the program; SCSI or EIDE CD recorder.

DARTECH has some other interesting audio software products:

• DART PRO 98

For the serious audiophile desiring to restore and save music to CD. 
• DART Karaoke Studio

For the seriously karaoke inclined who want to remove a pop singer’s voice from a tune and record their own in its place to CD. This does it all. Works with MP3s too.