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Want to make digital mix tapes on your PC? You'll need the right software to do it! Read on for reviews of seven of the most popular music jukebox and CD-burning programs out there. All are under $40, and are available as trial versions at download.com.

• Best in show: Dart CD Recorder, $29.95. This is a nicely put-together CD burner with a very clean-looking, attractive user-interface. Dart CD Recorder has a feature for making sound files out of your old LPs and cassettes; it can also clean up your sound files with a normalizer, equalizer, and click/hiss elimination. It does fade-in/fade-out between songs, and it has a CD-ripper and a midi-to-wave converter. It does not build a music library out of your music files, but it makes finding your MP3s a little easier by including a tree-diagram explorer panel. It does not appear to include a CD-label maker, although it says it does on the download site. Of all the software I've looked at, this one is my favorite and one I'll be using it to make mix discs for my friends this holiday season (see side panel, right).

• First Runner Up: Virtuosa Phoenix 4.2, $39.99. This is some of the prettiest software I've ever seen, complete with customizable transparent panels, visualizations, and attractive backgrounds and skins. If anything, the appearance is a bit busy, although it makes nice eye-candy sitting on your monitor. But this program does more than look good — it's an all-in-one music and video jukebox, capable of organizing your music library, ripping CDs, creating slick play lists with its normalizing and cross fading features, and burning CDs. Virtuosa does not have an LP/cassette recording feature, nor does it edit audio files or have fun sound effects like My Mix.

• Second Runner Up: MusicMatch Jukebox 8.1, $19.99. One of the most popular and lowest-priced jukebox programs out there, and also one of the best. Its music library feature is the best organized out of all the programs I tried, and it makes creating new play lists quick and easy. The recording capabilities allow you rip CDs and do CDDB lookups easily, and it lets you record from the line-in or mic-in ports on your sound card, which means you can make digital copies of your LPs and cassettes. It does not have an unpacking feature for making MP3s out of your records; you'll need an audio editing program for that. The burning capabilities of this software are decent: it has a volume-leveling feature, but no cross fading or sound effects. My suggestion: use MusicMatch Jukebox to rip CDs, manage your music library, and create play lists, but if you want cross fading or other effects, burn the play list you put together with Music Match using another program.

• Third Runner Up: My Mix 1.0 by Simple Star, $29.99. This program is the easiest to learn out of the bunch. All you do is put together a play list by choosing MP3 files (or import a play list you've already made), add segues, and burn. I had a lot of fun playing with the segue special effects: blend (cross fade), slowdown, echo, underwater, record stop, thin air, reverse, and jet effect. You can also download more effects, like samples and scratching. My Mix does all the work for you, letting you create MP3 mix discs that sound like they were put together by a live club DJ. What I didn't like: it's not an all-in-one jukebox, and doesn't create a music library for you — you have to grab MP3 files right out of your hard drive, which isn't fun if your collection is a mess of untagged and misnamed files scattered about your computer. Also, the trial version doesn't let you actually burn a CD, just create mixes.

• Honorable Mention: Blaze Audio Rip Edit Burn 2.1, $40. This program is actually three programs in one: a CD-ripper with CDDB lookup, a well-equipped wave and MP3 editor (which is really the heart of the program), and a generic CD burner. The CD burner feature does not create segues, and, like My Mix, makes you select MP3s out of your hard drive rather than from a library. It will get the job done if all you want to do is create ordinary mix discs, without cross fading between songs or other nice features. One element of Blaze Rip Edit Burn that stands out from most of the other software I tried was the LP/cassette converting, which allows you to copy your old records and tapes onto your computer and edit them to improve sound quality.

• Honorable Mention: Acoustica MP3 CD Burner 3.01, $24.95. The layout of this software is very similar to Dart CD Recorder, and is easy to use. It builds a library out of your music files, rips CDs, and adds cross fading between tracks on your play list. It does not appear to have a volume-normalizing feature. It comes with an integrated CD-label making feature, but when I tried to use it, I was informed that it would cost another $20 to download. Acoustica seemed like the best program of the batch initially — after My Mix, it's the easiest to use. The lack of a volume normalizing control is disappointing, however. If your MP3 collection is as crazy as mine, you know how irritating it can be to work for hours on a mix disc only to have it come out with huge volume irregularities (one song really loud, the next barely audible, and so on).

• Honorable Mention: RecordNow MAX 4.5, $39. This software comes with an easy-to-navigate wizard that allows you to make exact copies of CDs "on the fly," make data CDs, and make music CDs out of other music CDs or files on your computer. RecordNow will normalize the volume levels of your audio files before burning, but it doesn't offer the option to cross fade from one song to the next. Making a music CD from scratch is time consuming with this program. It makes you pick files out of your hard drive one at a time as you compile your play list. This is a powerful burning program, but not the best for creating mix discs.

Written by Eva Talmadge

What are your favorite ways to make mix discs for your friends? Tell us about them!