Toast is a CD image utility. It allows you to mount and burn .toast and .iso files.
Once upon a time, Adaptec Toast took audio or data files and burned them onto CD-R media. That was it. Today, Toast 4 Deluxe still does that job admirably, but also adds a sorely needed Disc-At-Once recording feature (permitting zero-length gaps between audio tracks), smooths out some interface quirks, retrieves CDDB audio album and track names from the Internet, and supports a wider range of CD-R drives, including USB and IDE drives.
Toast 4’s most impressive addition is its abihty to turn MP3 and Liquid Audio files into audio CD files in one step, though the process takes a lot of horsepower — you’ll need a 300MHz G3 Mac to record at 4X speed. In addition. Toast’s handling of MP3 proves a little flaky. Our mono MP3 tunes played at double speed, sounding like the Chipmunks, and one track grew a ten-minute silent ending. Toast also complained that a couple of MP3 files we downloaded from the Net weren’t MP3 format, though another utility had no trouble converting them.
The second of Toast’s bundle of three applications aiming to address all your CD-burning needs is CD Spin Doctor. Music fans can use CD Spin Doctor to turn a vinyl record, radio broadcast, or cassette into an audio CD. Spin Doctor easily converted our vintage 1962 Esquivel “Latinesque” LP and automatically marked the tracks. The noise and pop filters aren’t as refined or flexible as those of Arboretum’s Ray Gun, on which they’re based, but they work.
Spin Doctor won’t satisfy picky audiophile snobs. For example, you can’t create cross-fades, as with Adaptec Jam, or perform other tweaks, as with Bias Peak. However, it does a fine job a lot more conveniently than the alternative: a handfiil of expensive stand-alone applications.
The third application, PhotoRelay, automatically catalogs all sorts of graphic, QuickTime, font, and audio files while preserving a thumbnail view and searchable info. PhotoRelay lets you manipulate thumbnails, import via filters, annotate and label files, and export in several formats, including HTML for creating Web page photo albums. A single keystroke will send selected local files, ready for burning, to Toast.
Toast 4 addresses the most annoying limitations of previous versions, and the addition of Spin Doctor and PhotoRelay make the package a well-rounded CD-burning solution for the home user.
Holmes, Joseph O. (January 2000). Toast 4 Deluxe. MacAddict. (pg. 70).