The Subtrack Editor

Introduction

The Subtrack Editor is a tag editor that will help you to apply tags to audio files containing more than one song. By using this tool you will be able to search for a particular sub-track within a file comprising multiple songs, or you can view all the sub-tracks that file contains.

You will also be able to skip directly to any particular sub-track when playing the file in Helium.

You can manually set the length of each song, or you can import .CUE files to automatically create individual tracks within the file.

Examples when the Subtrack Editor could be used:

• A live concert, recorded entirely in one take
• A single composition, comprising several movements (i.e. Classical music)
• Songs ripped from an Audio-CD, where all the songs are mixed together in one track

Note:
If you have CUE files for your main audio file, creating subtracks will be much easier, since you can import CUE files and have Helium to automatically create the correct amount of subtracks as well as setting thier length.

CUE files can often be downloaded/found on the Internet.

Working with the Subtrack Editor

To start working with the Subtrack Editor, click Tags | Edit Subtracks... on the main menu.

The Subtrack Editor can also be started from the Tag Editor (Spreadsheet Mode) by clicking the Edit Subtracks button. When you click this button the Subtrack Editor will start and load the selected file automatically. You can also start the Subtrack Editor from the Tag Editor by clicking the tools button and then select Edit Subtracks.

The next thing you will need to do is to create the subtracks. Click one of the links below to learn how to create subtracks:

• Create subtracks automatically.
• Create subtracks manually.
• Editing subtrack information
• Previewing a subtrack
• Other options
• Related Information

Create subtracks automatically

To create subtracks automatically, you will need to have the correct CUE file for the main audio file. To import a CUE file, please follow the steps below:

1. Make sure that Import subtracks from a CUE file is checked.
2. Click the Browse button located below the Import subtracks from a CUE file radio button.
3. Select your CUE file in the dialog that is shown.
4. Click Open to import the CUE file.
5. Click Next >

When the CUE file is imported, Helium Music Manager will have created the correct number of subtracks for you. You can see how many subtracks that was created at the top panel.

Each subtrack that have been created will also have the song length set, and sometimes also the artist and title field. (depending on which information that was stored in the CUE file).

 

Create subtracks manually

Creating subtracks manually requires some more work. Please follow the steps below to learn how you add subtracks manually:

1. Make sure that Add subtracks manually is checked.
2. Select how many Subtracks you would like to create by entering a value in the spin-edit control located below the Add subtracks manually radio button.
3. Click Next >

The subtracks editor step will now be shown with the number of subtracks you created.
From this step you can create more subtracks by clicking the plus button.
Remove a subtrack by clicking the minus button.
 
To set the song length for a subtrack created manually enter the length manually in the Length column for each subtrack. You can retrieve the song length by playing the file (press the play button if the song is not already playing) then click the song length button and select Calculate length for selected Subtrack. Helium Music Manager will now automatically calculate the song length by taking the current playing time from the player, and differ it against the elapsed time for the previous (if any) subtracks.

 

Editing subtrack information

To edit the information in the subtracks please follows the steps below:

1. Select the subtrack you would like to edit from the list. The selected subtrack number will be displayed in the top area of the window.
2. Enter any information that you prefer in the columns.

 

Previewing a subtrack

To "preview" a subtrack, simply click the play button from the bottom toolbar.

When you press this button the player will be started (if not already started), and play the file that you are editing. The player will also "jump" into the song, to the selected subtrack.

 

Other options

Apart from the things described above you can also use the following features:

• Revert to original file
  Press the revert to original file button to revert to the previously saved subtrack information.
• Exporting subtrack data to a CUE file
  You can export existing subtrack data to a CUE file, which can be used for example when you would like to write the track to and Audio-CD. By using a CUE file, a CD-Writer application can automatically create "tracks" for you.
  
  Export the subtrack data to a CUE file by pressing the Import/Export button. Choose Export to CUE File from the drop down menu.
• The subtrack editor contains many features also available in the Tag Editor (Spreadsheet Mode).

Related Information

The subtrack format The format (data structure) used by Helium Music Manager is an XML based format. The subtracks are saved inside the ID3 v2.x tag. You can identify a subtrack tag-frame inside the block with user defined text information frames (TXXX).

A subtrack has the description "#Helium2 MixTag", and it's contents is an XML document with the following structure:

	  <Tracks>			// Main document node
	    <Track>			// Identifies a single track
	      <Element></Element>
	      ...
	      <Element></Element>
	    </Track>
	    <Track>			// Identifies track #2
	      <Element></Element>
	      ...
	      <Element></Element>
	    </Track>
	  </Tracks>			// End document node
	

Elements can have the following values:

• Artist/Multiple Artists
• Remix
• Title
• Subtitle
• CurrentCD
• TotalCD
• ReleaseYear
• BPM
• Genre
• Mood
• Preference
• Situation
• Tempo
• Lyricist
• Composer
• Studio
• Band
• Conductor
• SongLength
• Rating
• Recording Year
• Popularity

The contents of each element are always stored in text. Rating is stored as a value from 0-255 (in text). Popularity is also stored as a value from 0-255.