The Tag Editor

 

Introduction to the Tag Editor

The Tag Editor is used to add and edit information (tags) of your tracks. You can edit artist, album and title information as well as lyrics and pictures. The Tag Editor also contains tools for automatically retrieving information from the online sources, such as FreeDB, CDDB or Amazon.com and a Filename To Tag tool to extract tag information from your filenames and put in your tags.
 

Using the Tag Editor

• Starting the Tag Editor
• Modifying tracks
• Downloading Information
• Filename To Tag function
• Settings
• Create, modify or load a template
• Tutorial

Starting the Tag Editor

Browse for some tracks using any of the Browsers, select the ones you want to edit and start the Tag Editor by any of the methods below:

• Press CTRL-E on your keyboard.
• Click the button on the main toolbar.
• Click the button on the main toolbar and select Edit Tags.
• Click on Tags | Edit Tags from the main menu.
• Click on Tools | Edit Tags from the main menu.
• Right click the selected tracks and select the Tags | Edit Tags option.

Modifying tracks

Tagging tracks is the procedure of adding or updating information for the tracks on your computer. Each type of information you add to track is called a tag field (or just field). Some examples of tag fields follows below:

• Artist
• Album
• Track Number
• Biography
• Lyrics
• Title

To read more about tags and tag fields, read the description of Tags and Tag formats help section.
 
The input fields in the Tag Editor is logically divided into six pages, but the layout of these input fields can easily be modified. Read about how to modify the Tag Editor template in the Create, Modify or Load a template help section below.
 
 
The Tag Editor offers many different input controls. They are all listed and explained below:
 

Standard Input Control
The standard input control field is used for many different tag fields and is the most common input field in the Tag Editor. It allows you to enter a text as well as to reuse a previously entered text. This input field will auto complete any texts you enter.
 
If you are editing a FLAC file, press F2 to open the multiple lines editor.
 

Attached Pictures
The Attached Picture fields allows you to add one or more pictures to your tags. Pictures can also be downloaded.
Please note that only formats supporting ID3 v2.x  tags and iTunes/Nero AAC tags support attached pictures.

Using the attached pictures control:

• Click the Add... button to add a new attached picture.
• Click the Edit... button to change the selected attached picture.
• Click the Remove button to remove the selected attached picture from the tag.

• Click the Extract... button to save the selected attached picture to disc.

 

Biography 
The biography works just as a standard simple text editor, Notepad for example.

Using the Biography control:

• You can load a biography from disc by clicking the Load... button.
• Save the current biography to disc by clicking the Save... button.

 

File Information
The File Information control shows file information about the current file.
The control will also display which file that will be loaded when you click Next > (if any files remains in your queue).
 
 

Multiple Comments
The multiple comments control will allow you to add multiple comments to the current file's tag. Each comment will have a description and a content. The content can contain more than one line of text.

Using the multiple comment control:

• Add a new comment by clicking the Add... button.
• Edit the selected comment by clicking the Edit... button.
• Remove the selected comment(s) by clicking the Remove button. 

 

The Artist Control
The artist control is a control where you either can enter a text directly into the edit field (when a track is created by a sole artist). When a track is created by more than one artist, click the Edit button to open the Multiple Artist Editor.
 
 

Release Type, Popularity and Quality
The release type control will allow you to set the Release Type for the selected file. Select the desired Release Type from the drop-down list.
This type of control is also used for setting Popularity and Quality.
 

URL Controls
The URL Controls allows you to enter one URL. If you click the Browse URL button, the URL you entered will be opened in your default web browser.
 

Rating
The rating control will allow you to set rating for the current track. Select the desired rating from the drop-down list.
 

Musician Credits/Involved Peoples
The Musician Credits/Involved Peoples control allows you to adjust which persons that has been involved in the production of the track as well as their functions. Click the Edit button to open the Musician Credits/Involved Peoples editor.
 
 

Beats Per Minute (BPM) Control
The BPM control allows you to enter the BPM for the current track.

Using the BPM Control:

• Either enter a number in the edit control

• Click the Auto BPM button to let Helium Music Manager automatically calculate the BPM for you. Please note that this is a calculated value and may not always be correct.

• Click the Manual BPM button to start the BPM Counter Tool. This tool will allow you to manually count the BPM for the current song. 

 
 

Track/CD Control
The Track/CD Control is used to set Current Track/Total Track or Current CD/Total CD. The total part of the control is optional and can be left blank.
 
 

Year/Month Control
The year/month control is used to set different types of years. The control is separated into two different input controls:

• Year
• Month/Day (Please note that not all tag types supports month/day)

 

Lyrics Control
The lyrics control is used to edit the lyrics for the current song. This input control can handle Timestamps for each line. A Timestamp is a prefix added in the beginning of each line, representing a timecode. Timestamps can be used to synchronize lyrics with time.

Using the lyrics control:

• Load lyrics from disc by clicking the Load... button.
• Save the current lyrics to disc by clicking the Save... button.
• Add a Timestamp to the current line by clicking the Add button.
• Remove a Timestamp from the current line by clicking the Remove button.

 
 
Note: Some fields can be disabled (greyed out) if that field is not supported by the file format. It can also mean that there is no information for this field.

Next to almost all controls there are a checkbox. By clicking that checkbox means that you will lock the control. When a control is locked, it's information will remain the same for all files that you tag.
 

Downloading Information

You can take advantage of plug-ins to download various information. To download information for the current track press the Download button. Click here for more information about downloading data.

Use Filename To Tag to get tag information from the filename

Learn how to use the Filename To Tag Tool by clicking the link below:

• The Filename To Tag tool

Settings

 
On the tagging steps in the Tag Editor, you will find a menu with different settings that can be used. To view the settings menu, click the Settings button on the toolbar at the bottom. When you have clicked this button, Options will be opened and the Tag Editor page will be automatically selected.
 
The following settings are available from the bottom toolbar for quick access:

• Save ID3 v.1 tag will have the Tag Editor to automatically save ID3 v1.1 tags. This setting only applies when editing MP3 files.

• Save Lyrics3v2 tag will save lyrics and other information in the Lyrics3v2 tag. We recommend not using this setting, since the ID3v2 tag includes all information in the Lyrics3 v2 tag.

• Auto Increase/Decrease Track Number auto-generates track numbers for your files in a linear order. The first files track number will be used as a starting index. When you press next, the track number will automatically be incremented, and decreased when you press the back button. This option is very useful when tagging complete albums.

• Auto Assign Total Track Number sets the total track number to the amount of tracks that are loaded into the Tag Editor.

• Auto Assign Sort Order will automatically fill in the sort order field for the following fields:

  • Artist

  • Album

  • Title

  • Album Artist

  The information will be copied from the respective non-sort order fields.

• Auto Play will play the active track while you tag your files.

• Auto calculate BPM will try to calculate the BPM of each audio file, and automatically saved the approximated value to the audio file.

• Use Auto Correction will format all entered texts using the Auto Correction rules when enabled.

• Load images and biography from database will load any artist or album picture from the database and put in the Attached Pictures field. It will also load the artists biography, if available, and put it in the Biography input control.

• Auto-extract multiple artists will automatically extract multiple artists, similar to the Extract Multiple Artists.

Create, modify or load a template

You can create custom templates to only show the tag fields that you are interested in when tagging. A template keeps your personal settings for which fields you would like to have visible for tagging and in which order they should appear.

You can also sort the fields into different tabs. You can have different templates for different tasks (e.g. text, pictures etc.) or a combination of all. And you can easily load, modify or create a new template before starting to tag you files.

By default the Tag Editor will use the last used template.
 
Show the Tag Editor Template Editor by clicking the button on the toolbar at the bottom of the Tag Editor dialog.
 
The Tag Editor Template Editor has two lists; Unused Fields and Active Fields.
 
The Unused Fields contains all fields that is not currently in use by the current template. By default this list is empty since all fields are used in the default Tag Editor template.
 
The Active Fields list contains all fields added to the current Active Tab, shown just above the Active Fields list box.

• Move fields between the Active Fields and the Unused Fields lists by double clicking a field and it will be moved to the other list. Optionally select a field and click Add Selected or Remove Selected depending on what list you are currently in. You can also use the Add All or Remove All to easily move all fields from one list to the other.
• To add, edit or remove a tab, select the tab from the Active Tabs drop down list and click New, Edit or Delete.
• Click OK to apply the changes to the Tag Editor template.

Note:

• Click Load Template to load a saved template. Click Save Template to save the changes to a new template.