Internal Player

The Internal Player is used to play your music from within Helium Music Manager. The Internal Player can be used internally or it can be used to remotely control an external player (Winamp and iTunes are currently supported).

Showing the Internal Player

Show the Internal Player clicking View | Panes | Internal Player from the main menu.

The Internal Player controls

On the left hand end of the Internal Player pane are the controls that handle the music replaying:

Internal Player (left side)

  1. Click the Previous button to skip to the previous song in the Play Queue.
    Shift+Click to rewind five seconds in the song that is currently being played
  2. Click the Play/Pause button to start replaying the last song played in the Play Queue (or the first in the list if no song was previously played). If a file is currently playing, clicking the button will pause the current song.
  3. Click the Stop button to stop the playback.
  4. Click the Next button to skip to the next file in the Play Queue.
    Shift+Click to skip five seconds forward in the song that is currently being played.
  5. Click and drag the Position bar to skip backwards or forwards within the currently playing song. When dragging, the time label immediately to the left of the small album cover picture will display the position that you are dragging the slider to.
  6. Click and drag the Volume slider to increase or decrease the volume. When dragging, the new volume percentage will be displayed in place of the time label.
  7. The current position of the track in the time label.  You can click on this control to change the position of the track currently playing to show the time left until the track is finished.
    If you are using Last.fm/AudioScrobbler, hover the mouse over the time label to see information about tracks submitted to Last.fm/Audioscrobbler and more.
  8. The total length of the track

There are also six buttons shown in this part of the Internal Player, which are explained in detail below:

Internal Player (left side)

  1. Last.fm - Click this button to enable/disable Last.fm support.
  2. Auto Enqueue - When enabled, Helium Music Manager will automatically add new tracks to the Play Queue using the selected rule from Auto Enqueue Options.
  3. Visualizations - Click this button to start/stop the selected Visualization plug-in.
  4. Equalizer - When enabled, Helium Music Manager will playback music through its equalizer.
    Click here to read more about the Equalizer.
  5. Repeat button - When enabled the Play Queue will be repeated.
  6. Crossfade button - When enabled Helium Music Manager will crossfade the current track with the next in the Play Queue, creating a "mix" effect. Please note that the crossfade feature is only available when the Internal Player (BASS Engine) is used.

You can hover buttons Last.fm, Auto Enqueue, Visualizations and Equalizer to see a quick access menu with various presets/commands you can perform.

Note

  • Auto Enqueue and Repeat cannot be used at the same time.
  • If the song currently being played is shorter than 15 seconds, the crossfader is automatically deactivated.

On the next part of the Internal Player, information about the currently playing track is shown:

Internal Player (left side)

  1. First an album cover picture (if available) is shown. Hover the image to see the thumbnail in full size. If the original image is available, double click the image to open the original album cover image in it's associated application. Right-click the image to Add/Update the picture, View the original picture or remove the picture.
  2. If the file being played contains Subtracks, the subtracks icon will be shown to the left of the title. Click this button to gain access to a menu displaying all available subtracks. Click one of the entries to start to play that subtrack (Not shown in image above).
  3. The artist and track information that follows on the top line shows the following information:

    <Current Play Queue     Position>/<Total Play Queue Entries> - <Artist> -< Title> (<Release Year>) from <Album> (<Album Release Year>)

    If additional artist and track information such as Remix, Subtitle and Album Subtitle is available it will also be displayed here. If the file being played contains Subtracks, click the title to show the same subtrack menu as described for the subtracks icon.
  4. The second line of track information shows the following information:

    <Genre> - <Bitrate> (<VBR/CBR>), <Quality>, <Format> <Encoder>
  5. Click on the Rating stars to set a Rating for the selected song (ranging from 0.5 stars to 5 stars)

Note

You can click on the <Genre> part of the second information line to quickly be able to change/correct the genre.

The Internal Player context menu

By right clicking in the Internal Player you can reach many useful functions. The context menu in the Internal Player is listed below:

  • Edit

    • Edit Tags
      Will open the currently playing track in Tag Editor.

    • Edit Tags (Advanced)
      Will open the currently playing track in the Tag Editor (Advanced).

    • Set Rating
      Will save the selected Rating to all tracks in the selected album.

    • Set Genre
      Will save the selected Genre to all tracks in the selected album.

    • Set Quality
      Will save the selected Quality to all tracks in the selected album

    • Set Popularity
      Will save the selected Popularity to all tracks in the selected album.

  • Tools

    • Copy Now Playing Information
      Will copy information of the track currently playing to the clipboard. This enabled you to paste this information into any other application. Here is an example of how this information will look:

      3/3. Les Rythmes Digitales - What's That Sound [Hey You] (1998) from Absolute Dance 19
      Pop - 128 kBps (CBR), <No Quality>, MPEG 1 (Layer III) FhG
      Position: 02:12/03:38, Volume: 24%
      My rating: 5 stars
  • Playlists & Smart Playlists
    • Add to Playlist
    • Play Playlist
    • Play Smart Playlist
  • DSP Plug-ins
    Will allow you to select a specific DSP plug-in. Helium Music Manager supports Winamp 2.x and 5.x DSP plug-ins, although some of these plug-ins Winamp specific and cannot work from outside Winamp.
  • Use EvilLyrics
    Click to enable/disable the EvilLyrics plugin. Please note that you must have EvilLyrics installed and use the Internal Player (BASS Engine) to be able to use EvilLyrics.
  • Use Party Mode
    Will enable/disable Party Mode. For more information about Party Mode, click this link.
  • Player Mode
     Will minimize Helium Music Manager to Player Mode. In this mode, Helium Music Manager will only be displayed as a player.
  • Standard Mode
     (only shown when Player Mode is active) will revert Helium Music Manager to standard mode
  • Always on top
     (only shown when Player Mode is active) controls if the player should/should not be on top of other windows.

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