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Player Options

These options control how Helium Music Manager will play music and interact with music and other services.

General

These options enable you to configure which player to use in Helium Music Manager and how it should behave in different situations.

Player

• Internal Player
  This is the default option and will use the Internal Player to replay your music. There are several benefits of using this replaying (BASS) engine, read more about them in the section Internal Player.

• Windows Media Player (Embedded) is similar to Internal Player but will use the Windows Media Player engine to replay your music and will not give you the benefit of the many additional options available when using the BASS engine. The Windows Media Player interface will not be shown. This mode is made available to accommodate any compatibility issues you might experience with the BASS engine.

• Winamp 2.x or Winamp 5.x will use Winamp for playback. Version 2.x or 5.x of Winamp is required. Winamp 3 is not supported.
  
  When Winamp is used for replaying, Helium Music Manager hides the Play Queue pane and takes advantage of Winamp's playlist instead. You will still have access to the Internal Player window, but the available commands will be executed against Winamp instead of the internal Play Queue in Helium Music Manager.

• iTunes 4.2+ will use Apple's iTunes for playback. Version 4.2 or greater of iTunes is required.
  
  Note
  If you intend to use iTunes for replaying then we recommend that you set iTunes preferences to NOT COPY files when they are played as if you do this Helium Music Manager is unable to fully manage the playing of iTunes music.

• Scroll title in the Windows taskbar will scroll the full title of the currently playing song in the taskbar button.

• The spin-control to the right of the text Update playcounter after 50% of the track length or [x] seconds allows you to control how many seconds a track must be played before the play counter should be incremented. Please note that this time refers to the actual playing time, so skipping into a song will not affect the playing time.

• Autostart CD Art Display lets you choose if you would like to start CD Art Display when Helium Music Manager starts. More information about CD Art Display can be found here: CD Art Display

• Auto apply covers downloaded with CD Art Display will automatically add covers found with CD Art Display to your albums in Helium Music Manager.

Internal Player

Internal Player Options

 All of the options below are only in effect when using the Internal Player (BASS Engine):

• Device
  This is the sound device that Helium Music Manager uses for playing your music. This should normally be set to Default Device. If you are having problems playing your music you might want to try to change this option. This is also useful for systems with more than one sound card when you want to specify the output device manually.

• Playback buffer
  The value set for the playback buffer (in milliseconds), controls how large the player buffer will be. The default buffer length is 500 milliseconds. Increasing the length, decreases the chance of the sound possibly breaking-up on slower computers, but also increases the latency.

• Enable Accurate VBR Replaying (slower reading)
  This option lets the BASS engine calculate the correct bitrate for each file that is played when the file is loaded. This setting makes the player perform slower during reading and you should only use it if you have problems with replaying VBR files.

• Use Evil Lyrics (if available)
  If you have EvilLyrics installed, you can use it together with Helium Music Manager by enabling this setting. EvilLyrics is a program that searches the Internet for lyrics while you are playing your music. You can read more about EvilLyrics on their web site.

• Send Now Playing information to MSN Messenger
  This option makes Helium Music Manager change your personal tag-line to show the song you are currently playing. This is a cool way of showing your contacts the music you are currently listening to.

• Update MSN Messenger picture with the active album picture
  This option updates your personal picture to display the album picture of the album of the currently playing file.
  Please note that this feature requires MSN Live Messenger or later versions to be installed on your system.

• Continuous playback
  This option controls whether music playing will run continuously or not.

• Enable crossfader
  The crossfader is used to smoothly fade songs together. Crossfading is used when a new song is played, either by manually clicking Next on the Internal Player, or when a song reaches the end.
  
  The Crossfade for [x] seconds tells how many seconds the two songs should be faded together.
  
  The Start crossfade when [x] seconds of the current track remains tells Helium Music Manager to automatically start cross fading to the next song in the Active Playlist when there are [x] seconds left in the currently playing song.
  
  When Crossfade on double-click is selected, Helium Music Manager will perform a crossfade when a new song is selected to be played from any of the views and the Play Queue, if a song is currently playing.

• Mark the played track in the content views
  When selected, the track currently playing will be marked with a pink background color when browsed in Helium Music Managers various views.

Replay Gain

Replay Gain is a feature built into the Internal Player. In short. it normalizes the output volume during replaying so that irritating volume changes can be avoided. To be able to take advantage of the Replay Gain features, the files will need to contain Replay Gain tags, created by external tools. Helium Music Manager supports Replay Gain tags for Ogg Vorbis files, FLAC files and MP3 files. The different Replay Gain options available are:

• Don't use Replay Gain will ignore Replay Gain tags and not apply automatic volume leveling.

• Use Track Gain will use the track gain values (if available) to apply automatic volume leveling.

• Use Album Gain will use album gain values (if available) to apply automatic volume leveling.

Play Queue

• Confirm action to clear all contents in the Play Queue
  When selected, Helium Music Manager will ask you to confirm that all songs in the Play Queue can be cleared when this is requested.
• When switching database, you can select between the following options:
  • Clear the Play Queue - This will automatically clear the Play Queue
  • Leave the Play Queue - This will leave the Play Queue untouched
  • Ask me - will let you decided what action to take
• Center the active track in the Play Queue
  This option makes sure that the currently playing track is visible in the Play Queue by scrolling the list to show the currently played track (marked with a pink background color).
• Clear playlist before adding songs
  If selected, your Play Queue will be automatically cleared (you will not be asked to confirm this) when you use the Enqueue and Play commands.
• Dock position controls where the Play Queue will be placed on your screen.
  • Main Window will dock the Play Queue in the main user interface
  • Right Sidebar will dock the Play Queue as a tab in the right sidebar
• Default enqueueing option
  These options enable you to control the specific play action that will be taken when either the player is stopped (no track is playing) or when the player is playing a track. You can choose between:
  • Enqueue and Play - Will enqueue the selected tracks and start to play them directly
  • Enqueue Next - Will enqueue the selected tracks after the track that's currently playing
  • Enqueue Last - Will enqueue the seleted tracks after the last track in the Play Queue

Add-ons

• Use AMIP
  This option allows you to use AMIP (Advanced mIRC Integration Plug-in) with Helium Music Manager.
  To be able to use this feature, you need to place the Winamp version of the plug-in (gen_irc.dll) in the plugins folder. (<helium.exe>\plugins). Once enabled it will allow you to propagate what you are listening to in Helium Music Manager to mIRC and other supported IRC clients.
  
  More information about AMIP and downloding of the plug-in can be found here: AMIP

• Use CDG Plugin
  This option will allow you to use CDG files with Helium Music Manager.
  To be able to use this feature, you will need to place the Winamp version of the plug-in (gen_cdg.dll, gen_cdg.ini) in the plugins folder. (<helium.exe>\plugins). Once enabled, the plugin will display karaoke information for the current playing file, if available. (.CDG files should be named the same as the MP3 file and be placed in the same folder as the MP3 files).
  
  More information about the CDG plug-in and downloading can be found here: CDG

• DSP Plug-in Options
  The Title format text box will control how playing titles that are sent to DSP plug-ins such as ShoutCAST will be formatted.
  The titles can be formatted using the following codes:

  • %artist - will be replaced with the current artist

  • %title - will be replaced with the current title

  • %remix - will be replaced with the current remix

  • %subtitle - will be replaced with the current subtitle

  • %position - will be replaced with the current playlist position

  • %genre - will be replaced with the current genre

  • %year - will be replaced with the current year

  • %album - will be replaced with the current album title
    
    Note
    All codes should be written in lowercase.

Party Mode

When Helium Music Manager is active in party mode, most commands are protected and can't be used. Party mode is designed to be used at parties (as the name implies), to keep a playlist running correctly and avoid anyone skipping songs. An administrator that knows the party mode password can execute the locked functions as well as switching back to normal mode.

• Enable Party Mode controls whether Party Mode is active or inactive.

• Party Mode Password enables you to set the master password, used to unlock commands and switching back to normal mode.

Party Mode Restriction Level

You can control how hard the restrictions of the party mode should be by setting the party mode restriction level:

• Hard Restrictions will allow the following commands

  • Volume Changing

  • Enqeue Last

  • Browsing through all views

  • Searching for tracks

• Normal Restrictions will allow the same commands as hard restrictions plus:

  • Play next from the Play Queue

  • Play/Pause

  • Allow a rating to be set

Playlists & Now Playing

The Playlist Export Format text box will let you control the formatting of items that are exported in playlists from Helium Music Manager. Click the Codes button to see the available codes that can be used. Each code will be translated to it's respective value upon the exporting.

Control the number of Suggested Tracks and Favourite Tracks to be shown in the Now Playing pane using the Number of suggested tracks and Number of favourite tracks settings.

Last.fm & Twitter 

Select the Enable Last.fm scrobbling option if you would like to use the Last.fm/Audioscrobbler service when you are playing music. To be able to use Last.fm/Audioscrobbler you need to type your username in the Username edit box and your password in the Password box.
 
Select the Update Last.fm when synchronizing playcounters from an iPod device to post your played tracks to Last.fm whilst synchronizing them with your Library.
Please note that:

• Your date and time settings must be properly set on your iPod device

You can also automatically send updates to Twitter when playing music. To be able to use the Twitter services you will need to type your username and password in the username and password edit boxes.

Checkmark Update Twitter when loving a track on Last.fm to automatically send an update to Twitter when you use the Love track Last.fm function.

Checkmark Update Twitter when a track is played to automatically send an update to Twitter when you play a track.