Visualisation plug-ins

Visualization plug-ins generate animated imagery based on the music currently being played. The imagery is usually generated and rendered in real time and synchronized with the music as it is played.

Visualization techniques range from simple ones (e.g., a simulation of an oscilloscope display) to elaborate ones, which often include a plurality of composited effects. The changes in the music's loudness and frequency spectrum are among the properties used as input to the visualization.

Helium Music Manager has support for the most common visualization plug-in formats:

  • Winamp 2 and 5 Visualisation plug-ins

  • Sonique plug-ins

  • Windows Media Player plug-ins

  • BASSBox plug-ins

Using Visualisations

To start a Visualization plug-in in Helium Music Manager, do any of the following:

  • Select View > Visualisations > Start/Stop Visualisation from the main menu.

  • Click the Visualisations button on the Internal Player.

The visualization will show to the right side of Helium Music Manager by default. You can easily move the Visualisation window by dragging it to another location.

Changing Visualisation

To change to another Visualisation, follow the steps below:

  1. From the View > Visualisations > Available Visualisations option on the main menu select any one of the available Visualisation plug-ins that are listed.

Note:

  • You can start/stop the selected Visualisation by clicking the Start/Stop Visualisation menu entry.

  • You can configure the selected Visualisation by clicking the Configure Visualisation menu entry.

  • Visualizations often save their settings to a configuration file, stored in the same folder as the plug-in DLL file. This may cause trouble on Windows Vista systems with UAC activated. To solve this, either inactivate UAC or start Helium Music Manager as an administrator if you experience problems with the plug-ins.

Installing new Visualisation plug-ins into Helium Music Manager

There are thousands of Visualisation plug-ins available on the Internet. You can download many plug-ins from Winamp Plug-ins site for additional plug-ins. As well as on other pages on the Internet. Installing Visualisation plug-ins to Helium Music Manager is simple, most of the time it's only a simple file copy operation.

Plug-ins are developed by 3rd party persons/companies and some may not work well on all computers. Plug-ins often use low-level programming directly against a Video card, which may result in instability on some computers.

Installing a downloaded Winamp Visualization plug-in

  1. If the plug-in comes with an installer (most do), execute this installer to install the plug-in to your Winamp folder.

  2. If the plug-in doesn't come with an installer, install the plug-in as described.

  3. Copy the files which the plug-in installed into Winamp's plug-in folder (often vis_*.dll and sometimes a subfolder with data) to Helium Music Managers Visualization plug-ins folder: <program files>\Intermedia Software\Helium 7\Plugins.

If everything went well, you will now see your newly installed plug-in under the View  | Visualisations  | Available Visualisations menu.

 

Note:

  • The plug-ins folder for Winamp Visualization plug-ins in Helium Music Manager is always the subfolder Plugins, located directly under the folder where you have your Helium Music Manager EXE file.

Installing a downloaded Sonique Visualization plug-in

 

  1. If the plug-in comes with an installer (most do), execute this installer to install the plug-in to the following folder:
    <program files>\Intermedia Software\Helium 7\SPlugins.
  2. If the plug-in doesn't come with a installer, install the plug-in as described and manually copy any neccesary files to folder: <program files>\Intermedia Software\Helium 7\SPlugins.

If everything went well, you will now see your newly installed plug-in under the View  | Visualisations  | Available Visualisations menu.

 

Note:

  • The plug-ins folder for Sonique Visualization plug-ins in Helium Music Manager is always the subfolder SPlugins, located directly under the folder where you have your Helium Music Manager EXE file.

Installing a downloaded Windows Media Player plug-in

Windows Media Player plug-ins require no specific installation to be used with Helium Music Manager. (A restart of Helium Music Manager may be needed though).

Installing a downloaded BASSBox Visualization plug-in

  1. If the plug-in comes with an installer (most do), execute this installer to install the plug-in to the following folder:
    <program files>\Intermedia Software\Helium 7\BBPlugin.
  2. If the plug-in doesn't come with an installer, install the plug-in as described and manually copy any neccesary files to folder: <program files>\Intermedia Software\Helium 7\BBPlugin.

If everything went well, you will now see your newly installed plug-in under the Available Visualisations menu.

Note:

  • The plug-ins folder for BASSBox Visualization plug-ins in Helium Music Manager is always the subfolder BBPlugin, located directly under the folder where you have your Helium Music Manager EXE file.

Resources

A List of working Winamp Visualization Plug-ins

Listed below is a summary of 3rd party Visualization plug-ins that have been successfully tested with Helium Music Manager as well as details of how to install them. Please note that different plug-ins may work well or not depending on different system setups.

All plug-ins should be by default installed to <winamp>\plugins with their installers and should be copied to Helium Music Manager's Winamp Visualization plug-ins folder, as described above.

 

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