The Internal Player

Introduction to the 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 using any of the methods below:

• Click View | Internal Player from the main menu.
• Click Views | Internal Player from the main toolbar.

The controls of the Internal Player

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

• Click the Previous button to skip to the previous song in the Active Playlist.
  Shift+Click to rewind five seconds in the song that is currently being played
• Click the Play/Pause button to start replaying the last song played in the Active Playlist (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.
• Click the Stop button to stop the playback.
• Click the Next button to skip to the next file in the Active Playlist.
  Shift+Click to skip five seconds forward in the song that is currently being played.
• Click and drag the Position bar to skip backwards or forwards within the currently playing song. When dragging, the time label (above the rating stars) will display the position that you are dragging the slider to.
• Click and drag the Volume slider to increase or decrease the volume. When dragging, the new volume will be displayed in the time label.
• Click on the Rating stars to set a Rating for the selected song (ranging from 0.5 stars to 5 stars)
• Above the rating stars, the current position of the track currently playing is shown, followed by the total length of the song. 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.

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

• Mute button - Clicking this button will mute/unmute the volume.
• Auto Enqueue Button - When enabled, Helium Music Manager will automatically add new tracks to the Active Playlist using the selected rule from Auto Enqueue Options.
  
  Note:
  Auto Enqueue and Repeat cannot be used at the same time.
• Start/Stop Visualization - Click this button to start/stop the selected Visualization plug-in.
• Crossfade button - When enabled Helium Music Manager will crossfade the current track with the next in the Active Playlist, creating a "mix" effect. Please note that the crossfade feature is only available when the Internal Player (BASS Engine) is used.
  
  Note:
  If the song currently being played is shorter than 15 seconds, the crossfader will automatically be inactivated.
• Repeat button - When enabled the Active Playlist will be repeated.
  
  Note:
  Auto Enqueue and Repeat cannot be used at the same time.

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

• First a 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.
• 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.
• The artist and track information that follows on the top line shows the following information:
  
  <Current Active Playlist Position>/<Total Active Playlist 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.
  
  If you are using Last.fm/AudioScrobbler, hover the mouse over the title to see information about tracks submitted to Last.fm/Audioscrobbler and more:
  
  
• The second line of track information shows the following information:
  
  <Genre> - <Bitrate> (<VBR/CBR>), <Quality>, <Format> <Encoder> <Popularity>

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:

• Tools
• Edit Tags
• Edit Tags (Spreadsheet Mode)
• Set Rating
• • Awesome
  • Below Awesome
  • Very Good
  • Below Very Good
  • Good
  • Below Good
  • Poor
  • Below Poor
  • Bad
  • Terrible
• Set Genre - Select a genre from the submenus to apply it to the currently playing song
• Set Quality
  • Excellent
  • Very Good
  • Good
  • Fair
  • Poor
  • No Quality
• Set Popularity
• Very Famous
• Famous
• Below Famous
• Well Known
• Below Well Known
• Known
• Below Known
• Obscure
• Below Obscure
• Unknown
• No Popularity
• 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
  • Add to Playlist
  • Play Playlist
  • Play Smart Playlist
• Options
• Color Themes - Select one of the color themes from the submenu to change color of the Internal Player
• Equalizer
• Configure Equalizer
• Enable Equalizer
• Last.fm/Audioscrobbler
• Use Last.fm/Audioscrobbler - Click to enable/disable Last.fm/Audioscrobbler
• View Last.fm Profile - View your Last.fm profile in your default browser
• 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 Crossfading - Toggle crossfading on/off
• Configure Auto Enqueue - Opens the Auto-Enqueue options.
• Visualization Plugins - Will allow you to select a specific Visualization plugin as well as starting/stopping the plugin. For more information about Visualization plugins, click this link.
• 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.

Playing Music using the Internal Player

To be able to use the Internal Player you need to add some files to the Active Playlist. Read more about adding files to the Active Playlist in the Active Playlist help section.

Read more about playing your music files in Helium Music Manager in the Playing Music help section.