Adding your audio compact discs

Introduction

Helium Music Manager allows you to catalog your Audio CD's as well as cataloguing your digital audio files.
During this process you use a guide (aka Wizard) that allows you to either download information automatically using FreeDB, CDDB or a similar Internet based service, using the available plug-ins.
You can also type in information about Audio CD's manually, which is useful when you are adding titles not found by the Internet services or when adding homemade compilations.

Tasks

• Preparations
• Selecting automatic downloading or manual adding
• Reviewing and adjusting downloaded results
• Adding and adjusting manually data
• Tips and tricks

Preparations

There are no specific preparations that need to be done when adding Audio CD's to your database.
Simply start the Add Audio CD Wizard by clicking Tools | Database | Add Audio CD... from the main menu.
 

 

Selecting automatic downloading or manual adding

In this step you choose if Helium Music Manager should try to download data automatically for the selected Audio-CD or if you should type it in manually. Available plug-ins are listed in the topmost list. You can download more plug-ins from the Helium Music Manager webpage, http://www.helium-music-manager.com.

It's recommended that you always try to use automatic downloading when possible (Add CD using a download plug-in), since it reduces typing. The exception is when you are adding homemade Audio CD's or when you are adding Audio CD's that are very rare (both of which you are unlikely to be able to find in the Internet databases) .

If you are adding your Audio CD manually (Enter data manually), it's recommended that you insert the Audio CD into one of your available CD drives, listed in the Audio CD drive drop down list.
That allows Helium Music Manager to automatically read the number of tracks from the Audio CD as well as the tracks' length.

Press Next > when you have selected the necessary settings.

Reviewing and adjusting downloaded results

If the selected plug-in finds the selected Audio CD, the track data is downloaded and presented in a step as shown in the picture to the right.

This step allows you to adjust and complete the downloaded information before it's added to the database. The editor is similar to the Tag Editor (Spreadsheet Mode), as well as the Add Custom Items tool.

To edit the value in a cell, select it and then press F2.  There are also several helper commands available from the toolbar and the context menu. You can read more about these commands in the help files.

You can easily add a picture to this album by clicking the button to identify the picture file that should be assigned to the album.

Click Finish to add the tracks and the optional album picture to the database.

Adding and adjusting manually data

If you have chosen to enter data manually you are presented with an editing step which is the same as the step described above in the Reviewing and adjusting downloaded results step.

The major exception is that only a few fields will contain information by default; Current Track, Total Track, Path, Filename and Length. To automatically have this data filled in requires that a valid Audio CD drive was selected in the step Selecting automatic downloading or manual adding.

Tips and tricks

• Always use automatic downloading when possible (for commercial Audio CD's). This will reduce the typing.
• Become familiar with the results editor - It's used in several of the Helium Music Manager tools and wizards.

• You can download additional plug-ins from http://www.helium-music-manager.com.