Helium 17.2.198.0

Overview

Ever wished for a way out to organize music in a better way without having to track down your favorite song collection that is scattered in different locations of your computer or through CD, tapes, and vinyl records. Here is the answer to those prayers- Helium Music Player, it is a music management software that can rip, browse, search, rename, play, edit tags, burn and even synchronize your favourite music with a portable player. This music manager is loaded with features which help you play, search, and organize your MP3s, CDs and vinyls, all in an integrated application.

Installation

Installation of Music Manager requires very basic steps and takes little time. It involves selecting application settings like destination location, preferred language, program’s shortcut location, additional tasks (like creating desktop icon, Quick launch icon), and type of installation. In the final step, you can choose to launch Helium Music Manager after the installation finishes. It is supported by Windows 8, 7, XP, Vista (32-bit and 64-bit), Windows 2003 Server, 2008, 2012, Home Server.

Interface

The graphical user interface is pretty decent, very well laid out, and easy-to-understand. Even a first-timer will find it effortless to use the software due to its intuitive layout. During initialization, it displays a window offering options to control a music collection such as, Add files to library, rip a CD, update library, and import library. The left panel shows various ways of searching your music files with criteria including Artist, Album, Rating, Genre, Release year, and much more. The toolbar and the menu options are also intelligible, providing features like Tag editor, Rename files, Burn CD, synchronize device, manage playlists, and so on.

Pros

• It can edit, play and archive music formats like MP3, MP4, FLAC, WMA, iTunes, Ogg, M4A, APE and MPC; plus it also supports audio CDs, vinyl and tapes
• Searching your favorite songs is much easier with available criterias like Artist, Genre, Rating, Album, Mood, situation, Release year etc
• For music lovers with large collections, support for Microsoft SQL server and MySQL is also available
• With Tag Editor, you can add or mend the missing or wrong data of music files
• The built-in features in Helium Manager let you upgrade information of your music collection by downloading album pictures, artist pictures, track information, artist relations, biographics, discographics, and lyrics.
• Play the DJ part yourself – just browse and open your favorite playlist, play the songs non- stop to create your own mix
• With Rename files option, you can automatically rename music files and create custom folder structures.
• It also supports a vast variety of players, so you can synchronize and play songs from your iPod, Creative Zen, mobile phone or any other portable device
• With numerous options under ‘Tools’, you can convert music format (MP3, WAVE, FLAC), burn Audio CD or Data CD/DVD, split or join audio CDs and more

Cons

There were no problems encountered while testing the software, so no negatives.

Alternatives

Some of the alternatives for Helium Manager are: foobar2000, iTunes, Winamp, Mp3tag, Clementine, MediaMonkey. All these are quite powerful tools, but Apple iTunes comes out as a strong contender in music manager category. Nonetheless, Helium Music manager is no less with its handful of features and user-friendly interface.

Conclusion

Helium Manager is a promising tool which provides countless options to control your music collection, it is free, uses medium-to-high amount of system resources and has a very good response time. It is a very easy-to-use tool but if needed, it can still provide you with step-by-step online tutorial. It can be nominated as one of the best music manager available in market, so it is worth giving this tool a shot.