Helium can recognize and work with all kind of hard drive structures, but some structures might work more efficient than others.
Below follows a simple, yet powerful way to organize your audio files and keep it up-to-date.
Basic folder setup
Use one folder for files that you have not yet processed, for example c:\_untagged. In this folder you can place either loose files or albums with music files in subfolders.
If an album contains more than once disc we recommend that you either keep all of the albums file in the same folder, or in subfolders, e.g. Album, Album\CD 1, Album CD2. In this example, the album folder should not contain any files except for artwork, CUE files or other data files.
During the adding process, Helium will be able to detect that the files, even if placed in subfolders are connected to the same album due to the folder structure.
Please note that the recommended album tag should be set to the album name for ALL files no matter which disc they are placed on, e.g. Album name and not Album name CD 1. To keep tags and files from multiple discs in order, use the CD tag instead.
Keeping tags up-to-date
From your untagged folder, described above, you can easily keep track of which music you have not yet tagged, played or renamed.
To start to tag your files you have not yet tagged, you can either use the Music Explorer, Library node to locate a specific album folder in your untagged folder. Browse through the folder tree just as in Windows Explorer to locate the files to tag. Working from the Music Explorer is the most precise way to work, since it will show all files under a specific folder, no matter which tags they contain.
If your tags are "ok", e.g. they already contain a proper album, you can of course use the other views to tag your files.
Another tool you can use in combination with all views to filter out files from directories outside a certain root folder is the global filter.
You can easily setup a global filter defined like this "Path starts with c:\_untagged". This filter will require that the results, no matter which view you are working with, contains files located in (or a subfolder to) c:\_untagged.
We recommend you to elaborate with the different views and filters to find the best possible setup for you.
Often the most effecient way can be to tag one album/release/collection of files per tagging session (files which will have the same album tag) because for this case you can use the standard Tag editor with its album mode.
When you open the Tag editor with a selection of files which are contained in the same album, a special pane will be available to the right in the Tag editor - the album pane. (it can be toggled on/off from a button in the upper right)
From this pane you can very quickly adjust specific fields that should be the same for all files from the album, for example album name, album artist, release type, release year and more.
When you change a field from the album pane, the field for all files in the selection will be automatically updated.
After that you can edit fields that are specific per file, like title, remix, artist and more. Be sure to learn to use the extract, apply and switch commands available to speed up your tagging process even more.
Moving tagged files to another location
When you have tagged a release in your untagged folder, it's a good idea to move the files to another root folder, c:\_tagged for example.
This allows you to quick and easily via paths controls which releases that are proper tagged and which requires further tagging.
The optimal way to relocate your files into your tagged folder is by using the Rename files tool.
This tool allows you to create a template which will generate folder and filenames for the selected files. A typical template can look like this:
c:\_tagged\{{releaseyear}}\{{albumartist}} - {{album}}{({totalcds} CD)}\{CD {cd}}\{{track(2)}} - {{artist}} - {{title}}{[{subtitle}]}{({remix})}
If you enter this template in the rename files tool, you will immediately show a preview of the new folder and filename followed by the current folder and filename.
When you have designed a rename template that suit your needs, you can rename and move the files to their new locations by selecting "Rename and move". Be sure to checkmark "Move remaining files" to move other files such as pictures, cue files and other data files contained in your album folders during the rename and move operation.
When working with the "Rename and move" mode, Helium will move all files on disk and also update all references in the underlying Library to ensure that no data are lost.