Imploded Software

Helium lets you play, queue, and control your music library in a variety of ways — from a single double-click to fully automated queuing that keeps the music going all night. This article covers every playback feature, from basic controls to advanced tools like Smart Play, the waveform display, and Auto-Enqueue.

Starting playback

There are several ways to begin playing music in Helium:

• Double-click a track in any track list or album view to start playing it immediately. All tracks below it in the list are automatically added to the Play Queue.
• Double-click an album to queue all of its tracks and start playing from the first.
• Hover over an album cover in the Releases or Artists view — a play button appears over the artwork. Click it to play the entire release.
• Select a track and press Enter to play it straight away.
• Press Space anywhere in the main window to toggle Play / Pause.
• Use hardware media keys (Play/Pause, Next, Previous) on your keyboard — these work system-wide, even when Helium is running in the background.

You can also right-click any track or album for these queuing options:

1. Play now — clears the current Play Queue and starts playing the selected item immediately.
2. Queue next — inserts the selected item directly after the track currently playing.
3. Queue last — appends the selected item to the very end of the Play Queue.

The player bar

The player bar runs across the bottom of the main window and contains all the essential playback controls. If it is not visible, it may be disabled in Options.

Controls are arranged roughly left to right:

• Previous — plays the previous track in the Play Queue.
• Play / Pause — starts, pauses, or resumes playback. This button is disabled when the Play Queue is empty.
• Stop — stops playback entirely.
• Next — skips to the next track in the Play Queue.
• Smart Play — cycles through three preset positions within the current track (see Smart Play below). This button can be hidden in Options.
• Album art thumbnail — displays the current track's artwork. Click it to expand the image in the navigation area. Right-click it to change or clear the artwork.
• Elapsed / remaining time — shows how far into the track you are. Click this display to switch between elapsed time and remaining time.
• Total duration — shows the full length of the track. Hidden for internet streams.
• Track information lines — three lines showing artist, title, and album by default. You can customise the templates for these lines in Tools > Options > Visual > Player information.
• Visualizations — switches to the visualizer / theatre view. Must be enabled in Options before it appears.
• Auto-Enqueue toggle — turns Auto-Enqueue on or off. Right-click it to choose the Auto-Enqueue mode. Can be hidden in Options.
• Crossfade toggle — enables or disables crossfade between tracks. Can be hidden in Options.
• Repeat play queue toggle — loops the Play Queue so playback continues from the beginning when the last track ends. Can be hidden in Options.
• Shuffle play queue toggle — plays tracks from the queue in a random order. Can be hidden in Options.
• Equalizer toggle — enables or disables the built-in equalizer. Hidden by default; enable it in Options.
• Play Queue button — navigates directly to the Play Queue view. Hidden by default; enable it in Options.
• Mute icon (to the left of the volume slider) — click to instantly silence playback.
• Volume slider — drag to set the playback volume anywhere from 0 to 255.
• Max volume icon (to the right of the volume slider) — click to jump straight to maximum volume.
• Pitch / Tempo slider — speeds up or slows down playback in a range of −30% to +30% without affecting audio pitch independently. If the track has a stored BPM value, the adjusted BPM is shown below the slider. Disabled for internet streams. Can be hidden in Options.
• Favourite toggle (heart icon) — marks or unmarks the current track as a favourite. Disabled when playback is stopped.
• Star rating — rate the currently playing track from 1 to 5 stars. Disabled when playback is stopped.
• Mood button — opens a dropdown where you can assign a mood tag to the current track.
• Drop-zone button — shows the name of your default playlist. Drag tracks onto it to add them to that playlist, or click it to choose a different default playlist. Can be hidden in Options.

Seek bar

By default, a plain seek slider sits just above the player bar. Click or drag it to jump to any position in the current track. You can replace this with a full waveform display — see The waveform below.

Right-click context menu

Right-clicking the track information area of the player bar opens a context menu with additional options:

• Add to playlist
• Smart Play
• Last.fm (checkable) — toggles Last.fm scrobbling on or off
• Auto-Enqueue (checkable) — toggles Auto-Enqueue on or off
• Auto-Enqueue options… — opens the Auto-Enqueue settings
• Crossfade (checkable)
• Repeat play queue (checkable)
• Shuffle play queue (checkable)
• Equalizer (checkable)
• Equalizer settings… — opens the equalizer window
• Repeat track (checkable) — repeats the current track indefinitely (this is the only way to enable single-track repeat)
• Stop

Playback modes

Helium supports several playback modes that you can combine to suit any situation.

• Shuffle — plays tracks from the Play Queue in a random order. Toggle it with the Shuffle button in the player bar, or via the right-click context menu.
• Repeat (play queue) — when the last track in the queue finishes, playback loops back to the beginning. Toggle it with the Repeat button in the player bar, or via the right-click context menu.
• Repeat (single track) — repeats the current track indefinitely. This mode is only available through the right-click context menu on the player information area (Repeat track).
• Crossfade — blends the end of one track smoothly into the beginning of the next, eliminating silence between songs. Toggle it with the Crossfade button in the player bar, or via the right-click context menu. To adjust how many seconds before the end the fade begins and how long the overlap lasts (up to 10 seconds), go to Options → Player.

Auto-Enqueue

Auto-Enqueue keeps the music going automatically. When enabled, Helium watches the Play Queue and adds new tracks before it runs out — so you never have to manually keep the queue filled.

Enabling and choosing a mode

Click the Auto-Enqueue toggle button in the player bar to turn it on or off. Right-click that button (or use the right-click context menu on the player) to choose how tracks are selected:

• Add random album — adds all tracks from a randomly chosen album in your library.
• Add random tracks from same artist — adds random tracks by the artist currently playing.
• Add random tracks from same genre — adds random tracks that share the current track's genre.
• Add random tracks from same year — adds random tracks from the same release year as the current track.
• Add random tracks — adds completely random tracks from your library.
• Add similar tracks — adds tracks that are similar to the one currently playing, based on acoustics or metadata.
• Add from smart playlist — adds tracks from one of your saved smart playlists.

Select Auto-Enqueue options… for the full settings dialog.

Manual vs. automatic queue items

Not all tracks in the Play Queue are treated equally. Understanding this distinction is particularly useful at parties or events where multiple people want to request songs.

Manually queued tracks are ones you (or a guest) have explicitly added — for example by right-clicking and choosing Queue next or Queue last, or by double-clicking a track. These are marked with a filled circle (●) in the first column of the Play Queue.

Automatically queued tracks are added by Auto-Enqueue, or are tracks that appeared below a double-clicked track in a list view (the double-clicked track itself is manual; the rest of the list below it are automatic).

The key rules are:

1. Manually queued tracks always play before automatically queued tracks at the same priority level.
2. When you queue additional tracks while the queue is already running, the new tracks are inserted immediately after the last manually queued item — not at the very end of the queue.
3. If a queue size limit is active, automatic tracks are removed first to make room, so no manually requested track is ever lost.

This means that at a party, every song request will be honoured in the order it was made, no matter how many auto-queued tracks are waiting behind it.

The Play Queue

The Play Queue is the ordered list of tracks Helium will play. You can open it from the left navigation bar, from the Play Queue button in the player bar, or dock it in the Right Sidebar panel.

The currently playing track is highlighted in the list.

Adding tracks

• Double-click any track in any view to add it and the tracks below it.
• Right-click a track or album and choose Queue next or Queue last.
• Let Auto-Enqueue fill the queue automatically (see above).

Navigating the queue

• Jump to a track — double-click any row in the Play Queue to start playing it immediately.
• Search within the queue — press Ctrl+F to open an inline search bar. Press F3 to jump to the next match.

Reordering tracks

• Drag and drop rows to change their order.
• Right-click a track and choose Move up or Move down.

Removing tracks

• Select one or more rows and press Delete.
• Right-click and choose Remove to remove the selected tracks, or Remove all to clear the entire queue. Removing all tracks also stops playback.

Right-click menu options

The Play Queue's right-click menu includes: Set rating, Edit tags, Add to playlist, Shuffle (immediately randomises the queue), Remove, Remove all, Move up / Move down, Scroll to active track, and more.

Smart Play

Smart Play is a DJ-style preview feature that lets you audition key moments in a track without scrubbing manually. Each press of the Smart Play button in the player bar (or the Smart Play item in the right-click context menu) cycles through three positions in the current track:

1. Start — jumps to a short offset from the very beginning (default: 4 seconds in), skipping any silence or intro.
2. Break — jumps to a configurable point in the middle of the track, useful for checking the drop or chorus.
3. Outro — jumps to a configurable offset before the end (default: 4 seconds before the end), so you can hear how the track finishes.

The cycle resets automatically each time a new track begins.

To adjust the three offset values, go to Options → Player → Smart Play.

Smart Play is also available inside the Tag Editor and Advanced Tag Editor, so you can quickly audition a track while you are editing its information.

The waveform

By default, Helium shows a plain seek slider above the player bar. You can replace this with a graphical waveform that displays the full audio content of the current track.

Enabling the waveform

Go to View → Show graphical position bar to switch on the waveform display.

Seeking with the waveform

• Click anywhere on the waveform to jump to that position in the track.
• Hover over the waveform to preview where you will land before you click.

Customising the waveform

Right-click the waveform to access display options:

Height

• 60 px, 80 px, 120 px (default), 160 px, 200 px

Visualisation type

• Waveform (mixed)
• Waveform (channels)
• Spectrogram

Waveform colour palette

• Auto, Blue, Dark blue, Purple, Pink, Apricot, Orange, Cyan, Lime, Lemon Curd, Bright

Waveform hue offset

• 0, 60, 120, 180, 240, 300

Spectrogram palette (available when Spectrogram mode is selected)

• Fire, Ocean, Forest, Sunset, Aurora, Synthwave, Heat, Polar

The right sidebar

The right sidebar is a collapsible panel on the right side of the main window. It contains four tabs that provide rich information and quick actions for the track currently playing.

Now Playing tab

This tab gives you a full overview of the current track:

• Album artwork — displayed large, with Previous / Next arrows if the track has multiple embedded images. Click View to open the image at full size.
• Artist name — click it to navigate to that artist's view. A country flag is shown if the information is available.
• Track title — click it to navigate to the track detail view.
• Album name — click it to navigate to the album view.
• Release year — click it to browse all releases from that year.
• Favourite indicator and star rating — displayed and editable directly from this tab.
• "…" button (top right) — quick access to Edit tags, Advanced Tag Editor, Analyse files, and Explore folder.

Below the track details, three discovery sections appear:

• Suggested tracks — tracks recommended based on the current track. Hover over any suggestion to reveal Queue next, Queue last, and Add to playlist buttons.
• Similar artists — artist thumbnails related to the current artist. Double-click any thumbnail to browse that artist's music.
• Favourite tracks — your favourite tracks by the current artist.
• Albums — album thumbnails by the current artist. Double-click any thumbnail to browse that album.

Lyrics tab

This tab shows the lyrics for the current track. If the lyrics include timestamps (LRC format), the current line is highlighted and the display scrolls automatically to keep up with playback. Lyrics can be downloaded automatically if you enable this in Options → Player → Lyrics.

Biography tab

This tab displays a biography of the artist, including their photo, full name, birth name, country, active dates, website, and group members where available. Use the Previous / Next arrows to switch between artists if the track features more than one. Click the Edit button to update the artist's information.

Album Review tab

This tab shows a written review of the current album, if one has been saved in your library.

The Mini Player

The Mini Player is a compact floating window that stays on top of all other applications on your screen — useful when you want to keep controls visible while working in another program.

Opening the Mini Player

Press Ctrl+Shift+P, or open it from the General Plugins menu.

Controls

The Mini Player includes:

• Previous, Play/Pause, Stop, and Next buttons
• Album artwork for the current track
• Elapsed and remaining time display
• Total track duration
• Favourite toggle (heart icon)
• Artist and title information

Right-click menu

Right-click anywhere on the Mini Player to access:

• Star rating (1–5 stars)
• Volume slider
• Always on top toggle — keeps the Mini Player above other windows
• Exit — closes the Mini Player

Last.fm scrobbling

Helium can report your listening activity to Last.fm, keeping your profile and listening history up to date.

To toggle scrobbling on or off, right-click the player information area and check or uncheck Last.fm. When enabled, Helium sends a "now playing" notification when a track starts and submits a full scrobble once you have listened past the playback threshold.

Before using this feature, make sure your Last.fm credentials are entered in Options → Last.fm.

Audio output settings

To change the audio output device or adjust the playback buffer size, go to Options → Player. Note that changes to these settings take effect after you restart Helium.

ReplayGain — which normalises the volume level across tracks or albums — is also configured in Options → Player. You can set it to off, track gain, or album gain depending on your preference.

Keyboard shortcuts