http://www.helium-music-manager.com

For what it's worth, I'd like to throw in a mini-review of Helium Music Manager, which I've been using for about 2 years now. My library is currently up to about 12000 tracks. I've got mostly FLAC and mp3 files, and all are tagged for the basic stuff. I'm streaming these from a ReadyNAS NV+ to a Roku Soundbridge, using a Garmin iQue M5 as a remote. It's meant to be a roll-your-own Sonos system that has far more capabilities than the Sonos.

As for Helium, it's been mainly extremely helpful. The rip / tag / file process is this:

1. Rip from cd with Exact Audio Copy
2. Copy to NAS
3. Insert into Helium library
4. Retag

This process has been whittled down over time and I think it's about as streamlined as I'm going to get it with my current software. EAC does a good job of tagging from FreeDB, but I go through the extra step of retagging in Helium because it can access CDDB, which I find much more complete, especially when it comes to classical listings. I don't have many of them, but it's worth the trouble.

The bottom line with Helium is that it has a wealth of features. So many, in fact, that I'm probably not using all of them. There are many tag fields that I don't particularly care about (BPM etc.) Another gripe (with the 2007 version, anyway) is that it doesn't rip files with the ability to directly convert to flac. If this were the case, I'd stop using EAC altogether, which would probably save quite a bit of time.

My process in Helium is this:

1. Add files to library (ctrl + insert)
2. Use the Music Library tab to find the most recently added files with the File Date node
3. Sort tracks by artist or album
4. Select all tracks in an album
5. Retag items, downloading info from cddb

This process has become less troublesome over time. Still, when you add files to the library and choose the File Date node, items are not automatically grouped according to artist or album, which adds an extra step.

I think I've focused mainly on the negative here, but that's always the case, isn't it? One of the most useful features is the Untagged Items node, which groups untagged files by several criteria. So it's easy to figure out if you've added files to the database but have forgotten to tag them. Helium also does a really does a good job at organizing stuff in a way that's easily accessible once things are arranged correctly.

There are a bunch of things that I don't use which probably give endless amounts of customization. Overall, I trust it with the HUGE amount of time I've spent ripping discs, and that should be the main concern.

Enjoy music and keep up the beautiful work!
love,
Sista!

Peace.