Chapter 16. Playing and Managing Your Music with Helix Banshee / 16.3. Using Helix Banshee with Your Digital Audio Player
	16.2. Managing Your Music Library		16.4. Creating Audio and MP3 CDs

Using Helix Banshee with Your Digital Audio Player

Helix Banshee supports several digital audio players, including Apple iPods, Creative Nomads, and almost any other generic USB Mass Storage player. Instead of having to use separate applications to get support for your audio devices, Helix Banshee gives you easy, integrated support and lets you copy your music to or from your device, no matter what format the music is in.

Playing Music from your Digital Audio Player

To play music from your digital audio player, simply plug your player into your system. After your system recognizes your device, an icon is displayed in the left panel in Helix Banshee.

Select the icon to display the music on your device in the right panel. Double-click the song you want to listen to.

Figure 16.8. Helix Banshee MP3 Playback from an iPod Mini

To view or change device properties, right-click your device, then select Source Properties. From there, you can view various pieces of information. If you have an iPod, you can update the owner's name.

Adding Music to Your Digital Audio Player

To add tracks to your player, simply drag the tracks you want from your Music Library to your device.

Helix Banshee transparently supports transcoding of your songs for any device. You can have your music library in any number of formats (including, but not limited to, FLAC, Ogg Vorbis, MP3, and AAC), and it will be transparently transcoded before it is sent to your digital audio player.

To remove tracks, select your device in the list of sources, right-click the song you want to delete, then click Remove Song(s).

Copying Music on Your Digital Audio Player to Helix Banshee

Helix Banshee supports importing music from your digital audio player to your music library. Simply drag and drop the songs from your digital audio player to your Music Library and they are copied automatically. You can also import all the music on your digital audio player by right- clicking your player in the source list and selecting Import.

Figure 16.9. Importing Music from Your Digital Audio Player to Helix Banshee

Synchronizing Your Library

To keep your digital audio player up to date with your Helix Banshee Library, select your player in the source list, then click Synchronize in the upper right corner.

Helix Banshee also synchronizes your ratings and cover art in your tracks to your iPod.