Ares Music - Help

Please read the following sections to learn how to use Ares Music.

In this view you can manage, browse, and play your music files.

In this view you can search for music files.

Click to start a new search.

Keyword Search Type

Select this search type to search for files that match one or more keywords.

Use this search type when you have no particular artist or song in mind and want to explore new music. Generic keywords (e.g. love, heart, dream, or summer) will bring up a wide variety of songs by different artists.

This search type is also useful when you can't remember the name of the artist for a particular song. In this case, just enter a relevant keyword from the title in the search field.

You can quickly access your last keyword searches from the dropdown list.

Artist Search Type

Select this search type to search for songs by a particular artist.

Check the 'Exact match' checkbox to filter out files that only partially match the artist name.

You can quickly access your last keyword searches from the dropdown list.

Song Search Type

Select this search type to search for a particular song by a particular artist.

Check the 'Exact match' checkbox to filter out files that only partially match the artist name or song title.

Once you have a number of search results you can start downloading music.

Click to start downloading one or more selected search results.

You can also use the 'Download' item from the right-click context menu.

Tip: wait until you have a good number of search results, sort the search results by popularity (click the 'Availability' column header), and download the files with the most hosts.

In this view you can monitor the progress of your downloads.

It is important to understand that Ares Music can only download a file if at least one host is willing to send it to you. If you try to download files with almost no hosts you will often end up with pending downloads that never start.

While waiting for a download to start, the status indicates 'Pending...'.

When a download stays in the pending state for a long time you can try the following to get the download started.

• pause and resume the pending download several times
• search again for the file that you are trying to download (make sure you use the same keywords)
• cancel the pending download, search again for the same file, and download the file with the most hosts

Click to search for more hosts for one or more selected pending downloads.

When you close Ares Music before one or more downloads are complete any incomplete downloads are automatically resumed the next time you run Ares Music.

To view album covers when browsing your music files you need to save the album covers as JPG images in the 'Covers' folder located in the Ares Music installation folder (e.g. C:\Program Files\Ares Music\Covers).

The name of the album covers should match the artist and album information displayed in the 'Music' view and should be formatted as 'artist - album.jpg'.

For example, the album cover for the album 'Music' by the artist 'Madonna' should be named 'Madonna - Music.jpg'.

If the artist and/or title information is missing or erroneous you can easily change the information in the 'File Details Editor'.

To locate album covers on the Internet you can use a search engine such as Google or Yahoo.

To view lyrics when browsing your music files you need to save the lyrics as plain text files in the 'Lyrics' folder located in the Ares Music installation folder (e.g. C:\Program Files\Ares Music\Lyrics).

The name of the lyrics should match the artist and title information displayed in the 'Music' view and should be formatted as 'artist - title.txt'.

For example, the lyric for the song 'Music' by the artist 'Madonna' should be named 'Madonna - Music.txt'.

If the artist and/or title information is missing or erroneous you can easily change the information in the 'File Details Editor'.

To locate lyrics on the Internet you can use a search engine such as Google or Yahoo. However, a more efficient and fun way to locate and download lyrics is to use a specialized program such as Kazaa & LimeWire Lyric Finder (no need to install either Kazaa or LimeWire to use the program).

Ares Music can be easily unistalled as follows.

• open the Windows 'Control Panel' (accessible from the Windows 'Start' menu)
• choose the option 'Add/Remove Programs'
• scroll down the list of installed programs until you find Ares Music
• select Ares Music by clicking the program name and then click the 'Remove' button
• follow the directions given by the uninstaller to complete uninstalling Ares Music

Please note that your music files will not be removed when uninstalling Ares Music.

Please take a moment to read the Ares Music privacy policy.