Musicbox Tutorial

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POSTED ON
June 20, 2017

AUTHOR
Tom

CATEGORY
Musicbox
Featured Apps
Bundled Apps
Tutorials

OVERVIEW

Musicbox allows you to quickly and easily download audio from most all of the popular sites on the Internet. Then, it can also convert it to different formats so it’s ready to view on your Mac, ipod, iphone or in iTunes. Furthermore, you can automatically extract the audio from almost any video (courses, movies, TV programs…).

You can also choose to automatically Import your downloaded audio to iTunes.

After you install Musicbox be sure to install the Musicbox Bookmarklet in your browser. Just drag this button
Musicbox
and drop it onto the bookmarks bar in your browser. The Bookmarklet will appear on your browser bookmarks bar.

When viewing a video or listening to audio in your browser just click the Musicbox Bookmarklet on your browser bookmarks bar to add the audio to the Musicbox Downloads Queue for processing using your default settings. If Musicbox is not already opened when you click the Bookmarklet, the Bookmarklet will open Musicbox and add the target audio to the Downloads Queue for processing.

INSTALL

Installation is easy. After downloading Musicbox just click on the musicbox.dmg file in your downloads folder to launch the musicbox installer. On the Musicbox installation screen drag the Musicbox icon and drop it onto the Applications folder icon on the installation screen and you are done. On some systems the .dmg file might put a virtual disk on your desktop named Musicbox. Click on the virtual disk to launch the Musicbox installer. When done you can right click the virtual Musicbox disk icon on your desktop and select “Eject” or just drag it to your Trash Bin to eject it. Don't foget to install the Musicbox Bookmarklet...it makes captures a 1-click operation.

SETUP

To set up the default Preferences for Musicbox, launch Musicbox and open the Musicbox menu by clicking on “Musicbox” in your Mac toolbar. Select “Preferences…” from the Musicbox dropdown menu.



There are two screens available in Musicbox Preferences, “Download” and “Default Output Settings”.

Preferences Download Screen

Here you set the location where the audio file will be saved after processing/conversion. To change the Default Download location just click the “Change…” button and select a new location.

You can set the “Maximum number of concurrent downloads:” (used when doing ‘batch’ conversions of all the files in your Downloads queue) to limit CPU usage.

You can have the audio file automatically removed from the queue after processing and you can have audios automatically imported into iTunes.

The “Revert to Factory Defaults” button is a master reset button for both the Download screen settings and the Default Output Settings. All settings on both screens will be reset.


Preferences Default Output Settings: Basic Screen


The basic Default Output Settings screen has a single set of preset options. Available preset Output options are:

1. Download only (no conversion)

2. iPad

3. iPod classic

4. iPod Touch – iPhone

5. Mac Viewing


The initial settings for each of these options have been optimized for most users and should give satisfactory results for your intended use. You can customize them by clicking the “Show Settings” (recommended for experienced users only) to expand the Default Output Settings screen. Incompatible settings can cause video distortion or conversion failures. Any changes you make will remain in effect until you change them or you can go back to the original factory settings by using the “Revert to Factory Defaults” button on the “Download” screen.

Expanded Default Output Settings (for experienced users)


The most relevant options here are “Bitrate” and the “Use Input File’s” checkboxes.
The Bitrate option allows you to modify the quality of the audio you will be getting . The presets provide the optimal quality for most platforms. If you select the “Use Input File’s” option Musicbox will auto-detect the Bitrate and maintain the best quality.

INTERFACE



The orange “Drop Zone” is used for the manual Drag N Drop capture method when not using the Musicbox Bookmarklet. It is also used for converting videos you already have. More details about Drag N Drop below.

OPERATION

Captures are easy with the Musicbox Bookmarklet – when you want to capture the audio playing in your browser just click the Musicbox Bookmarklet on your browser bookmarks bar. The audio will be added to the Musicbox Downloads queue for processing. Musicbox does not need to be opened before clicking the Bookmarklet. When you click the Bookmarklet it will launch Musicbox and add the audio to the queue. If Musicbox is already opened, clicking the Bookmarklet will just add the audio to the queue.

In the example above three audios have been added to the downloads queue. You can process all the audios in the download queue with a single click of the “Batch” buttons at the bottom of the Screen. “Convert All” will download and convert the all the audios in the queue to the Output format you have selected in Musicbox Preferences. “Clear Completed” will remove processed audios from the queue, and “Clear All” will remove all audios from the queue.

You can process the audios in the downloads queue individually using the 3 mini-buttons just to the right of each video. The first button with the down arrow is for Downloading, the second button with the “X” will remove the video from the queue, and the third button with the search icon will let you know, after downloading, where the video can be found on your Mac. When you use the individual download mini-button you can set all the audio conversion options on a new Preference screen for the best possible quality and destination, for that audio download/conversion.

Manual Drag N Drop

If you haven't installed the Musicbox Bookmarklet in your browser you can use the manual Drag N Drop method. With a file playing in your browser, just click and drag the little ‘favicon’ just to the left of the URL in your browser address bar and drop it onto the orange Drop Zone on the Musicbox interface screen. If Musicbox is not open you can drop the ‘favicon’ onto the Musicbox icon on your Dock to open Musicbox and add the audio to the queue.

Converting Existing Videos

Musicbox is not just for capturing audios from the Internet. If you have existing audio files (or video files you want to "rip the audio from) and want to change them to different formats Musicbox can do this for you. Just drag and drop your file onto the orange Drop Zone and the audio will be added to the queue for processing, just like a downloaded audio. If Musicbox is not open just drop the file onto the Musicbox icon on your Dock to open Musicbox and the file will be added to the queue. All the same controls apply, you can ‘batch’ convert the files using the “Convert All” button or you can process the files individually using the mini-buttons.