Help section is incubating! In the meantime, please contact us by emailing help "at" freemusicarchive "dot" org
TOPICS:
1. Mix Creation
2. Blog Posts
3. Popup Player + FMA Symbols explained
4. Edit Member Profile
5. User Levels
see the faq
Q: I didn't get email confirmation when I registered, so my account has not been activated. What can I do?
Q: How can i use the audio I download from the FMA? Can I Use This for my film, hold music, website, video project, etc?
Q: What are the dimensions for images on FMA member profiles (or elsewhere)
Q: How can I contribute my audio?
Q: I keep seeing artist bios that I want to modify. How can I do that?
Q: what does the "i" mean in the pop-up player?
Q: How do you Play/preview audio in the page, without downloading it?
Q: How do I download music from the FMA?
Q: Why is my unpublished blog post showing up on my profile?
Q: How do I add a PayPal donate link to my Artist page?
Q: Why is this Mix or Album not available to download as a .zip?
LEFT-HAND PANEL: "Source Tracks", is your well of material. You can choose between your History (recently listened to tracks), Favorites (tracks that you have starred), and older mixes that you have made.
RIGHT-HAND PANEL: "Your Mix". Give it a title, and a description in the Mix Notes field (bottom left).
TO EDIT YOUR PREVIOUSLY CREATED MIXES:
find your mix on the front-end. Click View-All Mixes, and you can edit them from there.
Go to Participate! >> Blog to write a blog post, click the "blog" icon in the top-left to create a new post. If you save it as a Draft, only you will be able to see it. Once a post has been published, it will be visible in the RSS feed of all FMA blog posts (i.e. when you click "view all user's posts" from the home page).
To attach a song to a blog post, start typing its title into the "Attach a Song" field and it will auto-suggest. Be sure to hit the "add" button, and you can attach more than one.
To embed a mix, album, or track(s) within a blog post (rather than as an attachment), just edit the HTML of your blog post, and add the embed code from the mix page. It is recommended that you use html tables to make it look pretty (ask Jason for formatting help if you need!)
To manage your blog posts (i.e. unpublish them or edit them), go to Participate! >> Blog. Click on a post you've already written, then click the Edit pencil in the top-right to edit it, or click "save as draft" to unpublish it.
click to expand this image
![[pop-up]](http://blogfiles.wfmu.org/JI/popup.png)
3. Pop-up Player (i.e. What do those symbols mean??)
Star (only visible if you're logged in) --> add track to your favorites
Plus button --> add track to pop-up player
Down Arrow --> download the mp3
i --> "info" (open track page in new window).
X --> delete track from playlist
4. Edit Member Profile
Your member profile will appear as a fan of items that you star. For example, if you like a song and star it, users who like that may click on your profile to see what else you've found on the FMA.
To view your Member Profile, click Profile in the top-nav. To edit, click the Edit This Page pencil in the top-right. To save your changes, hit Save Profile.
Dimensions for your profile image: 145 x 145 pixels
ACCOUNT ACTIVE: [only hit no to delete your account!]
ALLOW EMAILS: [if Yes, then an email button will appear for your approved friends to send you emails]
LOGIN: [your profile name]
PASSWORD: [click to change]
*note: Location info will soon be used to map artists near you, or who are touring through your area.
Types of Users
Visitor - Any visitor can download/stream music without logging in
Member - all registered users have a user profile, which allows them to
- leave comments
- become a fan of and/or favorites content they find on the FMA
- befriend other users
- create mixes
- write blog posts
Artist -- appointed by a curator
- can serve as admin for one or more of their Artists. They can upload audio to these artists, and manage their content (Artist, Album and Track pages). Can only upload audio that they created and have rights to upload
- can serve as admin for one or more labels. They can upload audio for artists on their label, manage their Artists' content, and manage Label profile. Can only upload audio that they released and have rights to upload
Editor - appointed by a Curator
within their curator portal, editors can
- edit written content and images
- add, delete or modify written reviews
- access and sort flagged comments
Contributor
an editor with permission to upload audio to the curator's portal. Appointed by a Curator, these users upload audio that they may not have created themselves but have rights to upload
Curator - admin for a Curator
- manage user permissions within their portal
- manage Curator Portal, including featured items (Collections, Blog Posts, Song of the Day, Mixes)
Admin - site admin
- oversees changes to genre tree
- manages featured content on Home Page and Top-Nav
Q: I didn't get email confirmation when I registered, so my account has not been activated. What can I do?
A: First, check your spam box. If you can't find it, email help_at_freemusicarchive.org and we'll put things into Manual Override
Q: How can i use the audio I download from the FMA? Can I use this for my film, hold music, website, video project, etc?
A: Some, but not all, of the FMA library is pre-cleared for these types of uses. Visit the track page for the song you've downloaded to find licensing info, including attribution requirements. To find the Track Page, click the name of the trakc you want to use, or click on the "i" button. It'll take you to a page like this. In the bottom right-hand corner of that track page, you'll find the following licensing info:
Get Twisted by Double Helix is licensed under a Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 2.0 UK: England License.
Click the name of the license to learn what kinds of uses are pre-cleared under this license, and to determine whether your proposed use fits the criteria. This particular track -- like most of what you'll find on the FMA -- is licensed under a Creative Commons license. Creative Commons licenses have four different clauses, and you can read more about them here.
In Search Mode, you may filter content by pre-cleared uses -- for example, content that can be used in a video project, or a commercial project. If you find a track this way, you'll still want to verify that you are following the terms of the license linked from the track page.
Remix and Video Artists: If a track says "FMA-Limited" or "NoDerivatives", then you'll need to get permission from the copyright holder to use the track.
We strongly encourage anyone who wishes to use music found on the FMA to familiarize themselves with copyright law, Creative Commons licenses, and the public domain to independently assess whether any given musical work or sound recording can be used in their project. The Free Music Archive seeks to prevent copyright infringement and complies as a service provider with the requirements of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (“DMCA”), but does not review music uploaded by users of the site to determine if the music is subject to additional restrictions.
Q: What are the dimensions for images on FMA member profiles (or elsewhere)
A: Dimensions for images (w x h):
Curator Logo: 290 x 169
Curator Top: 476 x 269
Artist: 290 x 290
Album: 290 x 290
Song: 290 x 290
Mix / Collection: 290 x 220
Profile: 145 x 145
Blog Post: 420 x 280
Q: How can I contribute my audio?
A: The Free Music Archive is a curated library, which makes it a bit different from other social music libraries. Upload-permissions are granted by curators. Curatorship is granted by a team of FMA Admins that includes representatives from existing curators. More info is available on our Contact page, but basically, if your work fits with an existing curator (i.e. you played a live set on WFMU back in the day) then you have a good shot at being added. If your work doesn't fit with any existing curator, not to worry! -- we're adding curators trying to cover all the bases of great music in the world, and your application will remain in the queue.
Q: I keep seeing artist bios that I want to modify. How can I do that?
A: Apply to become an FMA Editor! More info here
Q: What does the "i" mean in the pop-up player?
A: it stands for "info" -- it's a link to the song page, where you can find more info about the artist, album, song, etc.
Q: I don't see how to play music in the page?
A: There should be big black play buttons next to every song, everywhere on the site, like this:
If you're not seeing these, you may need to update to the latest version of Flash (http://get.adobe.com/flashplayer/). If you have manually installed a flash-blocking application on your browser (you know who you are!), you'll need to add freemusicarchive.org to your whitelist. If you are still having trouble, go to this url which will download an exe to your computer: http://fpdownload.adobe.com/get/flashplayer/current/install_flash_player.exe. Close all your browsers and then double click on the exe you just downloade. If you are still having trouble, please email help_at_freemusiarchive.org letting us know your OS, Browser and Flash version and we'll try to figure out what's going on
Q: How do I download music from the FMA?
A: There should be a down-arrow next to every song, everywhere on the site (see above image). If you're not seeing these, you may need to update to the latest version of Flash (http://get.adobe.com/flashplayer/). If you have manually installed a flash-blocking application on your browser (you know who you are!), you'll need to add freemusicarchive.org to your whitelist.
Download buttons for albums and mixes are currently in development
Q: Why is my unpublished blog post showing up on my profile?
A: Never fear! The post is only visible as a draft when you're logged in as the person who created it. There should be a button at the bottom-left of the post that says "Draft >> Edit This Post".
Q: How do I add a PayPal donate link to my artist page?
A: You'll need PayPal's email friendly link, which starts with https://. You can grab this by logging into your paypal account, then go to Merchant Services. "Donate" is an option under Create Buttons. Be sure to choose the email-friendly link, which starts with https:// . Then, edit your Artist page (go to Artist page and hit the Edit pencil) and add this long URL to the Donation link.
Q: Why is this Mix or Album not available to download as a .zip?
A: Was it created more than an hour ago? It really should be all zipped up by now...unless it has over 75 tracks in which case we are unable to zip it. Please let us know if you find a mix or an album that is simply not zipping and we'll kick our zipper upper.