HardRock4

Q: Poor iTunes Match Matching

I have a music collection of about 10,000 songs, about 90% of which I ripped into iTunes from my CD collection.  I subscribed to iTunes Match today and only about 1,000 of my songs were recognized.  All of my tags and album art, etc. are present and up to date. Any ideas as to why? 

 

I have to say I'm dissappointed with my experience with iTunes Match so far.  I thought it would recognize the majority of my music instead of having to upload 9,000 songs.

Posted on Nov 14, 2011 2:07 PM

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Q: Poor iTunes Match Matching

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  • by toonz,

    toonz toonz Nov 14, 2011 2:09 PM in response to HardRock4
    Level 7 (22,360 points)
    Nov 14, 2011 2:09 PM in response to HardRock4

    Ok, what format did you encode the songs to when you ripped them from CD?  What are some examples of song that you think should have matched because they are in the store?

  • by HardRock4,

    HardRock4 HardRock4 Nov 14, 2011 2:11 PM in response to toonz
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Nov 14, 2011 2:11 PM in response to toonz

    I encoded all of my CD's in iTunes with MP3 encoding at 192 kbps.  Most of my music collection is available on iTunes for purchase so I don't think that is the problem.

  • by rgzetina,

    rgzetina rgzetina Nov 14, 2011 2:26 PM in response to HardRock4
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Nov 14, 2011 2:26 PM in response to HardRock4

    Me too, I´m having the same problem, most of my music wasn´t recongnized some of it was even puchased at the iTunes Store with other Apple Id i have, so it's strange. However if I select one of the songs that iTunesMatch didn'r matchand select in ping to see it on the iTunes store, it does finds it so how come itunesmatch doesn't?

    Also there are some songs that didn't match the first time but did match on a second time. Why is this?

  • by burton1981,

    burton1981 burton1981 Nov 14, 2011 2:59 PM in response to HardRock4
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Nov 14, 2011 2:59 PM in response to HardRock4

    I'm having the same issues as well.

     

    I have just over 11k songs and only 2k of them were recognized.

    I'm extremely anal about my itunes library so it can't be anything that

    isn't labebled properly.

     

    I'm wondering if the system is overloaded?

  • by downinitjr,

    downinitjr downinitjr Nov 14, 2011 3:21 PM in response to burton1981
    Level 4 (1,435 points)
    Nov 14, 2011 3:21 PM in response to burton1981

    Are you sure that some of them weren't matched.  Even if you have changed or used your own artwork it seems iTunes initially reports that it it is uploading the file, but it only uploads the custom artwork but does indeed match the music file.  Someone else has tried changing the tags of a file and running it through, and apparently it didn't matter.  It would seem that it isn't using the tags to match the files.

  • by asmacumber,

    asmacumber asmacumber Nov 14, 2011 3:51 PM in response to HardRock4
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Nov 14, 2011 3:51 PM in response to HardRock4

    I wonder if some of this isn't due to server load. About 2/3 of my library was matched, which is better that most I've seen, but most of those not matched ARE in the store. Over the next few days it may even out. We'll see.

  • by rgzetina,

    rgzetina rgzetina Nov 14, 2011 4:20 PM in response to downinitjr
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Nov 14, 2011 4:20 PM in response to downinitjr

    I´m not sure, as soon as the process in Itunes match starts uploading I just press the stop button because I don´t want to upload songs that i know itunesmatch should match

  • by crh24,

    crh24 crh24 Nov 14, 2011 4:24 PM in response to asmacumber
    Level 3 (924 points)
    Nov 14, 2011 4:24 PM in response to asmacumber

    asmacumber wrote:

     

    I wonder if some of this isn't due to server load. About 2/3 of my library was matched, which is better that most I've seen, but most of those not matched ARE in the store. Over the next few days it may even out. We'll see.

    I participated in the beta and never had more than 50% of my songs matched.  Out of nearly 6k tracks all but 12 of them are CD rips using iTunes.  The other twelve are from a LP that I digitized.  iTunes Match managed to match less than 3k of them.

     

    All tracks that were not matched were uploaded but as others have said the servers are probably swamped.  I have lyrics with most of my tracks and not a single lyric is showing up on my iOS5 device and only about 5% of my album art is showing up and I have art associated with every album.

  • by Joey!! 【ツ】,

    Joey!! 【ツ】 Joey!! 【ツ】 Nov 14, 2011 4:33 PM in response to HardRock4
    Level 2 (255 points)
    Nov 14, 2011 4:33 PM in response to HardRock4

    I'm sorry to hear that.

     

    I got better results than I expected. About 92% of my songs were matched leaving only 8% left to upload.

     

    I should note that I am extremely OCD when it comes to my iTunes library. Every single song has lyrics and artwork and the correct genre, album name, track name, everything exactly as it is shown in iTunes.

     

    With that being said, I went to Store -> Update iTunes Match right after it finished and a few more songs were matched.

     

    I will have to go figure out exactly why that 8% wasn't matched and hopefully get them all matched - except the few that aren't on iTunes.

     

    I am interested to know exactly what factors go into whether a song can be matched or not, sure it isn't just metadata.

     

    Anyways, I'd just keep updating iTunes Match from the Store menu over the next few days. Make sure they are all tagged exactly how they are shown in iTunes. If they still aren't matched after that, then you may need to re-rip those songs and try again. I'm going to keep up with the blogs, as I'm sure they'll provide plenty of tips and insights to the iTunes Match service.

  • by bird66,

    bird66 bird66 Nov 14, 2011 4:47 PM in response to Joey!! 【ツ】
    Level 1 (1 points)
    Nov 14, 2011 4:47 PM in response to Joey!! 【ツ】

    how do i try to have the music that itunes couldn't match (and thus uploaded instead) once again?

  • by Joey!! 【ツ】,

    Joey!! 【ツ】 Joey!! 【ツ】 Nov 14, 2011 4:53 PM in response to bird66
    Level 2 (255 points)
    Nov 14, 2011 4:53 PM in response to bird66

    Correct me if I'm wrong, but if you go to Store -> Update iTunes Match, that will check the entire library to determine what matches, including songs that were already uploaded. I could be wrong.

  • by bigsprocket,

    bigsprocket bigsprocket Nov 14, 2011 5:38 PM in response to HardRock4
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Nov 14, 2011 5:38 PM in response to HardRock4

    What I've noticed is that Step 2 ("Matching your music") doesn't complete all in one shot. This was true during the beta, and is still true today.  I've got almost 24000 songs in my library (had more than 25000, but needed to prune them), and almost all are ripped CDs.   I started Match, then left it alone for a few hours.  When I came back, it told me it was uploading over 16000 items. (Say what??)   So, I stopped it and restarted.  When it hit step 2 again, it started at "8995 of 23795 songs checked" ... so, apparently on the first attempt, it only got just shy of 9000 of them checked, before moving on to step 3 and thought it needed to upload the remainder. 

     

    It's working on step 2 again now.  If I see it trying to upload a ridiculous amount of files later, I'll repeat this process and keep doing it until it works properly with a decent match rate.

     

    BTW, I run "Little Snitch", and I've noticed that things go a better if I turn it off.

  • by tmksnyder,Solvedanswer

    tmksnyder tmksnyder Nov 14, 2011 7:10 PM in response to HardRock4
    Level 1 (30 points)
    Nov 14, 2011 7:10 PM in response to HardRock4

    I have 13000+ songs

     

    After step 2, it said it matched only 6500 or so songs

     

    So at first I thought its uploading the other half.  It isn't.  Turn on a custom play list and choose Icloud status=upload and watch the play list.    It is likely uploading custom artwork etc and has matched a lot more.  You can watch it add to the playlist whenever it uploads a song.

     

    I am currently at 11,000+ songs in step 3 and the play list shows only 200 uploaded.  It's actually matching a lot more than initially indicated after step 2.   Also, if you turn on the icloud columns in the different library views, you can see some that are in a "waiting" status.  They either change to uploaded or matched as step 3 completes. I actually had another playlist where about half were in waiting and an hour later it showed "matched" for all the songs and this is during step 3.  

     

    I'm actually amazed at some of the stuff it ended up matching.  The ones that didn't were usually older and lower quality files.

  • by sparta!,

    sparta! sparta! Nov 14, 2011 10:36 PM in response to HardRock4
    Level 1 (110 points)
    Nov 14, 2011 10:36 PM in response to HardRock4

    I think I have a bigger issue  Where all the matching has completed however I have 2k work of songs that are stuck in the status of  "waiting".  Its been 8 hours and the status of the "waiting" songs hasn;t changed to "matched" status.  Is there anyway I can force iTunes to check?  Can I rerun the service again?

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