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 Zeb the cyclops,

    Zeb the cyclops Zeb the cyclops Dec 21, 2011 1:50 AM in response to HardRock4
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Dec 21, 2011 1:50 AM in response to HardRock4

    it just deceided to start working after i restarted my computer. it would upload a lot of music, a lot more would be left "waiting" and after a restart. all of them finished correctly

  • by NorfolkUKApple,

    NorfolkUKApple NorfolkUKApple Dec 21, 2011 4:51 AM in response to HardRock4
    Level 1 (5 points)
    Dec 21, 2011 4:51 AM in response to HardRock4

    My original matching experience with iTunes Match was pretty good with over 80% of my library being matched. The stuff it didn't match did not generally surprise me as some of it is slightly obscure.

     

    But what I can't figure is why on a brand new CD Rip - which I tested using The Beatles album 1 - I got only 17 matches from the 27 tracks. I deliberately ripped the CD at 96kbps to test the matching.With such a poor result I deleted all the files from both my hard drive and iCloud and ripped it again at 256kbs. I got exactly the same result - so at least there was some consistency. The tags were as imported from Gracenote during ripping and as the Album Artist was blank I completed that before runnning another update. Still just 17 of 27.

     

    So I then "borrowed" a copy of "1 remastered" - and lo and behold when I use that I get a perfect match all 27 of 27. So if, like me, you were hoping to be able to rip your older CDs at a lower quality and use match to get a nice bump up in quality you might be disappointed. Of course I can just rip all my CDs at 256kbps but then I have the tedious process of allowing the unmatched tracks to upload to the Cloud.

  • by Flying Dutchman Bob,

    Flying Dutchman Bob Flying Dutchman Bob Jan 17, 2012 5:32 AM in response to HardRock4
    Level 1 (10 points)
    Jan 17, 2012 5:32 AM in response to HardRock4

    My mac is stuk in step 2 with matching my songs at 1392 songs checked. is there a way how i can force the system to check them all over again? because it is stuck for over 5 hours now... anyone help on this?

  • by Silsdenbull,

    Silsdenbull Silsdenbull Jan 18, 2012 11:38 AM in response to Flying Dutchman Bob
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Jan 18, 2012 11:38 AM in response to Flying Dutchman Bob

    That's exactly what mine is doing. Is the recent switch on of iTunes match in 17 new countries having any effect on it freezing?

  • by Sjoerd Herder,

    Sjoerd Herder Sjoerd Herder Jan 26, 2012 11:59 PM in response to HardRock4
    Level 1 (5 points)
    Jan 26, 2012 11:59 PM in response to HardRock4

    Hello,

    Same but worse at my side.

    I have a bit more than 8000 songs, and two albums are known not available in the iTunes store (demo CD's of local bands). The rest is just very mainstream music (some exceptions) but all can be found in the iTunes store.

    However, not according to iTunes Match!

    It only matched 5000 (rounded up...) songs.

    Of many albums just 1 out of all, or the other way around, all but one matched.

    All albums were legally bought as hardware CD's, and all were ripped with iTunes (including all meta data and album art). I haven't changed anything to the numbers.

     

    Is there a solution to tell the matching the match? (handpicking whole albums)?

    I have tried many things (all found by altoher people to be working, but not in my case).

     

    This is such a disspointing result from an Apple service.

     

    Kind regards,

     

    Sjoerd

  • by KeithJenner,

    KeithJenner KeithJenner Jan 27, 2012 12:57 AM in response to Sjoerd Herder
    Level 4 (1,020 points)
    Jan 27, 2012 12:57 AM in response to Sjoerd Herder

    5,000 out of 8,000 is a low matching rate, but not too far off what I would expect.

     

    Are some of your CD's fairly old? By that I mean have you had the CD's for quite a while, or were they bought second hand.

     

    In my experience, the worst matching experience comes when you have fairly old copies of mainstream music, as this is just the sort of thing that is likely to have been remastered.

  • by Sjoerd Herder,

    Sjoerd Herder Sjoerd Herder Jan 27, 2012 1:14 AM in response to KeithJenner
    Level 1 (5 points)
    Jan 27, 2012 1:14 AM in response to KeithJenner

    It's a library with the oldest album probably 30 years old.

    I've taken a look at the oldest album I have, and of this particular album (Love over gold by the Dire Straits), 1 song did match, and the others (4) did not. All of them available in the store.

     

    This is my worst experience ever with an Apple product. And something that truly anoys me: I have given iTunes total control over my CD ripping and still it can't match.

     

    I hope Apple goes through all uploaded files of all users to find the problem. There must be others with simular poor results...

  • by KeithJenner,

    KeithJenner KeithJenner Jan 27, 2012 1:39 AM in response to Sjoerd Herder
    Level 4 (1,020 points)
    Jan 27, 2012 1:39 AM in response to Sjoerd Herder

    Yes, Love Over Gold has been remastered, and that is why it isn't matching.

     

    I wouldn't hold your breath for too much of an improvement very soon. The only way that I can see of improving matching without vastly increasing the number of mismatches would be some sort of manual intervention by Apple, whereby they get the waveform of all the different issues of albums and associate them so that if any version is recognised then it defaults to the store version.

     

    To say that this would be a big job is a huge understatement. Also, I would have to doubt whether the agreements that they have with the record companies would cover matching in this way.

  • by Sjoerd Herder,

    Sjoerd Herder Sjoerd Herder Jan 27, 2012 2:20 AM in response to KeithJenner
    Level 1 (5 points)
    Jan 27, 2012 2:20 AM in response to KeithJenner

    I think it wouldn't take too much effort to get it all correct: I've teste 25 unmatched randon songs by playing it over the internal loudspeakers of my MacBook Pro, and asking Shazam and SoundHound (on iPhone) to figure out what it is. All songs were perfectly recognized (within 4 seconds using SoundHound). So all the tools are there, they ony have to implement it. And this is easy: in stead of converting an analogue signal (from loudpeakers) to digital, the digital version is already there.

     

    Why didn't Apple do it in this way in the first place?

  • by KeithJenner,

    KeithJenner KeithJenner Jan 27, 2012 2:25 AM in response to Sjoerd Herder
    Level 4 (1,020 points)
    Jan 27, 2012 2:25 AM in response to Sjoerd Herder

    Because then these forums would be full of people complaining that their live versions of songs are being matched with studio versions, remixes are messed up, songs are being tagged as duplicates, etc. There are already plenty of threads about explicit/mono tracks being mismatched.

     

    Identifying a song is easy. Identifying the correct version of a song is a whole other level. To do that you have to be quite tight on the matching process which means that remasters are being identified as different versions.

     

    This is actually very difficult. There are lots of things to consider.

     

    Message was edited by: KeithJenner

  • by Sjoerd Herder,

    Sjoerd Herder Sjoerd Herder Jan 27, 2012 2:39 AM in response to KeithJenner
    Level 1 (5 points)
    Jan 27, 2012 2:39 AM in response to KeithJenner

    Thanks KeithJenner, although it doesn't buy me anything, it clarifies a lot.

    Wondering why I can't find this helpful information on the Apple site...

  • by KeithJenner,

    KeithJenner KeithJenner Jan 27, 2012 2:40 AM in response to Sjoerd Herder
    Level 4 (1,020 points)
    Jan 27, 2012 2:40 AM in response to Sjoerd Herder

    Sjoerd Herder wrote:

     

    Wondering why I can't find this helpful information on the Apple site...

     

    That just about sums up Apples introduction of this service.

     

    Good product with teething troubles. Appalling support.

  • by ambios,

    ambios ambios Jan 27, 2012 11:22 AM in response to HardRock4
    Level 1 (5 points)
    Servers Enterprise
    Jan 27, 2012 11:22 AM in response to HardRock4

    I wonder if Apple has allowed for a "manual match" function? I have several corrupted songs and many recorded at lower bit rate that I would like to have upgraded to Apple lossless as promised when Apple introduced Match. It seems that there should be a method for me to manually identify tracks in need of updating (isn't this obvious), but I don't see this feature. Can anyone point me in the right direction?

  • by KeithJenner,

    KeithJenner KeithJenner Jan 27, 2012 11:40 AM in response to ambios
    Level 4 (1,020 points)
    Jan 27, 2012 11:40 AM in response to ambios

    That feature doesn't exist and, in my opinion, is unlikely ever to be introduced.

     

    Id be very surprised if the record companies allowed it, as it would make it much easier for people to manipulate the system. At least at the moment you have to have a copy of the song to get a match.

  • by ambios,

    ambios ambios Jan 27, 2012 11:48 AM in response to KeithJenner
    Level 1 (5 points)
    Servers Enterprise
    Jan 27, 2012 11:48 AM in response to KeithJenner

    Ah ha! The abscents of obvious features are frequently intended to be excluded. Didn't think about this from the record industry's perspective. Can't get away from my deadhead free love and music for everyone mentality. Thanks man.

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