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Apple Music dumbing down my Vinyl Studio recordings

I'm using Vinyl Studio to digitize my records at CD Quality 16/44.1 in the ALAC (Apple Lossless) format, and yet after saving into my iTunes/Apple Music library, they show up as 128 kbps AAC files? As Apple still is not offering High Res or at least CD quality music, I would at least like to preserve my vinyl (and CD) collection at CD quality (or above) on my Mac and listen to it that way too. I don't believe I ever used or turned on iTunes Match whereby Apple would convert your music (if it was available) to Apple Music 256 kbps files ( and even if it was enabled, wouldn't the tracks be 256kbps, not 128?) Whether I've ripped my own music or purchased something from HD Tracks, for example, I don't want iTunes/Apple Music to

replace it with an inferior quality version. What gives? Is there some setting I'm missing? This is very frustrating.

Mac mini, macOS 10.15

Posted on Feb 8, 2021 9:31 AM

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Posted on Feb 9, 2021 12:35 PM

Thanks for getting back, Jim. It ended up being a Vinyl Studio issue....not iTunes. Even though I had specified to save the files in the format they were recorded (ALAC 16/44.1 CD quality), VS defaulted to AAC 128kbps for iTunes. So I deleted my files in iTunes/Apple Music and resaved them, this time specifying ALAC 16/44.1 for each file. And it was only these 3 files I recently recorded as I hadn't been using VS for quite some time. All my earlier high res downloads/CD rips etc are still fine. So all is good now. My only issue now is that the Bit Perfect program I'd been using for playback doesn't seem to work anymore...I guess it was never updated since Apple Music took over from iTunes.

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Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Feb 9, 2021 12:35 PM in response to Jimzgoldfinch

Thanks for getting back, Jim. It ended up being a Vinyl Studio issue....not iTunes. Even though I had specified to save the files in the format they were recorded (ALAC 16/44.1 CD quality), VS defaulted to AAC 128kbps for iTunes. So I deleted my files in iTunes/Apple Music and resaved them, this time specifying ALAC 16/44.1 for each file. And it was only these 3 files I recently recorded as I hadn't been using VS for quite some time. All my earlier high res downloads/CD rips etc are still fine. So all is good now. My only issue now is that the Bit Perfect program I'd been using for playback doesn't seem to work anymore...I guess it was never updated since Apple Music took over from iTunes.

Feb 9, 2021 1:23 AM in response to mc-ornell

Hi,

I have never come across this issue. iTunes/ Music app does not have the capability of modifying tracks added to the library. Even if you had Apple Music or iTunes Match, tracks in your library would only be altered if you opted to remove download then redownload them, you would get either 256 Kbps matched files, transcribed uploaded lossless files as 256kbps and other uploaded AAC or mp3 as is.


If you add music from CD, you have the option to select format but other music such as ALAC will be added as is.


Can you give us more details and does it affect all your music? Do yo have a separate backup?


Jim


Apple Music dumbing down my Vinyl Studio recordings

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