User profile for user: Paul Oldewurtel
Paul Oldewurtel Author
User level: Level 1
27 points

music match and apple lossless

I have a large music collection mostly made up of tracks that I imported from CD. I prefer to import my CDs using Apple Lossless. I have Apple Music and Spotify. I know that Apple Music comes with Music Match, but I have heard horror stories about it over the years, so I've never turned it on. Now that Apple is finally moving to Lossless audio, I am curious about Music Match again.


What I want to know is, what are the risks, if any, to my original, imported files on my hard drive? They are backed up. Does turning on Music Match do anything to my originals? Does it mess with the meta data, the artwork, the file format or bitrate? I understand that if I turn on Music Match, the songs in the cloud may or may not be Lossless since Apple may not have converted all of their tracks to Lossless yet. And I know that if the song can't be matched, my original will be uploaded to the cloud. Will the copy of my original in the cloud be an exact copy or will it be converted to a format that is less than Lossless? I'm more concerned about my originals than whatever happens in the cloud though.

MacBook Pro (2020 and later)

Posted on Nov 6, 2021 3:58 PM

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User profile for user: Jimzgoldfinch
Jimzgoldfinch
User level: Level 7
28,633 points

Posted on Nov 7, 2021 1:28 AM

Hi,

Nothing much has changed in the matching process between iTunes Match and Apple Music.


  1. As alway backup your library and possibly create a separate library for Apple Music.
  2. Matching process will not change the files on your main computer. Metadata, artwork, format and bit rate should not change. Some people have reported that artwork has been changed.
  3. Tracks matched will be 256 Kbps and uploaded Lossless files will be transcribed to 256 Kbps this is the format that will be available on other devices. If you remove download and then redownload, tracks will be either 256 Kbps or lossless with DRM depending on you download settings.
  4. Matched tracks may be available as lossless when streaming on other devices but if you download them they will have DRM. Uploaded tracks will have been converted.
  5. Matched tracks should be matched with the same but over the years some people have reported mismatches. One issue is the difference between original versions and remastered versions.


I personally maintain more than one library, keep my lossless music separate from the iCloud music library.


Jim

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User profile for user: Jimzgoldfinch
Jimzgoldfinch
User level: Level 7
28,633 points

Nov 7, 2021 1:28 AM in response to Paul Oldewurtel

Hi,

Nothing much has changed in the matching process between iTunes Match and Apple Music.


  1. As alway backup your library and possibly create a separate library for Apple Music.
  2. Matching process will not change the files on your main computer. Metadata, artwork, format and bit rate should not change. Some people have reported that artwork has been changed.
  3. Tracks matched will be 256 Kbps and uploaded Lossless files will be transcribed to 256 Kbps this is the format that will be available on other devices. If you remove download and then redownload, tracks will be either 256 Kbps or lossless with DRM depending on you download settings.
  4. Matched tracks may be available as lossless when streaming on other devices but if you download them they will have DRM. Uploaded tracks will have been converted.
  5. Matched tracks should be matched with the same but over the years some people have reported mismatches. One issue is the difference between original versions and remastered versions.


I personally maintain more than one library, keep my lossless music separate from the iCloud music library.


Jim

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music match and apple lossless

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