attempt to "re-match" tracks

What are the bitrates of the files before and after the conversion? Files at a really low bitrate are ignored which can be fixed by upconverting to 128, is that the case with yours or do you have mp3s at 128 that are matched by converting to AAC?

Mike Connelly wrote:

What are the bitrates of the files before and after the conversion? Files at a really low bitrate are ignored which can be fixed by upconverting to 128, is that the case with yours or do you have mp3s at 128 that are matched by converting to AAC?

They were all 192 mp3s

Interesting. I wonder if AACs generally match better than mp3 or if that's just coincidence. If that's the case it would be another reason to use the AAC format instead of mp3, maybe even do some batch converting of mp3 songs before even signing up for it.

Same issue throughout entire library. Sections of albums are split between matched and uploaded. It has to be something on the iTunes server / Match server side because they tracks are identical in quality, naming, metadata, etc.

i.e. there's no reason why half would be matched and half would not on my end.

I have the same "Bathroom Window" match failure on Abbey Road. My CD copy is quite old; I purchased it in the early 90's.

Thanks for that link Secondandc!

In regards to 'ABACAB' I have four songs from that album in my libary: Abacab, No Replay At All, Keep It Dark, and Man On The Corner. Al of them matched except the song Abacab which uplodaed.

Also my whole Abbey Road album matched except for the track Her Majesty which gave an error. I actually re-ripped that song from the CD having iTunes 'replace file' and tried to Add to Cloud again and this time it worked, but the iCloud Status is blank. Only track I have with a blank iCloud stautus. She Came in Through the Bathroom Window matched fine for me. My CD was the latest from the latest remasters fwiw.

There are two things I would like to see. First, an auto-rematch option and if that fails, the ability to select the appropriate song from iTunes itself..i.e. manual re-match. So far my opinion of iTunes Match is really really low. I know there are many songs that should've been matched as I caught many during the intial match/upload process and I've also seen songs that are "matched" but, iTunes never had the song(s).

Were I a betting man, I would suspect that we will not see a statement from Apple. I would instead expect that a whole horde of engineers are peering through logs and at individual uploaded songs trying to figure out why two thirds of the tracks on some albums matched, and the other third did not. Once they have a fix, they will probably push it to the servers without telling anyone, and see if the match percentages go up. Only once they get really high match rates would they want to have customers go through another long matching process, since that just calls attention to the previous performance.

For what it is worth, about 85% of my 13k song library matched, with relatively few albums being split. I would still like to see a higher percentage, and would not mind a manual "delete and try again" step. I may be unusual, though.

Mr Backlin wrote:

There are two things I would like to see. First, an auto-rematch option and if that fails, the ability to select the appropriate song from iTunes itself..i.e. manual re-match. So far my opinion of iTunes Match is really really low. I know there are many songs that should've been matched as I caught many during the intial match/upload process and I've also seen songs that are "matched" but, iTunes never had the song(s).

I agree. I think "auto-rematch" may be the idea behind the "update itunes match" command, but for it to work Apple will have to be always tweaking the matching algorithms. Which I'm sure they are doing. I also really like the idea of being able t manually match choices in the store.

As to tunes that are "matched" wtih tracks that are not publicly availble in the iTunes Store, obviously the record company has given Apple permission to have those tracks in their DB but not to sell them. My copy of AC/DC's "Back in Black" was matched and that band has never been available on any digital download store. So I just take that luck as it comes and don't complain. 🙂

I have 2500 songs - 500 purchased from apple and 2000 that I ripped (most are available on iTunes). Sixty of my purchased songs are now labeled as matched and zero, none, nada of my 2000 titles were matched. Every single one was uploaded, which took over 30 hours.I am really bummed about this. Apple had better have an automatic solution to this problem. I can't imagine trying to rematch 2100 songs manually.

Another vote for a fix here.

I have plenty of songs that are "uploaded" but definitely in the iTunes store. The link to the itunes version of the song even works - why can itunes find it in the store but match cant?

ID3 tags and song length match (to the second, i don't know about the millisecond.)

I tried converting the ID3 tag to version 2.4 - no luck.

I tried creating AAC version - no luck.

Match being picky because it's distinguishing between different versions of albums does not seem to be the case, though. I've had a fair number of mis-matches considering the small number of tracks I've actually checked. For instance, the JSP version of Louis Armstrong's Hot Fives/Sevens box set is matching with the Columbia version, which not only sounds radically different (inferior according to some) but has actual different takes...the last track on the box is CLEARLY a different performance. Not sure how a different take can get matched with the methods I thought Apple was using, but it's clearly the case here. And of course, the oft-repeated Beatles Mono getting matched with Beatles Stereo. I haven't taken the time to A/B albums that have multiple editions but I'm having trouble believing that those are matching to the specific release/mastering I might have in my library if these more overt issues are coming up.

Yeah, I think my biggest mis-match has been my ripped copy of the Iron Butterfly album "in-a-gadda-di-vida." This album is not available on the iTunes Store, and neither is the album version of the title track, but, guess what got matched? That's right. The title track. But it is only matched to the single version of the song. Wrong! 😕

Anyway, I'm going to wait until I'm done uploading the really dive in and start working with the iTunes Store support folks to get some of the mis-matches resolved. Fortunately there aren't many in my library.