I just signed up for iTunes Match and 90% of my songs were identified. Some however, are in the process of uploading. I am wondering why these songs were not matched since I can find them manually in the iTunes store. Is there a way to "help" iTunes Match or refine my songs' meta data to allow the Match service to properly identify them?
iTunes Match-OTHER, Mac OS X (10.7.2)
In some cases, at least, the answer is yes, you can help iTunes match the file, by making sure that the song length is the exact length that iTunes expects. By trimming or adding silence to the end of a song, you can in some cases get a song to match that otherwise wouldn't. (Using software that edits the frames of the mp3 without re-encoding the rest of it is recommended.) Checking iTunes to see what length of song it expects is often helpful (being off by a few seconds can make a difference). Of course, this won't help if the acoustic fingerprint it off (because it's a slightly different version of the song, for example), but it will help you match legitimately identical songs that iTunes Match is too finicky to pick up.
So could you tell us about the software that allows you to add or subtract time to the files to allow iTM to fix these files?
The most powerful application I've found is a (non-free) Windows application, Mp3 Frame Editor, which allows you to change the song length without re-encoding the song. I'm not sure what the Mac options are, although any audio editing software (such as Audacity) will allow you to add or remove silence with re-encoding, which might be acceptible if you plan on switching to the 256kbps aac anyway.
So I have an album of MP3s where some tracks were matched and others not. I just took one of the tracks, used the "Convert to AAC" function, deleted the MP3 and ran "Update iTunes Match" and it matched with the AAC version, so I'll try that on some other unmatched tracks to see if it helps. Oddly iTunes Match also matched a track that I ripped from a youtube clip, so go figure.
I wouldn't advise converting to AAC in order to get a match, as any such conversion inevitably results in loss of sound quality. Fortunately, any quirks in matching aren't a huge problem, since your music gets backed up anyway.
raytw wrote:
I wouldn't advise converting to AAC in order to get a match, as any such conversion inevitably results in loss of sound quality.
However, if you get a match, then the quality of the song you converted is irrelevant as you will have a 256 kbps AAC file in iTunes Match.
And that from somebody who often comments about posts to topics which have been dormant for 4 years. đ It must be a slow day on ASC. đ
DOH!
It popped up for some reason.
I get that every once in a while.
Can't clear them out as being no new posts.
Chris CA wrote:
However, if you get a match, then the quality of the song you converted is irrelevant as you will have a 256 kbps AAC file in iTunes Match.
Hey idiot!
Why are you replying to 4 year old posts?!?!?
Can I help iTunes Match find a song?
