How do I get ALAC files synched on iPhone after match?

Question

How do I get ALAC files synched on iPhone after match?

After struggling with iTunes match for two weeks and dealing with the shortfalls of not being able to synch music videos and having my commercial albums averaging an 80% match rate (which means my files are now a hodge podge of bit rates), I know have two major problems that I can't solve:

1. I have ripped most of my music as Apple Lossless and often put my phone in a digital preamp connected to my stereo. I am not psyched that all that can be on my phone is 256 kps AAC files. How do I manually get my ALAC files to my phone?

2. I have 300 plus legal Grateful Dead bootlegs, an during the upload a number of them got tagged ineligible duplicates. Well the songs are not duplicates. Every live dead show is different and I don't want gaps in the songs. Again, how do I manually move songs onto my iPhone and iPod Touch?

If anyone has the answers for these glaring Match problems, I would very much appreciate it.

Steve

iOS 5.0.1

Posted on Jan 3, 2012 7:30 PM

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Answer 1

Jan 3, 2012 7:49 PM in response to stephenfromfalmouth

For issue #1, the answer is "it's not supported right now". Apple doesn't support the ALAC format in iCloud - it's either Matched 256kps AAC's for your ALAC files, or if they are uploaded they are transcoded to AAC's first before they are uploaded. Don't shoot the messenger as I'd love to see ALAC supported - heck, I'd like to see ALAC as an option for matching tracks as well, now THAT would be awesome.

For issue #2, I don't know as I'm not in the same situation (I'm not a big bootleg person - legal or otherwise). I have heard others with the same issue so I'm guessing that the waveforms between some of these tracks are so similar that iTM is treating them are dups. You could try to re-tag them as a test but my guess is that it probably won't help.

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Answer 2

Jan 3, 2012 8:40 PM in response to stephenfromfalmouth

Your problem #2 is odd. It could be a metadata problem. What I suggest is take a look at the shows with marked dups and make sure the actual files haven't gotten moved around and retagged.

This is not exactly the same, but I had a similar problem with a couple of purchased Allman Bros albums. After turning on iTunes Match iTunes suddenly saw the track "trouble no more" as a duplicate on both Eat A Peach and At Fillmore East. To solve the problem I eventually had to re-download both albums from my past purchases.

So to solve your problem perhaps what you need to do is remove the "offending" albums from your library and add them back in, one at a time.

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Answer 3

Jan 5, 2012 7:52 AM in response to stephenfromfalmouth

Thanks for both of your input.

On roebeet's response, I realize ALAC can't go to the cloud but I was hopeful there was a way to manually sync(i.e., through plugging my iPhone or touch to my computer) and that I would be able to put the higher bitrate versions on my device. Similarly, I would think folks with <128 kbs songs that aren't matched to the iTunes database would be unable to put those songs on the iPhone (I recognize a trick exists to get match to process the song but I would guess a lot of them will not match). It seems like the end result of iTunes match will be a 256 bitrate "standard" and the loss of higher fidelity.

On Michael Allbriton's response, I am not sure how to do what you describe. The ALAC files are the ALAC files. It isn't a download or CD to burn. I guess I can try re-"Matching" the song and pray for more favorable results.

One additional piece of information is that because the songs are from numerous Grateful Dead concerts, I may have 30+ versions of the same song all with different song lengths. Two get marked ineligible duplicates but I have no way to know which of the other 28+ versions of the song iTunes believes they are duplicates of. As far as I can tell, Match doesn't show you the culprit that it thinks is the copy. Is there something I am missing? I do have a Windows machine so maybe Apple show different information in the process.

Thanks again for any suggestions or help!

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Answer 4

Jan 5, 2012 8:09 AM in response to stephenfromfalmouth

I don't have a day-to-day iOS device to test, but from the little I've seen and what I've read here you can't mix local music and iCloud music on an iTM'd iOS device - once the device is iTM'd, all the local files (including ALAC files) are gone. Not sure if they're just hidden, or actually deleted. But the bottom line is that your ALAC files are not usable, at least not right now.

I actually need to call them about ALAC support - I figure that the more of us who do that, the more likely that they might eventually support it in iTunes be it a purchased or a Matched file. And hopefully other retailers like Amazon will follow - I dislike lossy purchases as I feel like it's inferior to a lossless file or redbook CD.

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Answer 5

Jan 5, 2012 10:02 AM in response to stephenfromfalmouth

stephenfromfalmouth wrote:

On Michael Allbriton's response, I am not sure how to do what you describe. The ALAC files are the ALAC files. It isn't a download or CD to burn. I guess I can try re-"Matching" the song and pray for more favorable results.

I realize that you may not be able to re-download the show. What I'm suggesting is a tedious process, but may solve the problem. What you might want to do is remove all the shows from your iTune library, then add them back in, one at at time, and let them upload (cause they will upload, instead of matching). This may or may not help you solve the problem.

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Answer 6

Jan 5, 2012 10:05 AM in response to Community User

roebeet wrote:

I actually need to call them about ALAC support - I figure that the more of us who do that, the more likely that they might eventually support it in iTunes be it a purchased or a Matched file. And hopefully other retailers like Amazon will follow - I dislike lossy purchases as I feel like it's inferior to a lossless file or redbook CD.

I like the way iTM handles ALAC files. In my opinion I get the "best of both worlds." I have the lossless, master files on my local HDD that I can play through my home stereo and I also get 256 Kbps versions that are encoded from the master files in the cloud to play on my iPhone and I don't have to keep duplicates on my local HDD.

Of course, I would love to have the option to be able to purchase ALAC from the iTunes Store but I just don't see that happening for a variety of resaons.

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Answer 7

Jan 5, 2012 10:15 AM in response to Michael Allbritton

ALAC in iCloud will not happen anytime soon, I agree. The network bandwidth primarily, and to a lesser extent the storage requirements. Same reason why HD streaming is going to be a slow process as well, at least in the US. Our infrastructure isn't up to the task and data prices for 3G/4G make it cost prohibitive. And lastly, most people just don't care about lossless. I know the OP does and I certainly do, but we are the monority.

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