iTunes Match explicit/clean music switch

element2005 wrote:

Something else I wondering is when you convert your mp3s over to aacs in itunes to try and get a better match, obviously the sound quality degrades some. Now I wonder if that plays a role in the matching algorithm.

Yes. Transcoding a song from one lossy format to another will most certainly affect the waveform of the song. I would expect that, depending, on how many times that might get done it might have an adverse affect on the matching.

I FINALLY HAVE THE PROBLEM. Jay-Z's "The Black Album". To make a long story short, my WMA is definitely Explicit ("99 Problems" was tested). Converted to AAC via the iTunes tool, then Matched. Delete / download and sure enough it's the edited version.

Now I get to troubleshoot for real. 🙂 Btw, this leads me to believe that it's only certain songs / albums, but I will do lots of tests, first. One of the things I did this time that I don't normally do is convert to AAC versus AIFF (I prefer the latter as i feel it Matches just a tad better).

Converted to AAC via the iTunes tool . .

When I suggested you did things differently than many who might have the problem, this was what I was talking about. I believe you mentioned this morning that you don't do any conversions in iTunes.

So now it's off to the races for you. Get more files to mis-match, add the tags, see if they match.

It's not AIFF, and so far mucking with the ratings doesn't seem to help. I'm leaning towards this being song or album specific, but I'm not ready to throw in the towel just yet (I have other OS's to test out).

I wanted the problem, and now I've got it. hahaha

Something, well, interesting just happened.

I delete the Meshell Ndegéocello album I have that is labeled "explicit." Removed the tracks from the cloud as well. I did not update iTunes Match after doing this. I used Subler to add the "explicit" tag to the lossless files and added those to my library. I did not transcode them. I let iTM do it's thing. Strangely the "explicit" tag has been removed from the all the tracks in my library except one. "Curiouser and curiouser," said Alice.

Ok, so I deleted the album again and this time updated iTunes Match before adding the lossless files back in. I retagged the files as "explicit" with Subler and this time the tags look like they've stayed put. And I got a 100% match on the album.

Noticing something of interest - with the Jay-Z tracks, if I add the "Explicit" rating and Match it, the rating immediately disappears (even on the local file, this is confirmed by checking the metatags). Also, the Match takes a little longer than it should on one file - like a minute or so. I'm guessing that's it's doing something under the covers and then alters my local file, which is pretty strange.

I tried another track (an Irish folk song that's certainly rated G), added the Explicit tag and then Matched it. In this case, Explicit does NOT get changed and the match is very fast.

I even tried to change my Artist / Album metatags on the Jay-Z song, with no change. I'm taking a guess that this is actually song specific - there's something about the songs on this one particular album that's just broken, for some reason.

I really think this is a bug, my 2 cents - I can replicate it at will, but only for the songs on this one album. I also tried two separate systems (WinxP and OSX SL) with the exact same results.

Next test - I just purchased "Threat" (one of the songs I've been testing). Deleted the local file that got downloaded and then tested the puchased file that was automagically added in iCloud..... no issues this time, plays Explicit. 😎

Then, I deleted the iCloud file, retried the Match and, sure enough, the Matched file is Edited again. 😕 So purchases don't seem to matter - it has something to do with the Match process itself and my guess (again only a guess here) is that when the actual Matching proccess runs, it's Matching you to the wrong file for this particular song, pure and simple. I bet that every person who has this track has the exact same problem as me, which means it's a bug.

i would say that it's a similar problem to the mono to stereo Matches -- the Matching process is just plain broken and it's not a user problem or an OS problem or a source problem. I think it's Match itself.

So let me get this right. You did absolutely nothing to iTunes purchased file that is clearly labled explicit, shows that label in iTunes? This song shows up as purchased after you ran Match?

You then deleted the file from the cloud, uploaded the copy you have and got a mis-match?

And does the mis-match still show up as purchased?

Last question: On this track, just how far in do you have to go before you get to the first "explicit" Lyric?

That's pretty incredible. If true (and I'm not doubting your results), then no one will ever get these tracks matched right. Ugh.

BTW, those explicit tags on the album I've been working with today have been removed. Again. Another bug we've discovered today.

This was my last test, in detail:

- Purchased Jay-Z's "Threat" (Explicit Version). It auto-downloaded and also got added to iCloud. Did this with XP / iTunes 10.5.3.

- Played the track local, confirmed Explicit.

- Deleted the local track (went into the Trash), so now only the purchased track automatically added to iCloud is there. Still confirmed Explicit.

Btw, it's been listed as Explicit this entire time.

- Deleted the iCloud file.

- Took the local Trash file, moved it to a temporary directory and added it back to iTunes. Local file confirmed Explicit, and the file shows as Explicit as well.

- Matched it.

- Deleted the local file again. File in iCloud is now the Clean version, still shows as Explicit and a purchased file.

What this is telling me is that it's likely the Matching process itself that's broken - it just matches to the wrong song, simply put. The purchase process is different and is probably going through some other system since it doesn't require Matching, so that adds the correct song. I suspect that this is a Matching issue, not a user issue - I bet every single person who's matched this particular track has the same exact problem.

Btw, I just called Apple and I'll put in a feedback response as well. Hopefully they are looking at these and will fix them, but it might have to be on a case-by-case basis. I guess no one beta tested this particular Jay-Z album. 🙂

Here's a snapshot of my clean file, during that last step:

Notice the Explicit and Purchased info. Also, this track is 4:05, but the real Explicit track (the one I had in the Trash after deletion) is 4:06.

With similar trials on different Songs (Rihanna's Loud) the same results occur. It is simply that the acoustic fingerprint is 'matching' to the clean version of the Song - given the limitations of the matching process this whilst inconvenient is not entirely surprising.

Have also found that for a given Artist / Song combination, where Songs occur on different Albums, 'match' often returns a common version despite the originals having discrete characteristics - noticed this simply by assessing apparent duplicates - from original source the Song files are discrete, on occassion via 'match' the result is incorrectly identical.

We just need to accept that the current service does have a range of limitations and this is one. It is still excellent overall and running very well - welldone Apple!

I was going to suggest you now have all the ammo to contact Apple on this, but you're way ahead of me.

I still wonder just when in the track the explicit language shows up. If it's in the first 10 seconds or so that would REALLY surprise me. It shouldn't matter obviously, particularly not on a purchased track.

But if the "purchased" tag does nothing more than acknowledge you own a version of the song, Then, it falls to match to figure out which version.

So if you follow me, then if the matching is done on the first 10 seconds, perhaps at the tail as well, then if Jay-Z stays G-rated during those sections, Match doesn't access anything that tells it that it's explicit.For all intents and purposes, What Match sees is the same for both versions, so it goes with "clean"

Again, this isn't how it should work, but it might be what's happening.

mracole wrote:

With similar trials on different Songs (Rihanna's Loud) the same results occur. It is simply that the acoustic fingerprint is 'matching' to the clean version of the Song - given the limitations of the matching process this whilst inconvenient is not entirely surprising.

Have also found that for a given Artist / Song combination, where Songs occur on different Albums, 'match' often returns a common version despite the originals having discrete characteristics - noticed this simply by assessing apparent duplicates - from original source the Song files are discrete, on occassion via 'match' the result is incorrectly identical.

We just need to accept that the current service does have a range of limitations and this is one. It is still excellent overall and running very well - welldone Apple!

I agree, to a point. It's stil a fantastic achievement and worth the money for me at least. However, one thing I find severely lacking is support. Emails, L1 reps and feedback forms is not the way to really deal with these problems - Apple should really be looking at this, at their outages, at their mono songs being Matched to stereo ones and get engineers working on the problem. Again, even if it's on an album by album basis. It's honestly why I will put in feedback as well as I keep hoping the someone will read it and fix this particular album. And the Beatles in Mono too, since I put in feedback for that, too.

I really wish i had an Apple Store near me - I'd show them these problems in real-time and then say "what do we do?". 🙂