How does iTunes Match work - do I keep the music?

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Level 1

4 points

How does iTunes Match work - do I keep the music?

Hey guys! With iOS 7, I can finally stream my music that I downloaded/bought on iTunes directly from iCloud, which is really amazing because I can finally free up my storage on my iPhone. Now, the only songs I have to store are the ones that I bought from places other than iTunes and I'm actually thinking about subscribing iTunes Match for several reasons:

1. I don't just download music from iTunes, I sometimes also buy music on Amazon and Google Play.

2. The music I bought on Amazon somehow has lower volume(intensity level, i.e. not loud) sometimes.

3. I did rip and still rip some music from CDs and it would be great if iTune can match it and then I can just stream them from iCloud.

4. The quality of some of the music I ripped was not the highest quality and I would love to upgrade them without having to rip them all over again.

Now, here is my question. Will the songs stay if I only subscribe iTunes Match for a year only and then cancel the service? That means if I cancel the service a year later, can I still stream my music from iCloud? So the music I bought elsewhere is equivalent to the music I bought on iTunes (the music stays with my Apple ID). One more question, I heard that sometimes iTunes can't match your songs because the artist name or album name in your library are spelled or showed differently (',' rather than '/', "The" rather than "the"). If iTunes can find the right album artwork for my music, can I also assume it will match my songs without any problem? So all I have to do *if* iTunes can't find the music is to modify the artist name or/and album name?

That's it! Thank you in advance!

iPhone 4S, iOS 7

Posted on Nov 1, 2013 7:30 PM

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Answer 1

Nov 1, 2013 11:04 PM in response to jerryroundel

Do not expect 100% of the tracks in your library to be "matched." It will not happen. The best you can expect is probably about 80%. The rest will be "uploaded" as long as all the tracks meet the minimum requirements. There are many factors that can affect the matching of a track but ID3 tag information is not one of them. Having said that any "matched" tracks you choose to upgrade are yours to keep as long as you download them to your computer HDD.

If you wish to have the highest quality CD rips you can get you should not depend on iTunes Match to do it for you. Ideally your best bet will be to re-rip directly from the CDs using the "iTunes Plus" setting in iTunes. Or even ALAC.

The primary purpose of iTunes Match is to give you access to all your music on all your Apple devices from almost anywhere. Upgrading of tracks is a secondary purpose.

Addtionally downloading album artwork from the iTunes Store is dependent on ID3 tags, but iTunes Match is not.

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Answer 2

jerryroundel Author

Level 1

4 points

Nov 2, 2013 6:26 AM in response to Michael Allbritton

Yeah, I understand that. What I want the most is to stream my music with my iPhone anywhere I want and iTunes Match does just that. I know I have some songs those are not available on iTunes and I don't expect them to be match.

Do you know how iTunes match the music? For example, I ripped the CD "Rent [Film Soundtrack]" and there are actually two discs, so I have two album names Disc 1 and Disc 2 while iTunes version only has one album and with different name of course ("Rent (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack)"). In this case, will iTunes Match work?If not, is there anyway that I can make it work? Another thing is that I know I get to keep my music as long as it is in my HDD, but can I still stream my songs directly from iCloud after I cancel the subscription as if I bought them on iTunes?

Thank you!

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Answer 3

Nov 2, 2013 6:38 AM in response to jerryroundel

jerryroundel wrote:

Do you know how iTunes match the music? For example, I ripped the CD "Rent [Film Soundtrack]" and there are actually two discs, so I have two album names Disc 1 and Disc 2 while iTunes version only has one album and with different name of course ("Rent (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack)"). In this case, will iTunes Match work?If not, is there anyway that I can make it work?

As I mentioned, ID3 tags are not a factor in whether a track will match or not. The service uses a small "sonic fingerprint" of the file which it compares against an online database. So your ripped album having a slightly different Album name than what is is in the iTunes Store actually will not have any effect on the tracks matching or not.

jerryroundel wrote:

Another thing is that I know I get to keep my music as long as it is in my HDD, but can I still stream my songs directly from iCloud after I cancel the subscription as if I bought them on iTunes?

No.

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