iTunes Match doesn't match songs already in iTunes Store - why?

Question

iTunes Match doesn't match songs already in iTunes Store - why?

I have recently subscribed to iTunes Match and been dissappointed to see that there are a great many songs in my library that are tagged "Uploaded" and I understand this to mean that the songs are not able to be matched by iTunes and my (poorly recorded copy) hase been sent to iCloud instead.

However, when I check the iTunes Store the vast majority are in the iTunes store.

Why doesn't iTunes Match find these copies and transfer them to my library like the others?

Chris

iMac, Mac OS X (10.7.4), mid-2007

Posted on Nov 10, 2013 9:29 AM

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Answer 1

Nov 10, 2013 10:20 AM in response to Chris Jones10

Because the matching process is not perfect nor 100% accurate. The best you can expect is about an 80% "match" rate. Which, in my opinion, is pretty good.

You say that the music ripped from CD in your iTunes library are "poorly recorded" copies. This is the most likely reason for them to not match. The lower the bit rate of the file the less information is there for the scan to sample, so the smaller the chance the track will "match" to an existing track on the iTunes Store. You can try deleting the tracks from the iTunes library and the cloud, re-ripping them from CD at a higher bit rate and see if they match. However this method does not always work.

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Answer 2

Nov 10, 2013 10:35 AM in response to Michael Allbritton

Michael, many thanks for replying. The bit rate for most of the songs that have not been matched in the library is 128kbps; some are 196, but nearly all of them are 128kbps. The reason for the low quality is that nearly all of the ones not matched are ones that I have recorded digitally from my vinyl collection - something I was hoping that iTuns Match coud have helped me with. I cannot therefore re-rip the ones that I was hoping to be matched as they have been converted from my vinyl collection. My guess is that the metadata that I painstainkingly inputted for each track from my vinyl records must be slightly different to the data in iTunes store and it cannot therefore match them. There are some instances (which seems to be another issue with this product) where an original CD album has some tracks matched whilst others have been uploaded. Odd and to be honest a bit crap.

Do you know if anyone has found a way of interrogating the metadata in tracks that haven't been matched and manually matching the metadata in songs in ones library so that iTM matches them?

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Answer 3

Nov 10, 2013 11:35 AM in response to Chris Jones10

Metadata is not used in the matching process. Vinyl rips are especially problematic and unless your source file is at least 256 Kbps the chances of it matching because of the additional needle noise go down dramatically. You might want do a search on the iTunes Match forum for vinyl ripping and read the discussions.

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