Is ITunes Match worth purchasing?

Discussion in 'Audio Hardware' started by driverdrummer, Aug 31, 2014.

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  1. Gabe Walters

    Gabe Walters Forum Resident

    Pretty sure it downloads files to a local cache, even when "streaming," on iOS devices. They do this to ensure playback when the mobile connection falters.

    It streams on computer and Apple TV, but not iOS.
     
  2. BuddhaBob

    BuddhaBob Forum Resident

    Location:
    Erie, PA, USA
    Match has been working well for me. I can access several thousand songs, many at bitrates higher than I originally ripped them, on an iPhone, MacBook Air, Apple TV, PC or iPad. For ~$2 a month it is well worth it for me. There are a few orphan songs created by a bad "match", but only a handful--among thousands of titles, many dating back to 10-15 years' of rips and downloads.
     
    DarkAudit likes this.
  3. posnera

    posnera Forum Resident

    I'm looking into match as a way to upgrade my lower bitrate rips without having to rerip. Streaming/cloud isn't interesting to me.
    Also, my library is about 40,000 songs, but many (more than half, for sure) are not commercially available (dead shows, for example).
    If I temporarily move enough tracks to get below 25,000 and then match and upgrade my crappy files by downloading them, can I cancel match? Then rebuild my library with the non-commercial songs as well?
    $25 a year isn't much, but it seems like having an large library is a non-starter.
     
  4. Gabe Walters

    Gabe Walters Forum Resident

    You'll be out the $25, but you can opt not to renew next year.
     
  5. o0OBillO0o

    o0OBillO0o Forum Resident

    Location:
    New Hampshire
    Recently, had a hard drive error and had to wipe and re-install OS X and my iTunes. I also made things worse by wiping my local TimeCapsule (no back-up! Aaaah!). Still, I was able to recover all my songs, with all metadata such as art, plays, and smart playlists from my iTunes Match account. Just downloaded from the Cloud. Then at a later time I re-added my Lossless versions, from an offset back up, and used Song Sergeant to merge the metadata and purge the 256Kbps AAC files. Whew.

    So that was a win.

    However, it has messed up my meta data in the past and overwrites almost everything. Even worse, iTunes Match was replacing some my lossless files here and there with matched AAC Files. So, I had to go back and re import the track.

    So that's a huge pain.

    For better or worse, it has helped me and allows me to bring my music, 25,ooo songs non iTunes songs and bunch more binge iTunes Music Store purchases, anywhere I go.

    I still default to a Lossless only smartplaylist that syncs to my iPod in my car. However, in a pinch with my iPhone I am able to bring up a song to listen to- and between iTunes Match and Spotify, I have a decent mobile Juebox.

    Proceed with caution.
     
    Last edited: Oct 22, 2014
    Vidiot likes this.
  6. o0OBillO0o

    o0OBillO0o Forum Resident

    Location:
    New Hampshire
    Ok, you want to "rinse" your music with iTunes Match to gain a higher bit-rate. You will also get a bunch of mis matches. For example my Alice in Chains Dirt, Jar of Flies and SAP are all matched to a stupid "greatest hits of alice in chains."

    The easiest way to figure this out. If the album is not on iTunes, then You won't get the "rinse."

    You are better off re-ripping based on that and the size of your 'collection' -40,000 digital songs, with lots of live recordings.
     
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  7. gregr

    gregr Forum Resident

    Location:
    MA
    I'd re-rip if I were you. The cloud and streaming access are what make me happy about Match. I have a high resolution library on one device, then I access the entire library from other devices from wherever I like. It's nice like that. Unlike o0OBillO0o, I have never had iTunes replace my lossless files with AAC files.

    You've got so many songs, too. I think getting Match might make this more complicated than it needs to be....

    Good luck!
     
  8. full moon

    full moon Forum Resident

    Match works great for me. Do it
     
  9. posnera

    posnera Forum Resident

    I think high bitrate AAC will be fine. My current setup is either iphone with headphones, car stereo or home stereo sourced from an airport express. If I rerip, for sure I would use lossless, but for $25 and a weekend of curating the list, it sounds like money well spent.

    I guess I could make the itunes match my "main" library and keep bootlegs,etc on another. That way if I like the streaming I can keep it alive next year.

    Thanks for all the input! My attempt at asking this same question on a mac-related forum initially got a one word answer "no".
     
  10. Rolltide

    Rolltide Forum Resident

    Location:
    Vallejo, CA
    My experience with iTunes match was a mixed bag at best, particularly because so many revisions of iTunes came out and yet none of the bugs got any better. I'd say the best aspect of it is being able to have your music on iOS devices and other computers without having to pick what you want or move huge libraries back and forth. Eventually, even though I prefer the interface of iTunes/iOS, I decided for these use cases Google Music worked better and was free. You just point it towards your iTunes library and it automatically syncs anything you add to iTunes, and recently they started matching ALAC files, the only complaint I had with it originally.

    As a backup, I'd say either of these services are sub par. If I lost all my digital music, having 256k (320K with Google) backups would be better then nothing, but not an acceptable solution for a paid service.
     
    o0OBillO0o likes this.
  11. o0OBillO0o

    o0OBillO0o Forum Resident

    Location:
    New Hampshire
    ^I also use Google Play Music and Amazon
     
  12. Rolltide

    Rolltide Forum Resident

    Location:
    Vallejo, CA
    You know, strangely enough, if I were to judge these services based solely on their mobile apps, Amazon would win running away. Good quality, very low latency, great interface. I have a lot of my music in their auto-rip as I've bought tons of music from them, It makes me wonder if there's a way I can backup my lossless files in Amazon's S3 cloud service and have them also show up in Amazon Music?
     
    o0OBillO0o likes this.
  13. o0OBillO0o

    o0OBillO0o Forum Resident

    Location:
    New Hampshire
    Amazon is a clear winner. The desktop Amazon Music app auto imports my Auto-rip music purchases into iTunes, both CD and Vinyl.
     
    mooseman and Rolltide like this.
  14. Vidiot

    Vidiot Now in 4K HDR!

    Location:
    Hollywood, USA
    I just had a huge iTunes Match problem were a good chunk of my library was unavailable. All the songs were there, but not the Playlists. After Googling it and cursing a great deal, I finally realized one unmatchable file -- the album liner notes -- was preventing the playlist from being recognized by iTunes Match. Once I eliminated that one file, everything worked.

    It's nice to have another 12,000 songs available on every mobile device you have, while taking up zero space.
     
    BuddhaBob and o0OBillO0o like this.
  15. o0OBillO0o

    o0OBillO0o Forum Resident

    Location:
    New Hampshire
    ^I moved all the liner notes to the comments field. I had the same GD problem.

    So in addition to the previous comments, has anyone come across and un-offical iTunes match user guide? If you have please share, if not please continue to add your experiences.

    Ideally, I think, Apple wants users who have soley purchased music via the iTunes music store- Call them User A. User A should "almost never" have an issue since there are two forms of back up. Apple stores your purchases and the fact that when you subscribe to iTunes Match Apple makes all your purchases available on any iOS device that you register your Apple ID. So that means, every iTunes capable device will play your music. No you won't get the CD quality or lossless fidelity, but it works. Personally, I flip flop between what's best and what's good enough. Which I define what's best is equal to the Secure CD Rip and what's good enough as the Matched 256kBps AAC file.

    User B, has torrented or used their college network to download thousands of compressed or lossy files from AAC to MP3, 64Kbps to 320kbps. Legality aside, there is value to iTunes Match for User B, despite the free music philosphy or morality, as all the music they have acquired is various states of compression and formats; iTunes Match will be a valueable tool to improved one's music "collection" as it will "Rinse" your music files and provide User B with Matched 256Kbps AAC files. See the MacWorld article for more help here: http://www.macworld.com/article/1163620/how_to_upgrade_tracks_to_itunes_match_fast.html

    User C is some combination of the above, however, their metadata is all over the place. User C has a variety of metadata editing tools, some low grade some outstanding. User C cleans their metadata and fills every "OCD invoking field" and they are over-joyed in the completeness of their library. Then, User C selects "Update iTunes Match" thinking that the local copy is the system of record for all their music and walks away. Later, User C returns and finds all there metadata has be returned to its orignal state. Blood boilds and rage builds. User C learns that when making massive metadata edits, User C must turn off iTunes Match, then create another user account on their machine or another machine and load iTunes and log in with User C's Apple ID. User C's Music matched library will appear but it will all be in iCloud. User C now has to delete all music in the iCloud (cmd-a, delete) and once complete, log off the Apple ID and user account (delete if want, but you may comeback to do this procedure again). Now, User C re-logs on to their orignal machine and account and turns on iTunes Match, all music in the cloud should be gone, and selects to match all music and upload tracks to the iCloud. Now, all of User C's music is re-match and uploaded, this time with the correct ablum art and metadata.

    So you may be one of the above or a combination of all. iTunes remains a fore runner in the digital music playback and is always trying to serve the user better. While it doesn't run the full gamut of ID3v2.3+ metadata, last count 85 fields, it does have the most important ones.

    So anyone sign up for iTunes Match recently?
     
    IronWaffle likes this.
  16. posnera

    posnera Forum Resident

    Ugh. This is getting complicated (and scary..ooh).
    I'm thinking that I should consider "cleaning out" my itunes library.
    Is there another music player I could use to sync my "unauthorized" recordings to my iphone? That way, I could use itunes for my standard recordings and move all the others out of the way.
    From home, I can use my desktop as the source for either library. On the road, itunes match for itunes tracks, and the other software for boots?
     
  17. Rolltide

    Rolltide Forum Resident

    Location:
    Vallejo, CA
    I don't remember having problems with iTunes match breaking my metadata, but as my metadata is pretty broken, it might have had a hand in it.

    Something that's the most interesting about Scenario B as you lay it out is that this user is basically paying for (among other things), having their illegal music collection legitimized. Apple doesn't present or market it in these terms, but not only are one's 128K Napster MP3's replaced with higher bitrates, in the process Apple is giving you legal ownership of your stolen music. I could be wrong but I don't see how, some of that iTunes Match subscription is surely going to the labels after all.
     
  18. o0OBillO0o

    o0OBillO0o Forum Resident

    Location:
    New Hampshire
    ^Spotify comes to mind.

    https://support.spotify.com/us/learn-more/guides/#!/article/How-to-sync-iPod-with-Spotify

    https://support.spotify.com/us/learn-more/guides/#!/article/Listen-to-local-files

    "
    "Spotify supports these file types:
    • .mp3
    • .mp4
    • .m4a
    • .m4r
    Note: to play .m4a files make sure you have the latest version of QuickTime.

    .m4p is supported, but these files are often DRM-protected. If a file is DRM-protected Spotify will not be able to play it, but will try to find a replacement version in the Spotify catalogue.

    .m4v, .3gp, .3g2 and .mov files will be imported, but will only play if they were originally exported as audio files."
     
    Last edited: Oct 24, 2014
  19. Gabe Walters

    Gabe Walters Forum Resident

    That is in fact part of the point of iTunes Match, and Apple negotiated that with the labels, which got a lump sum payment, up front, for millions of dollars.
     
    o0OBillO0o likes this.
  20. posnera

    posnera Forum Resident

    Any service that relies on cloud access to a default file won't work for me. I'm trying to find a way to access non-commercially released music.
    I will look around for a non-itunes linked music player app.
     
  21. o0OBillO0o

    o0OBillO0o Forum Resident

    Location:
    New Hampshire
    Okay cool. There are a bunch of apps that allow music to be played, i.e. Onkyo's HF App. https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/onkyo-hf-player/id704139896?mt=8

    I just want to verify, that you acknowledge that Spotify's Desktop App when used in conjuction with a Spotify App installed on your iPhone will sync your music files that are located in the directory you tell it to sync with. Ok?

    For example, you could listen to all the Pearl Jam albums, for free w/ Ads, on Spotify Mobile, and you can also have all the Apple Lossless versions (or the above formats) of all their shows, say from Livedownloads.com or found elsewhere, synced to your iPhone. (Same goes for Grateful Dead too- but who listens to their studio albums? ;-) )
     
    Last edited: Oct 24, 2014
  22. posnera

    posnera Forum Resident

    No, I didn't know that about Spotify.
    Just to be clear, if I put a bunch of unidentifiable music files in a folder and linked it to Spotify, I could stream that to my phone? It seems to me that it would be trying to match with their pre-loaded cloud files.

    The Onkyo app looks very promising. I'll give it a shot on the side. I would be fine with two music apps (icloud through itunes and Onkyo for everything else).
     
  23. o0OBillO0o

    o0OBillO0o Forum Resident

    Location:
    New Hampshire
    Follow the above FAQ links I posted earlier. As long as those files are in the format that the Spotify Desktop and Mobile player can play, there should be no worry. If you are concerned about metadata to identify them do a quick search for Tag or Metadata software.
     
  24. posnera

    posnera Forum Resident

    I saw that, followed the link and found this:

    "We’ll do our best to match any unsupported local files with songs from the Spotify catalogue."

    I've used the free spotify app and could do without the ads.

    I think my plan will be to:
    1 - try the Onkyo app for non matchable files
    2 - create a new itunes library of only matchable files
    3 - set up itunes match and upgrade my lower bitrate files
    4 - use it for a year and see if I want to keep match
     
  25. o0OBillO0o

    o0OBillO0o Forum Resident

    Location:
    New Hampshire
    What Spotify means by that is, if Spotify can recognize the track, even though it's not a supported file format (listed above) it will use their copy so that you may still continue to enjoy all your music.

    Cool! Good luck with the plan. I am sure you will come up with a system to know what song is where. :)
     
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