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Apple Once Again Deleting Developers' iTunes Match Libraries on November 12th
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256kbps mp3. The classical stuff and any really great albums I kept or repurchased and re-ripped ALAC though, after I discovered mp3 loses half of what's going on in Rachmaninov's thunderous concertos.
I once compared Rihanna in ALAC or MP3 64kpbs... sounds the same...
I'm not in the Developer program, but I can tell Apple is getting close to ironing out the last bugs in iTunes Match.
About two weeks ago I ran a "get Album Artwork" scan, and there were over 200 songs without available album art (from my ~ 5000 song library.) Last night it was down to a dozen or so, some of which will NEVER have album art (ie. I recorded the song myself..)
The Metadata thing is a tough one to figure out. I agree with the earlier poster who commented that a 2005 remaster doesn't turn an album originally issued in 1984 into a 2005 song - even if thats the closest thing in Apple's library. (Of course, I'd still like the remastered version, especially if it was remastered because the original was so poorly done.) And the "Best Of" album covers really stink. I carefully scanned several classic Chuck Berry LP covers - only to have the artwork replaced by crummy Rhino remaster stuff. Grrrr.....
About two weeks ago I ran a "get Album Artwork" scan, and there were over 200 songs without available album art (from my ~ 5000 song library.) Last night it was down to a dozen or so, some of which will NEVER have album art (ie. I recorded the song myself..)
The Metadata thing is a tough one to figure out. I agree with the earlier poster who commented that a 2005 remaster doesn't turn an album originally issued in 1984 into a 2005 song - even if thats the closest thing in Apple's library. (Of course, I'd still like the remastered version, especially if it was remastered because the original was so poorly done.) And the "Best Of" album covers really stink. I carefully scanned several classic Chuck Berry LP covers - only to have the artwork replaced by crummy Rhino remaster stuff. Grrrr.....
Ouch, yeah, I'd OCD about that, too.
glad I am not the only "crazy" one about metadata...
Yeah that concerns me and also it not matching the exact right song, like missing the remastered edition or clean vs explicit. Sooooo strange...I almost want them to keep it in beta until these are fixed and solid. Judging from dev forums iTunes match is still kinda hokey....but I will be subscribing the minute it goes live and probably bitching at my wife for the next 2-3 months until it gets sorted out.
I'd say you were in the minority. Have you looked any of your friends' iTunes libraries? They have "R. Kelly, R Kelly and RKelly."
Assuming you acquired your music legally, iTunes uses Gracenote for data lookup, but it doesn't necessarily match the iTunes Store. So, as I did, you end up with multiple entires for the same artist/album with slightly different spellings, completely different genres, etc.
It would be nice to optionally clean all that up with iTunes Match since it's matching to a particular song in the iTunes Store anyway.
There's TuneUp, but it costs $30 and has a terrible sidebar interface that attaches to your iTunes.app.
Matching meta data could be a consumer choice. I, for one, would love to have everything cleaned up to the same standard.
I'd pay $5/y for that on top of Match's $25.
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Oh, I've had horrible luck with that app. Good in theory, unpredictable in practice.
I'd pay $5/y for that on top of Match's $25.
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Oh, I've had horrible luck with that app. Good in theory, unpredictable in practice.
Only used that app once before I got rid of it completely. It's slow, and the UI is terrible. I'd manually plug in information for my 2500+ songs any day before I ever used TuneUp again.
Yes it does. In fact most of the changes happen in almost real time. For example, I have my iPad enabled with Match, but no content downloaded. So, I can see it updated when I do something on my Mac. When I rip a new CD it immediately tries to match it and if it can then a 256k version is made available in Match. However, it uses your meta-data. If Gracenote gets it wrong that's what goes to Match. If you change the meta-data it also triggers an update to Match, so it is easy to fix if you find errors. If it can't match your song it copies the file to Match at the bit rate you encoded it at up to 320k. If it is lossless, it is converted to a 256k version (not matched, but converted).
When you delete a song from your library, it deletes the local copy but the entry still remains in your library with a little square with a cloud in it signifying that it is available in the cloud but not on your machine. If you delete it again you remove it from Match. You can also click on a box to remove it from Match at the same time you delete it from your library.
Here's what happened to me. I had an obscure album that was listed correctly on the iTunes store. When I ripped my CD it put a bunch of messed up track names that came from Gracenote. I found an email address for Gracenote and sent them the correct track listing. I got an email within a few hours saying that they would update the information in their database within 48 hours. So, there can definitely be issues between Gracenote and iTunes. I for one am glad that I have control over the meta-data and don't have to rely on either Gracenote or iTunes to get it right. Although, I must say that I was impressed that Gracenote actually responded. I half figured it would be ignored, but it wasn't
Good! And I hope to God it stays that way. When you've spent countless hours customising the metadata on tens of thousands of tracks, the last thing you would want would be for iTunes Match to disrespect that and throw it all out of the window.
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On a separate note, is there a beta tester reading this thread who may have tested iTunes Match with some classical music? I'm wondering how good a job it tends to do of matching the correct recording of a particular piece.
Let's say for example that I have a number of different recordings of a symphony work in my library by different orchestras and conductors. Could I reasonably expect Match to do a decent job of correctly matching all of these (assuming the versions exist on the iTunes store)?