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Bloodbuzz459

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Jul 1, 2015
7
4
I have quite a big music library (circa 1000) albums - Probably 50% rips from CD or other download sources and 50% purchased via iTunes.

When Apple Music launched the iCloud Music Library butchered my library (missing artworks, incorrectly matched songs and so on).

Is this now largely fixed from anyone's experience? I have just got a new laptop and before copying my library over I turned on Apple Music and added a couple of albums that I know have never been on the iTunes store which seemed to upload with very little problems.

Thank you in advance for any feedback
 

Brenster

macrumors 6502a
Jul 7, 2008
791
777
ICML is better than it was in the year after the launch of Apple Music but its far from fixed. You can still wind up with your own rips being matched to different versions of an album, artwork still gets mangled etc.

I’ve not turned on Apple Music/iCloud music library on my main iTunes library on my mac. Instead I’ve made a copy of my library on a second user account on my mac and turned on AM/iCML on that. Where a given album has my preferred version of an album on AM, I’ve deleted my own matched copy then added the ‘right’ copy from Apple Music.

Next I synced the music I *really* care about that isn’t on Apple Music or hasn’t been bought from iTunes to my iPhone from my original iTunes library (Beatles in Mono, Pink Floyd Immersion sets, Japanese Studio Ghibli/video game soundtracks). THEN turn on AM/iCML on my phone.

Once artwork has been mangled etc, I can correct it on the Am/ICML enabled iTunes library on my mac and have the correction sync over to my phone via Apple Music.

It was a pain to go through but I’ve only needed to go through it once.
 

arkitect

macrumors 604
Sep 5, 2005
7,047
12,032
Bath, United Kingdom
I have quite a big music library (circa 1000) albums - Probably 50% rips from CD or other download sources and 50% purchased via iTunes.

When Apple Music launched the iCloud Music Library butchered my library (missing artworks, incorrectly matched songs and so on).

Is this now largely fixed from anyone's experience? I have just got a new laptop and before copying my library over I turned on Apple Music and added a couple of albums that I know have never been on the iTunes store which seemed to upload with very little problems.

Thank you in advance for any feedback
For me it's been a case of once bitten twice shy.

Apple iCloud Music Library does not play nicely with a lot of genres and gets confused easily… a bit like Siri. ;)
If you are 100% iTunes bought then sure go ahead. If you have mostly ripped your own music, custom artwork, carefully put together playlists etc, it's going to be a bumpy ride.

So my advice would be to avoid it.
 

exi

macrumors 6502
Oct 16, 2012
430
74
Also interested in others' thoughts. Didn't use iCML in the past but have a library of something on the order of 175 GB / 15,000 items; would love to have a one-stop shop of music and not have to sync iTunes to my iPhone, all in the cloud as I do with email/contacts/calendars, etc, but still hesitant to have it screw up a lot of very tedious hand-tagging of files that happened over many years.
 

doolittle27

macrumors member
Jan 20, 2016
90
37
San Francisco, CA, USA
Also second others on avoiding it. I've given iCloud Music Library way too many chances, but it's still messing with my precious artworks and some time changing songs from explicit to clean. Yikes. No!
 
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Tech198

Cancelled
Mar 21, 2011
15,915
2,151
I have quite a big music library (circa 1000) albums - Probably 50% rips from CD or other download sources and 50% purchased via iTunes.

When Apple Music launched the iCloud Music Library butchered my library (missing artworks, incorrectly matched songs and so on).

Is this now largely fixed from anyone's experience? I have just got a new laptop and before copying my library over I turned on Apple Music and added a couple of albums that I know have never been on the iTunes store which seemed to upload with very little problems.

Thank you in advance for any feedback

Define "fixed"

Its better than it has been. But i wouldn't rely on it. Apple is all about making product perfect..... but when it comes to services ? A whole different ball game. Apple is in too deep with Apple music and "getting things fixed" sync issues and the like.... may not always be the end user end. even today it happens.

Apple could have fixed these ages ago when the customer base was small... but now ? It would affect too many to even bother, in fear of breaking it more.
 
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