Apple Music Apple Music & My Own Library problems just cannot fig out.

[meridiusuk]

Hi all

I Have been ripping my own music for years and have a large library already on my iPhone and iPad. I decided to take out a apple music sub and try it out, I wanted to add some music to my own library and on my iPhone and iPad it needed an option of "Sync Library" as if i don't turn this on, my devices cannot save albums that i like in my library from apple msuic.

I turned "Sync Library" on and now the album`s get added to my library but the problem is apple music is changing some of my album art covers of the music i did myself when i ripped them and dumped them onto my iPhone. I also read that apple music can change and replace the music files as well in some cases and also i am getting duplicate playlists of my own music i ripped. I just don't get what is happening.

Also, when i turn the "Sync Library" on i can no longer dump my own music onto my devices in iTunes as the options are now removed.

so, the questions are how do you add albums and songs you like to your library from apple music without it.

changing my own music album covers that i created with my own rips.
changing and replacing my music files with apples own music files as i already have them in ACC320kbps or mp3320kbps
duplicating playlist of my own music files when you first turn on "Sync Library"
iTunes stopping me from dumping more of my own rips to my device as "Sync Library" option disables what songs i can pick from my own Ripps in iTunes.

the whole thing is a nightmare and its starting to bug me as i thought buy sub to apple music and just adding new albums to my own already ripped albums would just work.

any help or am i doing something wrong here.

iPhone 14.6
iPad 14.6
windows 10 with iTunes.


thanks for any help

 

[srbNYC]

I too have lots of downloaded albums ripped from CDs and I'm petrified to turn on Sync Library. In some cases, I've changed the name of the artists to my preference (e.g., the name of a move for a soundtrack, rather than the individual artists) and I have no idea what will happen!

 

[avz]

The same here. Apple Music is great but managing it together with your own library can be very challenging. Another thing to keep in mind is when AM doesn’t find a match of your music, it uploads it to the cloud which can use a lot of data(my music is lossless and I use cellular data).

 

[darngooddesign]

I'm in a similar situation and honestly the transition has been fine for me. My background is that I have a massive library of ripped CDs from more than a decade of DJing goth/industrial and my CDs are all ripped at 256AAC; in addition I switched to primarily purchasing from iTunes nine or ten years ago. So I backed up my entire music folder, which includes the library file, and turned on sync.

After it finished chugging and uploading I didn't notice any issues. All my star ratings, custom album and song names, and genres were intact. I no longer finder sync my phone but rather just use cloud to sync everything over; bear in mind that all playlists and songs will sync over, but you can decide which ones you download. Im currently working through my library to get the lossless versions of everything available so that's a bit of a manual process. I keep local versions on my phone by cloud versions on my iPad and everything has been syncing nicely.

In the end, if the whole experiment went tits up I could just turn off sync and copy back my music folder so really there is nothing to lose from trying it.

PS - FYI, my existing songs, rips and iTunes purchases, are in User/Music/Music/Album Name while new AM downloads are in User/Music/Music/Apple Music/Album Name.

PPS - Doing the initial AM sync with a big library really needs fast internet.

 

[hippyeverafter]

Always make sure that your ripped albums have the correct metadata!, even the slightest incorrect data within the album can cause havoc integrating with Apple Music. Compilation albums are the biggest culprits. I have cancelled my subscription to Apple Music and now use Qobuz as I use Roon, far more intuitive. Apple music is great if you do not own your own cd collection. If I was young again I would not buy physical media and just use a streaming service.

 

[darngooddesign]

Yeah, I always made sure I had the CDDB database loaded for each CD I ripped; then I made changes to the songs/albums/artists.

 

[srbNYC]

All this continues to petrify me. No album sync for me.

 

[darngooddesign]

Just try it and revert your folder if it doesnt work.

Nothing will happen to your custom titles, artists, albums, etc. if AM doesn’t match it, even if its because the album title is different, then your music files will just upload and that’s what syncs to your other devices.

 

[srbNYC]

Just try it and revert your folder if it doesnt work.

Not 100% sure what this means. Backup and save The "Macintosh HD/Users/[myname]/Music/iTunes/iTunes Media" that the Music app uses?

 

[darngooddesign]

Not 100% sure what this means. Backup and save The "Macintosh HD/Users/[myname]/Music/iTunes/iTunes Media" that the Music app uses?

Just copy user/Music to an external drive. Try AM Sync for a bit, but if it doesn't work out turn off Sync on all your devices, delete the new user/Music folder, and transfer your backup of user/Music.

 

[srbNYC]

Thank you!

 

[darngooddesign]

another thing I’ll add is that I keep local files on my Mac, local on my phone, and stream on my iPad. If i download a fresh Apple Music album to my Mac and change album name, song names, and artists, those changes reflect on my iPad and on my iPhone. So my iPad will stream the correct songs from Apple Music despite my changing all that info.

 

[meridiusuk]

Hi all

the think is if you do t turn on this feature you can not create a library from Apple Music so you have to keep searching for songs. Also when you turn this feature on and Apple music starts to mess with your music and u plug it back into iTunes it notices that your music has changed from your own library and re uploads the music from your computer and replaces the Apple Music alterations. Then Apple Music does it all again changing the music or artwork on the fly. It’s a pain. Apple should not even touch your own ripped music if you want to create your own music library from Apple music.
Anyway I have 2 days left of my free period and I am not impressed by it as music takes ages to load it can heat your phone up music sometimes just pauses for no reason. I am going to try Spotify as they are offering 3 months free to see how I get on with that. I don’t think I will ever pay for Apple music unless I create a library from the music I ripped in Apple Music and just remove my ripped albums altogether. But there is to many bugs with Apple Music.

 

[darngooddesign]

I can download AM songs to my Mac's music library; they work just like songs I purchased from iTunes.

I tuned off 'Automatically update artwork' so my artwork is unchanged.

AM has not touched my ripped music; I'm in the process of replacing my AAC ripped CDs with lossless ALAC and other than being a manual process it has been fine.

None of my devices overheated, they got warm while uploading and downloading tracks, which is to be expected.

I haven't had any pausing issues even when playing to BT UE-Boom speaker.

I haven't had the issues you are describing on my Mac, iPad, or iPhone.

 

[meridiusuk]

'Automatically update artwork' this option is not on the iPhone. my artwork gets changed on iPhone not my windows 10 computer apple decide it just wants to alter my ripped music artwork every time i turn on the apple music option "Sync Library" which you need to create a library from apple music

 

[srbNYC]

Just copy user/Music to an external drive. Try AM Sync for a bit, but if it doesn't work out turn off Sync on all your devices, delete the new user/Music folder, and transfer your backup of user/Music.

Wondering if you can help again. I tried this--and really hated what Sync did to my ripped songs on my Mac (tags, sorting, etc.). But when I try to delete the folder, it won't delete. And if I try to replace it with the backup I made, I get "“Music” can’t be modified or deleted because it’s required by macOS." Help?

 

[darngooddesign]

Wondering if you can help again. I tried this--and really hated what Sync did to my ripped songs on my Mac (tags, sorting, etc.). But when I try to delete the folder, it won't delete. And if I try to replace it with the backup I made, I get "“Music” can’t be modified or deleted because it’s required by macOS." Help?

Can you just replace the contents of the master folder? It's the same process you would use if you manually transferred your music to a new computer.

 

[darngooddesign]

'Automatically update artwork' this option is not on the iPhone. my artwork gets changed on iPhone not my windows 10 computer apple decide it just wants to alter my ripped music artwork every time i turn on the apple music option "Sync Library" which you need to create a library from apple music

My phone syncs from the Library on my Mac, along with its artwork, so I haven't had any problems there. If I change the album artwork on my Mac, my phone reflects that change.

 

[srbNYC]

Can you just replace the contents of the master folder? It's the same process you would use if you manually transferred your music to a new computer.

Yes, that seems to have worked—and I'm kicking myself for not having thought of it. Thanks!!

 

[darngooddesign]

Yes, that seems to have worked—and I'm kicking myself for not having thought of it. Thanks!!

No problem; I just said copy and replace the folder, instead of the contents of the folder, because it was simpler. Glad it worked for you.

 

[srbNYC]

And on what planet does a music app not alphabetize artists by last name? (I had set sorting options when I was my own library, but when Apple Music took it over, that was all gone.) I'm sorry, Elton John does not go before Ella Fitzgerald.

 

[darngooddesign]

And on what planet does a music app not alphabetize artists by last name? (I had set sorting options when I was my own library, but when Apple Music took it over, that was all gone.) I'm sorry, Elton John does not go before Ella Fitzgerald.

Weird, he should go second because Ell vs Elt. I wonder if it's because he is commonly referred to by his first name she is commonly referred to by her full name.

I didn't have that problem because I edit the fields in the Sorting tab which is why I have 'Xymox' organized with 'Clan of Xymox'. I can keep them as separate artists but next to each other, or I can have their one Xymox album show up as Clan of Xymox when viewing by artist. Similarly, AM/iTunes has always put 'A Split Second' with the Ses, despite it needing to go with the As.

Regardless, those are all easy fixes.

*EDIT*

Not sure what's going on with your library, but these are freshly added to my library and MacOS AM organizes them correctly.

FYI, for whatever reason, when you an Artist's Best Of compilation the 'Compilation of different artists and songs' checkbox is ticked so remember to turn that off unless you want them to be organized with the various artists compilations.

Album View


Artist View

 

[srbNYC]

I was citing a hypothetical...and I blew it. I meant it as an example of how much I hate alphabetizing artists by first name but that pair wouldn't come out that way. How about Nina Simone shouldn't come before Tony Bennett?

 

[darngooddesign]

I was citing a hypothetical...and I blew it. I meant it as an example of how much I hate alphabetizing artists by first name but that pair wouldn't come out that way. How about Nina Simone shouldn't come before Tony Bennett?

I mostly alphabetize by first name because I have artists who go by a single name, Peter Murphy goes in the Ps along with Peter Gabriel and pre/post-icon Prince, for example, so N before T, but organization is subjective and AM lets you organize your library however you want. Its just which letters I use to recall the artists.

 

[srbNYC]

Just seems like a sorting option they should offer, as they do for Contacts.