Itunes Match and Separate Libraries Question

[MacGekko]

I don't want to go through the madness of having Itunes Match upload my entire library only to have some of the songs messed up and since I don't care about streaming, only having 256 kb songs, I wanted to only have Itunes Match take the 128 kb songs in my library.

I figured the only way to do this was to create a new library, I did that with the Option key during Itunes start up, I then moved the 128 kb songs to a folder on my desktop. I will then move those songs to the new library.

My question is, if I start Itunes Match when logged on to that new 128 library, will it leave my 256 library alone? After I am finished with the 128 library, I will change Itunes match to not work automatically, I'm hoping then when I log onto the 256 main library, it will leave those songs alone.

Has anyone had experience with 2 separate libraries and Itunes Match?

 

[Rigby]

Why so complicated? Just turn on iTunes Match, let it do its thing, and then delete/re-download the songs it has matched that you want to upgrade. Match won't touch any of the files in your original library unless you re-download them yourself.

 

[MacGekko]

Why so complicated? Just turn on iTunes Match, let it do its thing, and then delete/re-download the songs it has matched that you want to upgrade. Match won't touch any of the files in your original library unless you re-download them yourself.

The only reason to make it so complicated is that I only want the higher kb songs for my Ipod, that is the only way I listen to the music, I never listen to it through Itunes. I have heard that Match is not perfect, some songs on albums have mismatched audio levels, some are not the same versions of songs, the only way to be certain is to listen to each song before you download it from Match (and delete from your library), it would take too long, this way if I find a song on my Ipod that is messed up, I have the original version in my Itunes library. Technically if I did delete a song on my Itunes library and I discovered the Match download was not perfect, I do still have the CD version but I think I would rather leave my original library untouched.

 

[Rigby]

I still don't see why you need a second library. Of course you should back up your original files before upgrading them. But you can easily do this without creating a second library. Just make a copy of the original files (e.g. by sorting your library by bitrate in iTunes and then dragging the low-bitrate songs to some folder on your computer). Then, if you find that the matched version of some song is not the correct one, you can simply re-import the original file into your library.