iTunes Match - partial match

[MacTaculous]

iTunes Match - partial match

Hello,

I have updated my itunes match and I found that many songs do not get matched and instead get uploaded even though the songs are on the itunes store! Some albums are even cut in half, between matched songs and uploaded songs! How does half an album get matched and the other have need to get uploaded to the cloud? Is there a way to force itunes to match the songs that it couldn't match before, seeing how they are on the itunes store?

-Thank you!

 

[chenks]

iTunes Match has been fairly successful at matching for me, with a few strange exceptions.

2 examples shown below - both albums are in the iTunes store, and it has matched every track in the album except 1.

Any ideas how to fix this so that I can match the missing track?

 

[FearGhost]

One thing I have noticed with iTunes match is that album's match much better if you have the 'exact' version of the album as listed on iTunes. For example, the Kelly Clarkson album you listed has 17 tracks on iTunes. I had a CD copy of Suede - Dog Man Star (Original). Half of my tracks didn't match and had to be uploaded. I deleted these from iTunes and the Cloud and then added the Deluxe version CD I had also and all tracks matched right away (this is what is on iTunes).....

 

[chenks]

One thing I have noticed with iTunes match is that album's match much better if you have the 'exact' version of the album as listed on iTunes. For example, the Kelly Clarkson album you listed has 17 tracks on iTunes. I had a CD copy of Suede - Dog Man Star (Original). Half of my tracks didn't match and had to be uploaded. I deleted these from iTunes and the Cloud and then added the Deluxe version CD I had also and all tracks matched right away (this is what is on iTunes).....

the matching is done by listening to the file though (and nothing to do with meta data).

and besides? regardless of the track numbers, both have the same track number 6 which is the one missing.

 

[FearGhost]

Just something I noticed... worth a try maybe?

 

[chenks]

Just something I noticed... worth a try maybe?

those are just 2 examples though.
i have many more that are the same and are identical to what is in the itunes store.

besides, iTunes Match doesn't actually matching "albums", it's matching individual tracks, on a track by track basis (which is why meta data is irrelevant).

 

[FearGhost]

I agree completely that tracks are matched individually but I'm not sure whether there are subtle differences in individual tracks on various album versions.

Interestingly, I have a CD single of Everybody's Changing by Keane and one of the tracks 'Bedshaped' is different on the single to the album, yet the matched version is the album version.... Doesn't make any sense....

 

[burtba]

Did you get an answer to this? I have 603 songs that were uploaded out of 7600 collection, which is not too bad, BUT as you said, 1/2 an album? I hope the next update fixes this. The exact album is on iTunes but it doesnt match it??

I did have luck with 1 song. I noticed it had a lot of static noise at the beginning, so I re-ripped it as 128kb, so it had no static and it now matched it. Just an experiment(I realise I could have re ripped as 256)

 

[MacTaculous]

no i still haven't found the answer. its so annoying! if you find out can you come back to this thread and let me know please!?

 

[grapes911]

I'm having the same problem. I have some albums where like 11 out of 12 songs match. I have no idea why the last song won't. It really annoying. I've tried playing with meta data but that didn't seem to do anything.

 

[chenks]

OK, still getting this issue and can't seem to do anything that resolves the issue.

Paul Simon - Graceland (Remastered Bonus Track version).
Album exists in the iTunes store.

iTunes Match has matched every track except 1. Ironically it managed to match the alternate version that is included in the album, but not the original version!

Does anyone had any other suggestions? There doesn't appear to by any way to email apple support about this.

 

[chenks]

sigh... i contacted itunes store support to see if they had any suggestions.
all i got was standard "copy and paste" responses that weren't really relevant to the issue.

then after explaing it again, their solution was to offer me 5 song credits in the store to download the tracks!

now whilst i appreciate the gesture, it doesn't really do anything to solve (or even attempt to investigate) the issue.

 

[roebeet]

sigh... i contacted itunes store support to see if they had any suggestions.
all i got was standard "copy and paste" responses that weren't really relevant to the issue.

then after explaing it again, their solution was to offer me 5 song credits in the store to download the tracks!

now whilst i appreciate the gesture, it doesn't really do anything to solve (or even attempt to investigate) the issue.

5 song credits? Maybe I should call them. Will they do this for the hundreds of uploaded one-off tracks I've had so far?

I've been posting in the Apple boards as well (I think you did also? The screen capture looks familiar). I've broken up my own issues into three sections:

1) The entire album is uploaded. This is because the album isn't in their database at all, so it makes sense that this would happen.

2) I only get a few matches out of an entire album. I have several different theories here. One is different masterings, and the other is Greatest Hits + masterings. For the latter, that means that the songs being matched are actually being matched from a Greatest Hits and not the actual album. It could be that the Greatest Hits is in their database, but not the original album.

3) Only one song is uploaded, out of an entire album. This one is sometimes masterings again (The Beatles "She Came in Through the Bathroom Window" from the 1980's CD being a perfect example of this) but I have some examples of contemporary CD's where there should be only one mastering, at yet I still have that one-off upload.

And it's that last issue that I feel Apple should look into, primarily - that's because there's no explanation other than perhaps there's a snafu on their server end that they need to fix. But masterings will always be a problem and I don't see them fixing that anytime soon - in the cases of some artists like the Stones / Pink Floyd / Doors, you could have not just two but perhaps multiple masterings. And in the case of The Doors, actual remixes of entire albums.

 

[James_C]

The reason for partial matching is there are differences between the CD that you have ripped and the version on the iTunes store, most of my partial matches are disks that I purchased in the a long time ago. These disks are often remastered with slightly different track lengths and is often the cause of the mismatch.

For example I have on old copy of Paul Simon's Graceland and one song 'Diamonds on the sole of her shoe' did not match - my CD Rip version is 5.48 mins long, the version on the iTunes store is 5.49. The Album on iTunes in this case says it has been remastered.

 

[chenks]

The reason for partial matching is there are differences between the CD that you have ripped and the version on the iTunes store, most of my partial matches are disks that I purchased in the a long time ago. These disks are often remastered with slightly different track lengths and is often the cause of the mismatch.

except I am trying fairly recent releases that are identical to the itunes store version, and even they have this 1 track un-matched issue.

when only 1 version of an album exists, mastering should not be an issue.

if a track is ripped using itunes direct from a CD, and that track appears to be a different length to the version in the itunes store then what else can the end-user do!

For example I have on old copy of Paul Simon's Graceland and one song 'Diamonds on the sole of her shoe' did not match - my CD Rip version is 5.48 mins long, the version on the iTunes store is 5.49. The Album on iTunes in this case says it has been remastered.

i also have this album and the same track un-matched.
however I have the remastered version (which has the extra tracks at the end) and this is the same version as is in the itunes store, so again mastering should not be an issue.

 

[roblawton]

Always worth checking the bit-rate of 'uploaded' files too.

I found a couple of albums that had got mixed up and 9 tracks at 128Kbps were 'matched' and 1 which was 260Kbps (VBR) and so was uploaded.

If a track is over the 256Kbps threshold, it won't be matched as it's better quality than what iTunes can provide.

 

[chenks]

Always worth checking the bit-rate of 'uploaded' files too.

I found a couple of albums that had got mixed up and 9 tracks at 128Kbps were 'matched' and 1 which was 260Kbps (VBR) and so was uploaded.

If a track is over the 256Kbps threshold, it won't be matched as it's better quality than what iTunes can provide.

thought you might have been on to something there, but checked some of the ones i have and they are either 128 or 192

 

[roblawton]

thought you might have been on to something there, but checked some of the ones i have and they are either 128 or 192

Ahhh, nevermind!

I think it's a mixture of the two to be honest.

It's either 1) bit-rate is higher or 2) track length and audio footprint does not match

Hopefully they'll have a fix and give you an option to select the 'closest match' or something similar...

 

[turtle777]

the matching is done by listening to the file though (and nothing to do with meta data).

I would like to see a definitive link / answer on that.

So far, I have heard those claims, and it's all been speculation.

IMO, a "Shazam" like mechanism to determine songs would make matching an entire library of thousands of songs much slower that it is done today.

-t

 

[chenks]

I would like to see a definitive link / answer on that.

So far, I have heard those claims, and it's all been speculation.

IMO, a "Shazam" like mechanism to determine songs would make matching an entire library of thousands of songs much slower that it is done today.

-t

what makes you think it would be much slower?
shazam can match 1 track fairly quickly, we can assume that apple will have superior resources to be able to match even quicker.

that fact that i can apply phoney ID3 tags to a track and it still match the correct version proves that ID3 tags are not used.

if they were used it would make it a possibility to fool it into providing you matched content that you didn't actually have.

 

[roebeet]

Always worth checking the bit-rate of 'uploaded' files too.

I found a couple of albums that had got mixed up and 9 tracks at 128Kbps were 'matched' and 1 which was 260Kbps (VBR) and so was uploaded.

If a track is over the 256Kbps threshold, it won't be matched as it's better quality than what iTunes can provide.

I haven't seen this and can confirm that local 320kps MP3's of mine have Matched in iTM. I even had lossless AIFF files that Matched. And I do use the iCloud Status button to confirm that - I find that column absolutely critical to gauge what's Matched and what hasn't.

 

[chenks]

I haven't seen this and can confirm that I've definitely matched local 320kps MP3's to iTM. I even get lossless AIFF files that Match.

yes me too.... it definitely does match content that is higher than 256kbps

 

[turtle777]

what makes you think it would be much slower?
shazam can match 1 track fairly quickly, we can assume that apple will have superior resources to be able to match even quicker.

Shazam samples about 20 seconds or so.

In my library (20,000 titles), that would have taken 5 days. It did NOT take that long at all. Heck, even if Apple samples only 5 seconds, it would have still been 28 hours. If I remember correctly, the whole process of matching took less than 12 hours.

-t

 

[chenks]

Shazam samples about 20 seconds or so.

In my library (20,000 titles), that would have taken 5 days. It did NOT take that long at all. Heck, even if Apple samples only 5 seconds, it would have still been 28 hours. If I remember correctly, the whole process of matching took less than 12 hours.

-t

and?

shazam was used as an example, not the definitive process that is used. we don't know what algorithm or the method for matching, but we can be fairly sure that ID3 tags play no part (which is easily proved).

 

[turtle777]

and?

shazam was used as an example, not the definitive process that is used. we don't know what algorithm or the method for matching, but we can be fairly sure that ID3 tags play no part (which is easily proved).

NO. You can not prove they play NO part.

All you can prove is that Apple does not use the ID3 tags EXCLUSIVELY to determine the tracks.
Apple might use them as an aid, but not rely on them (because they can be faked). We simply don't know the inner workings of iTunes Match.

-t