iTunes Match Rookie Question

[iDeth]

Hello all,

I was just hoping for a quick piece of information. I have roughly 15GB of music that I have recently ripped to iTunes from my CD collection. I have ripped this @ 320KBPS. I understand that anything downloaded from the cloud would be @ 256KBPS. I just wanted to confirm that on my original machine where I've ripped @ 320KBPS, those files will not need to be re-downloaded, ripped, etc.

In short, the music I have ripped to my SSD on my macbook air will not go anywhere and the only thing that will happen is that i will be able to access my music from an alternate iDevice such as an iPad, etc.

Thanks in advance.

 

[Phil Lee]

iTunes Match does not replace any local music unless you ask it to. It uploads music if it doesn't match. Any unmatched music ripped at a bit rate higher than 256kbps is transcoded to a temporary 256kbps file, uploaded to iTunes Match. The temporary file is then deleted. The only time you would lose you higher bit rate file is if you deleted the local file then downloaded the matched file.

 

[FearGhost]

That is correct. Your original iTunes library will remain intact. It would only change if you were to delete the locally stored files (and not from the cloud) and you re-downloaded them (uploaded songs will re-download as they were originally, only 'matched' tracks will come down from iTunes at 256kbps)

 

[iDeth]

Very much appreciated.