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Lvivske

macrumors 6502a
Aug 22, 2011
615
259
🇺🇦
let’s not forget the monumental error that will single handedly stop all your downloads in the queue such as “item not available because it’s being modified”.

I would have 2000 songs in queue and if a song had that error the 1999 songs would stop downloading.

yeah this has been an issue in itunes/music for a while i think, for sure have run into this when re-downloading libraries
 
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neil74

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Sep 20, 2017
341
300
the whole system is broken, i was writing about it in another thread, and on reddit, and long story short i've been deleting and rematching albums

sometimes they match the old way

sometimes they match and show "uploaded," (usually means non-aac, like mp3) but allow AAC

sometimes they match but a couple tracks are lossless but the other 10 aren't

sometimes the entire album matches and is lossless

there is zero consistency to it, i'm just rolling the dice and getting different results with every re-add to my library. some times they just flip and go from AAC to Lossless just from removing and re-downloading. Borktown software.
I am getting exactly the same, very few albums are all lossless and most are a split of AAC and lossless.

I just think it is still a good few weeks away from being properly ready and apple are likely in the process of upgrading the library.
 

Marco Klobas

macrumors 6502
Jul 14, 2017
483
956
Italy
Apple Music subscriber here.

My CD-ripped albums uploaded to Apple Music before the introduction of Apple Music lossless are all streaming as AAC.

Even if I download an album/song I still get the "old" AAC version. I tried to delete and upload again an album: still no ALAC when streaming.

I wonder if my music on Apple's servers will be replaced to ALAC eventually.
 
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Lvivske

macrumors 6502a
Aug 22, 2011
615
259
🇺🇦
Apple Music subscriber here.

My CD-ripped albums uploaded to Apple Music before the introduction of Apple Music lossless are all streaming as AAC.

Even if I download an album/song I still get the "old" AAC version. I tried to delete and upload again an album: still no ALAC when streaming.

I wonder if my music on Apple's servers will be replaced to ALAC eventually.

All ALAC rips *since* Lossless are also downsampled to AAC, seems they never added Lossless support for personal uploads

Because of albums not matching properly (an album had some tracks matching Greatest Hits, some AAC matching the right or different release of an album, and some Lossless from the right album) I was forced to pull out old CDs and rip to ALAC, upload, and then find that leaving it in the cloud was the wrong idea, so I had to rip them to ALAC again and just leave them on my drive...
 

Marco Klobas

macrumors 6502
Jul 14, 2017
483
956
Italy
All ALAC rips *since* Lossless are also downsampled to AAC, seems they never added Lossless support for personal uploads

Because of albums not matching properly (an album had some tracks matching Greatest Hits, some AAC matching the right or different release of an album, and some Lossless from the right album) I was forced to pull out old CDs and rip to ALAC, upload, and then find that leaving it in the cloud was the wrong idea, so I had to rip them to ALAC again and just leave them on my drive...

I was told by another user on another forum that songs/albums added after the lossless introduction are served as ALAC after the matching/uploading.

My local files of my own music is mainly a mixture of AIFF and ALAC.

It seems that the new added song/album has to be really new – meaning, never uploaded before by the user. Otherwise Apple's servers seem to remember the previous matching providing the "old" AAC already available.

The next time I buy a song/album, I'll check how it behaves.
 

Luba

macrumors 68000
Apr 22, 2009
1,807
379
I can confirm that new added albums (never uploaded before) are streamed in ALAC.
What happens when you ripped previously uploaded CDs using AIFF? Does it stay as AIFF? The only downside of music in AIFF is that you can’t add in Lyrics and other metadata, correct?
 

Marco Klobas

macrumors 6502
Jul 14, 2017
483
956
Italy
What happens when you ripped previously uploaded CDs using AIFF? Does it stay as AIFF? The only downside of music in AIFF is that you can’t add in Lyrics and other metadata, correct?

Do you mean locally? Local files are never modified. ALAC stay ALAC and AIFF stay AIFF. That was before and after the lossless introduction.

What has changed is that now Apple servers provide ALAC streaming for your new matched music. Old matched music is currently still provided as AAC and there's no way to force an "upgrade" process (neither with a delete and upload again action).

My AIFF files do contain lyrics (when available).
 
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Mattyman

macrumors regular
Nov 2, 2019
222
34
If my music app, some purchases (made prior to lossless) are badged as lossless. Does that mean it’s streaming lossless? If I click download, they seem small so assume aac. Using iPad currently.
 

Luba

macrumors 68000
Apr 22, 2009
1,807
379
Do you mean locally? Local files are never modified. ALAC stay ALAC and AIFF stay AIFF. That was before and after the lossless introduction.

What has changed is that now Apple servers provide ALAC streaming for your new matched music. Old matched music is currently still provided as AAC and there's no way to force an "upgrade" process (neither with a delete and upload again action).

My AIFF files do contain lyrics (when available).
On my Mac Pro that's no longer with us (R.I.P.) I ripped all CDs in ALAC, later I signed for Apple Music which has iTunes Match included and noticed on my other devices when I do "Get Info" on a song that the format of the song is listed as Lossless and AAC, so songs on other devices (not local) were matched as AAC? I haven't restored my data from old Mac Pro to new iMac, so I don't know for sure if the CDs I ripped are still in ALAC, I hope so, since local files never modified, but other posts on MacRumors seem to say their local files did get modified.

I didn't rip my CDs in AIFF way back when, because at that time an AIFF was relatively big. Would you recommend that I rip any new CDs now in AIFF? Any drawbacks in ripping to AIFF other than a bigger file size? The bigger file size is not much of an issue today.

So there's an ongoing bug issue, because I believe Apple said if you delete and re-match, it should re-match as Lossless?
 

Marco Klobas

macrumors 6502
Jul 14, 2017
483
956
Italy
@Luba Local songs you own (purchased or ripped) should never be touched or replaced by Music app unless you intentionally delete them.

The problem in your case, if I understand correctly, is that your original ALAC files are no longer available because the Mac Pro doesn't work anymore.

All your working devices using the same Apple Music account used by your Mac Pro rely only on music available on Apple's servers which were previously matched from your Mac Pro.

Apple provides AAC version of that tracks because at that time this was the way it worked. Now with Apple Music lossless, new matched songs are provided in ALAC.

Basically you don't have anymore your original ALAC files, unless you recover your ripped files from the Mac Pro. There's no reason for ripping in AIFF. You can keep ripping in ALAC, in my opinion. In the beginning I ripped in AIFF, then I switched to ALAC.

I tried to delete and rematch an album and Apple still gave me the "old" AAC. Only music that I never matched before is provided after matching in ALAC.

Currently it seems that it doesn't help to rematch the music that was matched before the introduction of Apple lossless. I hope Apple will eventually replace AAC versions on their servers with ALAC counterpart.
 
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MacGekko

macrumors 6502a
Mar 6, 2009
761
277
It was a lesson learned for me because iTunes will complete take over and override EVERYTHING, I had songs I uploaded there, only for it to change my
Album covers, metadata and info.

it’s a blessing sometimes though because I had cds I ripped with songs out of order and it legit helped me find songs I completely forgot about it, but yes it is wise to keep separate libraries because of it.

Is there a way to utilize a dummy icloud account, take the library from my Itunes, add it to a new Icloud not associated with the Itunes app on my Macbook Pro, utilize Itunes Match on the Dummy account, if they mess up album artwork, it does not touch the library on my original Itunes, and when downloading a 256 version of a 128 song in my library, I can transfer the successful downloads from the dummy account to my original Itunes account on my Macbook Pro.

Basically I'm trying to use Match through Apple Music to upgrade the resolution to any song not in 256kbps but I don't want to risk messing with my entire original library, is that possible, or do I need to create a backup Itunes folder before attempting to use Match through Apple Music?
 

Spankey

macrumors 6502a
Sep 30, 2007
869
341
NJ
Day 1 Match user and I was disappointed that all my music that had been previously uploaded was not streaming in lossless. Did what I had to do. Went through my library and went track by track and deleted the matched songs from my library and added the Apple Music version. I will prolly have Apple Music til I die and my music is on an SSD locked away safe and also backed up on a NAS. Love having all my tracks in lossless now.
 
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Luba

macrumors 68000
Apr 22, 2009
1,807
379
Is there a way to utilize a dummy icloud account, take the library from my Itunes, add it to a new Icloud not associated with the Itunes app on my Macbook Pro, utilize Itunes Match on the Dummy account, if they mess up album artwork, it does not touch the library on my original Itunes, and when downloading a 256 version of a 128 song in my library, I can transfer the successful downloads from the dummy account to my original Itunes account on my Macbook Pro.

Basically I'm trying to use Match through Apple Music to upgrade the resolution to any song not in 256kbps but I don't want to risk messing with my entire original library, is that possible, or do I need to create a backup Itunes folder before attempting to use Match through Apple Music?
What I should have done was copy/duplicate my iTunes library and files and store in another folder other than the Music folder. Then let Apple Music do its matching thing. I'd have the original files in another folder along with the album artwork I chose. I could then do the time-consuming hard work of tweaking fixing the library Apple Music didn't match correctly 100% knowing I had the original the way I liked tucked away. Oh well. But I have most of the CDs around somewhere, so I could also just re-rip and implement the plan I should have.
 
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MattG

macrumors 68040
May 27, 2003
3,869
568
Asheville, NC
OK so...if I remove all my downloads from Music (I have Match), let it re-download, and then I connect my iPhone to my iMac to sync it, will it sync the lossless versions to the phone?
 
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Lvivske

macrumors 6502a
Aug 22, 2011
615
259
🇺🇦
OK so...if I remove all my downloads from iTunes (I have Match), let it re-download, and then I connect my iPhone to the computer to sync it, will it sync the lossless versions to the phone?
itunes doesnt have lossless
 

Blowback

macrumors 65816
Jan 10, 2018
1,301
735
VA
I once deleted all my songs to start over and choose and select what I really wanted. Come to find out that it deleted my alternate location of the actual songs and not from icloud.

I lost so much music from bands that are not together anymore and can’t download them anywhere.

The messed up part Is that itunes completely destroys the file from your hard drive, they never give you a chance to restore it from the recycle bin…
Bet Music ’Industry’ has something to do with that process…..
 

Apleeseed84

macrumors 6502a
Oct 22, 2020
901
644
Bet Music ’Industry’ has something to do with that process…..
NEver thought about it that way, makes sense, I lost a personally ripped cd’s that I had, funny thing is that I took pictures of my artists and albums before I deleted them, but then somehow my box of 24x24x24 inches full of cd’s got lost somewhere 😭😭😭
 

AndreGB

macrumors member
Jun 13, 2012
48
13
I am trying to rip some of my CDs that are not available on Apple Music in the US. In the past, iTunes Match would match them even though they were not available for purchasing.

Anyway, I'm on a brand new account with no previously matched songs of any kind. I need to buy an USB-A to USB-C cable first, then rip my CDs and I will let you guys know what happens.

I have no problems with Apple adding their metadata to my library. I mean, they probably get more stuff right than me and they also add lyrics, which is cool.
 

WebHead

macrumors 6502
Dec 29, 2004
471
103
Apple servers provide ALAC streaming for your new matched music. Old matched music is currently still provided as AAC and there's no way to force an "upgrade" process (neither with a delete and upload again action).

Is this still the case? None of my previously matched songs will be available as lossless (or hi-res)?
 

WebHead

macrumors 6502
Dec 29, 2004
471
103
I guess this also applies to old out-of-print purchases? Or are purchases handled differently?

I'm speaking specifically of The Complete U2, which I was pleasantly surprised to find got a 256k upgrade back in the day despite no longer being available in the store.
 
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Marco Klobas

macrumors 6502
Jul 14, 2017
483
956
Italy
Purchases are handled differently here: my purchased songs – which were sold as AAC, of course – stream now in ALAC (even hi-res if available). AAC still remains the format when a purchased song is downloaded.

Basically, a purchase is still provided as AAC. You get the ALAC version only when it's streamed (as long as the subscription is active, of course).
 
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