We give you the lowdown on iTunes
Match
By Kirk McEIhearn
Apple’s iTunes Match service can match
the tracks in your iTunes library with those in Apple’s catalogue o120 million
songs, and lets you upload the ones it can’t find (up to 25,000 non-purchased
tracks), and then access those songs via iTunes or your iOS devices whenever
you want. For the tracks it does match, you can download copies to replace your
own poorly ripped MP3 files from a decade ago. Sounds simple enough, but we’ve received
dozens of questions. Here are answers to a few of them.
Too
many tracks
Q: have more than 25,000 songs that
have accumulated over the years from the iTunes store. CD rips and other
sources. How can I prevent some songs Prom being matched to allow others to
sync without removing the excess song From my library? Many artists are in the
form of discographies and I dont need all of them to sync.
The 25,000-song limit is strictly
enforced: if your library tips the scales, you won’t even be able to sign up
for iTunes Match. It’s possible, if fiddly, to only add some of your songs to
the service- we discuss one way of doing this on the opposite page. Another
workaround is to select certain tracks and change their Media Kind to Voice
Memo (File “Get Info ptions). iTunes Match will see those tracks as being
ineligible.
Perhaps the best solution is to create
a second library just for iTunes Match, Or to put your iTunes Match library on
a second computer. We hope in future Apple will add a tag to let you exclude
specific files from this service.
Syncing
playlists
Q: If I subscribe to iTunes Match will
my playlists be available on other Macs or IOS devices as they are on my home
computer, or will just see a list of all of my music?
iTunes Match syncs and displays your
playlists on all the computers! iOS devices (up to 10 devices in total) on
which you’ve enabled iTunes Match. Ii, however, you have playlists that contain
podcasts. videos or music videos, they won’t sync. All your music-only
playlists should be available, though.
Matching
problem
Q: I noticed there are many songs in
my iTunes library that are sold on the iTunes Store, but have still been
uploaded. Some of these had different spellings, and I changed mine. I tried to
update iTunes Match, but I have the same amount of uploaded tracks.
iTunes Match does not look at the tags
in your music files. You could, for example, call David Bowie’s Heroes
something like Four Score and Seven Years Ago (see right) and iTunes Match will
ignore the title and merely look at the music, creating an acoustic fingerprint
that it uses to match against its catalogue. So even if you change tags on your
songs, this won’t affect whether or not they match, Also, If you match songs
whose tags are incorrect, iTunes won’t fix them for you.
Losing
Lossless?
Q: I spent a lot of time adding CDs to
my iTunes library in either WAV or Apple Lossless Formats. Will I lose this
level of quality?
Yes and no,
iTunes Match won’t alter the songs in your library unless you choose to replace
them. If a lossless track has been matched and you delete your master files,
the version you redownload from iTunes will be 256kbps. If you download that
track on to another computer or an IOS device, it will similarly be 256kbps.
Unmatched lossless audio ile5 that are uploaded get transcoded to a 256kbps ACC
files first, but again don’t affect your originals. In most cases 256kbps AAC
Files are fine for portable devices, but you might want to use your iTunes
library on your Mac when you listen via a stereo.
