When Apple Music was released just over a year ago, Apple also debuted iCloud Music Library, a way of storing your iTunes library in the cloud. There were two ways to seed the cloud, either with iTunes Match or Apple Music. If you were an iTunes Match subscriber, matching your songs in your local library to your cloud library was done one way, and if you were just an Apple Music subscriber, matching was done differently.
This created some confusion about the way tracks were matched and stored in iCloud Music Library. Now, Apple is changing this, and will use the same matching method for both services. The company said that Apple Music now uses acoustic fingerprinting and provides matched files without digital rights management (DRM), or copy protection, just like iTunes Match.
Read the rest of the article on Macworld.
Kirk,
Can you clarify the acoustic fingerprinting used for this new service to Apple Music?
Is this Gracenote, the same company used for Apple iTunes Match?
It’s the same matching that’s used for iTunes Match.
Essentially, iTunes Match came to Apple Music would you say? If I have a song that is not available in the Apple Music catalog, I’ll get my version, not an unknown version from Apple Music?
Right, as it works with iTunes Match.
Kirk,
Can you clarify the acoustic fingerprinting used for this new service to Apple Music?
Is this Gracenote, the same company used for Apple iTunes Match?
It’s the same matching that’s used for iTunes Match.
Essentially, iTunes Match came to Apple Music would you say? If I have a song that is not available in the Apple Music catalog, I’ll get my version, not an unknown version from Apple Music?
Right, as it works with iTunes Match.
I assume there’s still no way to bypass matching altogether?
(I don’t trust Apple’s matching enough to use it after reading your & other’s reports. I have a decent number of tracks that I sought out specific e.g. remastered versions of. But I sure would like to keep in sync via the cloud instead of iTunes + cable.)
Not if you want your music in the cloud.
If you alter the metadata of a track in your main library in iTunes, it will skip matching and just upload that track.
I assume there’s still no way to bypass matching altogether?
(I don’t trust Apple’s matching enough to use it after reading your & other’s reports. I have a decent number of tracks that I sought out specific e.g. remastered versions of. But I sure would like to keep in sync via the cloud instead of iTunes + cable.)
Not if you want your music in the cloud.
If you alter the metadata of a track in your main library in iTunes, it will skip matching and just upload that track.
Is there any way to find out if this upgrade has been rolled out to my account other than jumping into the deep end of the pool? I assume not, but perhaps there’s a workaround…
No.
Is there any way to find out if this upgrade has been rolled out to my account other than jumping into the deep end of the pool? I assume not, but perhaps there’s a workaround…
No.