Needles & Grooves

@WhiteDahlias Apple Music includes match, so all those mp3/digital you have on your computer can be synced to the cloud to stream.

@Melt Face Molly Drop Soundiiz - Transfer playlists and favorites between different streaming services is a decent tool for transferring playlists between services.

Be careful with Apple music if you have a big library of your own files. Make a backup. If you use Apple Music to match, it will replace them with protected files and when you unsub, you would lose access to them. I prefer iTunes Match for like $24 a year. I get clean 256 mpbs unprotected files that I can keep forever if I unsub.

@Kris I don't believe this is the case. It does download protected files to other devices (since there's no need to upload your files to the cloud if they already have it on hand), but it does not overwrite anything on your main machine.

@Kris I can confirm that is not the case. It's exactly as @kvetcha said.

I should have clarified. If you download to your computer they are protected. I tried replacing old files I had ripped to 128kpbs. I had always downloaded unprotected with Match and it took a while before I noticed that Apple Music gave me protected files. It was a pain to go back into my backups and fix it all when my Apple Music trial expired.

@Kris If all your files exist on computer A, iTunes will play the local file. If you Match all your existing music and play on Computer B, computer B will download/play the protected Apple Music versions of the songs. But you'll never lose access to your originals on Computer A, and iTunes will never overwrite them on its own.

Agreed. I used iTunes Match for years before Apple Music existed. You could use it to replace crappy files. You can’t do that with Apple Music. It might not matter to most people, but it was a big hassle for me because I mostly stream or play from my computer.

@KenKaniff Spotify chose to keep Joe Rogan over Neil Young.

Apple Music for me (especially since the difference in audio quality between Apple Music and Spotify on CarPlay is noticeable).

I also use iTunes Match, for the same reasons as @Kris. If I match with AM I can play the songs on another device, sure, but I like not having to keep all the original files saved locally (and it was an EXCELLENT way to replace all my crappy MP3s with decent quality tracks)

Though, one issue I did have, which I think has since been fixed or at least improved, is that in the early days of iTunes Match a lot of my tracks got matched with the clean versions, which I didn't realize until after I had already deleted the local files. So definitely watch out for that.

@bettim84 Well it was Neil Young that had an issue and put forward an ultimatum. It wasn't Joe Rogan that did. You can't give into that stuff. Then any artist can threaten a company if they don't like the content that lives on the platform? Like Taylor Swift could say "take down the Call Her Daddy Podcast -- too much sex talk that could be heard by children."

@KenKaniff Seeing as these services pay artists like shit and are destroying the music industry, why shouldn't more of them boycott the platform? Spotify is paying the dude $100 million to broadcast misinformation, so fuck 'em.

I've used spotify for 7 years or so, going to look into Apple music. I've heard they don't do the custom generated playlists but we'll see. I try to avoid Amazon as much as possible.

Edit: there was a 6 month free trial available for Apple Music, checking it out

Yep. None of the streaming services, even Qobuz who pay the most by a long way, give anything like enough in royalties. Plus they prop up the label system in the worst way possible by providing them with an income that lets them survive but diminishes an artists take home to effective zero. At least physical product margins mean that their derisory percentage equates to some money.

@Hollywood I’m on family plan as well but Apple Music’s family plan costs the same.

@LiamGallagher’sBucketHat I loathe Apple products though

“You can't give into that stuff”? @KenKaniff that may be your opinion, but platforms have been removing problematic content (or content from problematic artists) left and right for years now aka “cancel culture.”

Already getting emails in saying “Neil sounds better in vinyl anyway” with 10% off his catalogue

@bettim84 Artists have been going to DSPs with "us or them" ultimatums and winning at that?