Music - Missing Features, Bugs, Issues & Troubleshooting

[mscrutchin]

One thing I'm pleased to discover has been working properly again is Sound Check now preserves the dynamics between tracks when listening to an album. In a sense, it works like Replay Gain in that it uses "track gain" when you're listening on shuffle or a playlist with tracks from multiple albums, but it uses "album gain" when you're listening to an album, where you'd typically want the song-to-song dynamics preserved (i.e., the quiet tracks remain quiet in relation to the loud tracks instead of Sound Check trying to get all the tracks on the album on the same level).

I often switch back and forth between shuffling my library + playlists and listening to albums all the way through, so I'd find myself turning Sound Check on and off quite frequently. It was annoying. I'm happy that I can just leave Sound Check on now and albums retain their dynamics. But if you start shuffling or listening to playlists, then Sound Check tries to make everything more or less equal, as expected.

I'm not sure when it started working properly because I was so used to switching it on and off that I hadn't bothered to check in a while. In 2013, mastering engineer Ian Shepherd posted on his blog that iTunes's Sound Check had a new, unpublicized automatic "Album Mode" that worked well, but a few iTunes updates after his blog post I noticed Sound Check stopped preserving the dynamics within an album for me. I kept checking over the years until I just got used to turning it on and off. I don't know if it just broke temporarily or what (for how many years?!), but I'm glad that it's back.

 

[Airsculpture]

Thought I'd dip my toe back in to see how this app is doing. Imported one artist only which included 7 albums as a test. Only one album loaded the artwork, all others missing despite all having embedded artwork.

Back to iTunes 12 (on Ventura) I go.

Shame, thought it would have improved by now.

 

[Lvivske]

Personally never seen an issue with embedded artwork not showing, usually I have to go out of my war to clear it if its from a download that didnt use high quality art

 

[Airsculpture]

Clearly personal mileage varies.

I for one don’t have the time to be messing with something that should work off the bat and clearly it’s an issue for a lot as it’s listed as a known bug in the sticky 🤷‍♂️

 

[Lvivske]

1.3.4.42 is out now

did we always have tinted album art on mouse over? nothing else catching my eye yet...eh...

One thing I'm pleased to discover has been working properly again is Sound Check now preserves the dynamics between tracks when listening to an album. In a sense, it works like Replay Gain in that it uses "track gain" when you're listening on shuffle or a playlist with tracks from multiple albums, but it uses "album gain" when you're listening to an album, where you'd typically want the song-to-song dynamics preserved (i.e., the quiet tracks remain quiet in relation to the loud tracks instead of Sound Check trying to get all the tracks on the album on the same level).

I often switch back and forth between shuffling my library + playlists and listening to albums all the way through, so I'd find myself turning Sound Check on and off quite frequently. It was annoying. I'm happy that I can just leave Sound Check on now and albums retain their dynamics. But if you start shuffling or listening to playlists, then Sound Check tries to make everything more or less equal, as expected.

I'm not sure when it started working properly because I was so used to switching it on and off that I hadn't bothered to check in a while. In 2013, mastering engineer Ian Shepherd posted on his blog that iTunes's Sound Check had a new, unpublicized automatic "Album Mode" that worked well, but a few iTunes updates after his blog post I noticed Sound Check stopped preserving the dynamics within an album for me. I kept checking over the years until I just got used to turning it on and off. I don't know if it just broke temporarily or what (for how many years?!), but I'm glad that it's back.

I'm glad I didn't go too hard into this, because in Songs view, I just went from one album finishing and it playing hte next and the volume could have blown my head off (with Sound Check active)

For now, I'm going to keep it off and be cautious to save my hearing

 

[B/D]

1.3.4.42 is out now

did we always have tinted album art on mouse over? nothing else catching my eye yet...eh...



I'm glad I didn't go too hard into this, because in Songs view, I just went from one album finishing and it playing hte next and the volume could have blown my head off (with Sound Check active)

For now, I'm going to keep it off and be cautious to save my hearing

@Lvivske

Where?. In the latest Ventura beta?.

 

[flowrider]

^^^^Yes!

Lou

 

[B/D]

^^^^Yes!

Lou

Ah. That explains it thank you. I dont use betas and thought I was going crazy. 🤣

I have read in reddit and other places that 16.4 brings (finally!) a much more fluid and responsive Music app, both in loading times of different sections of the UI and regarding actual music playback (songs start instantly after clicking on them, like Spotify). If true, lets hope for similar improvements on Ventura 13.3.

 

[Lvivske]

Great writeup by the dev behind Lossless Switcher

I will discontinue local file detection support, and reasons why. · vincentneo/LosslessSwitcher · Discussion #74 · GitHub

basically long story short, local file detection is impossible because once launched, Music app will lock the bitrate regardless what the system audio is set to afterward. This does not affect Apple Music streams, just local ALAC files and whatnot. Good to have confirmed with some evidence behind it.

 

[Airsculpture]

Great writeup by the dev behind Lossless Switcher

I will discontinue local file detection support, and reasons why. · vincentneo/LosslessSwitcher · Discussion #74 · GitHub

basically long story short, local file detection is impossible because once launched, Music app will lock the bitrate regardless what the system audio is set to afterward. This does not affect Apple Music streams, just local ALAC files and whatnot. Good to have confirmed with some evidence behind it.

Well it certainly doesn't work for me on Ventura using iTunes 12.9.5. No auto switch is made when playing a variety of AAC, ALAC and 24/96 ALAC.

Back to using Colibri as a lossless, auto switching player when needed.

 

[MrPhil17]

Hi all,
Somebody with an Intel MacBook Pro with discrete GPU can check on Activity Monitor if they finally managed to use the integrated GPU instead of the discrete, like it used to be on all other macOS versions? I'm not updating because of that.

 

[bogdanw]

Another way of installing iTunes 12.9.5.5 https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/itunes-12-6-5-3-on-macos-catalina-10-15.2184518/post-32010794

 

[Lvivske]

Well it certainly doesn't work for me on Ventura using iTunes 12.9.5. No auto switch is made when playing a variety of AAC, ALAC and 24/96 ALAC.

Back to using Colibri as a lossless, auto switching player when needed.

iTunes has never had an auto bitrate matching feature.

 

[Lvivske]

on 1.3.4.56 right now I'm noticing meta data that I edit gets rolled back to what it was last night. It's not even consistent, like 75% of the tracks revert.

I think this only started today, hadnt noticed this behavior previously. Also having trouble matching tracks, its just hanging for an hour. Last night I could match/upload like normal.

play counts also goofy

 

[elementalwingma]

Does anyone have any issues with the Airplay icon randomly disappearing in the menu bar? I still have a lot of the same issues I've had since changing to the "Music" app but most of them are minor annoyances.

 

[bogdanw]

LosslessSwitcher 1.1.0-beta9 Local file detection removal, optional bit depth
https://github.com/vincentneo/LosslessSwitcher/releases

 

[Lvivske]

LosslessSwitcher 1.1.0-beta9 Local file detection removal, optional bit depth
https://github.com/vincentneo/LosslessSwitcher/releases

Bit depth switching is broken (always on), so personally sticking to build 11 fwiw

 

[vddobrev]

How important is to switch the Audio MIDI Interface to the correct rate and bit depth? What if I just set it to the maximum 192KHz/24bit and forget it? How and where does the conversion happen to 192KHz/24bit?

Say I am streaming a 44.1KHz/16bit and Audio MIDI is set to 192KHz/24bit - does Music app do the conversion or?

 

[Lvivske]

How important is to switch the Audio MIDI Interface to the correct rate and bit depth?

What if I just set it to the maximum 192KHz/24bit and forget it?

How and where does the conversion happen to 192KHz/24bit?

Say I am streaming a 44.1KHz/16bit and Audio MIDI is set to 192KHz/24bit - does Music app do the conversion or?

I'll answer in multiple points

a) It's not important. This is more of an audiophile thing so if your system isn't all about maximum tuning then it wont matter.

b) What's it going to though? You could forget about it but there's no benefit to doing so

c) The conversion happens before the audio is sent out of your system to your DAC.

d) The Music app gets and sends out a 44.1k signal to the system, so MacOS would be doing the conversion

You'd be better off leaving the Audio MIDI at 44.1k, but you could just forget about it. In general you dont want the system handling the upsampling since it was designed for compatibility and not necessarily fidelity.

Think of it like this: You have an 1080p TV, and your computer you're casting to has a 1080p movie. You then have the OS upscale to 8k, then cast it to the TV, which then has to convert it to 1080p again. Its extra steps that can only add noise to the picture since its being altered so much. Or say you have a 4k TV that has some new internal mode for AI upsampling 1080p blurays to 4k: you would want the TVs technology to handle it and just send it the original 1080p file, and not scale things up on your computer to bypass it.

 

[vddobrev]

I am tired of having to resolve to external tools as LosslessSwitcher to perform the basic function of Apple Music App - to play lossless audio to HDMI receiver in the same rate/resolution as the source. Why can't Music app play in exclusive mode and take control and switch rate/resolution?

I am currently exploring TIDAL and Roon. It is a pity I have so many purchased albums from Apple and I cannot download them in lossless DRM free format - only 256Kbps is DRM free.

This is certainly the way Apple loses a customer.

 

[cubbie5150]

I am tired of having to resolve to external tools as LosslessSwitcher to perform the basic function of Apple Music App - to play lossless audio to HDMI receiver in the same rate/resolution as the source. Why can't Music app play in exclusive mode and take control and switch rate/resolution?

I am currently exploring TIDAL and Roon. It is a pity I have so many purchased albums from Apple and I cannot download them in lossless DRM free format - only 256Kbps is DRM free.

This is certainly the way Apple loses a customer.

I feel you. Unfortunately, there are way more customers who don't care about such things than people like us. Apple obviously doesn't feel compelled to address this.

 

[Lvivske]

With LSS it's not much of a big deal. I'd rather download a 3rd party plug-in than a 3rd party entirely new app just for 1 feature.

 

[vddobrev]

@Lvivske It is not one feature, it is the complete package that counts. With LSS, each time the song changes, there is interruption, i.e. LSS is re-adjusting rate and depth. Also, I have to always stream because LSS does not work with local files.

Decided to move to Roon and possibly subscribe to Qobuz. So far, Roon fulfills all my needs - play lossless music in multiple zones. And I may even forget about Apple Music app as a player, as it is so flawed.

As far as purchased music through Apple Music - oh well, if they only make it downloadable at 256 kbps, then be it, they lose me as a subscriber. I will forget it, re-purchase the albums from Qobuz (mine forever) and be done with streaming.

 

[Airsculpture]

For me, Lossless Switcher seems dependent on the setting in Audio Midi and cannot be changed either automatically or manually unless you go to Audio Midi settings, which kind of defeats the object of having it (for local files).

In my circumstances, a slightly, and I mean slightly, more convenient one is DACorum. You still don't get auto switching but it's conveniently in the menu bar ( I'm using iTunes on Ventura ).

For my true auto switching needs I use Colibri player which DOES do auto switching without the need for manual intervention.

 

[Lvivske]

For me, Lossless Switcher seems dependent on the setting in Audio Midi and cannot be changed either automatically or manually unless you go to Audio Midi settings, which kind of defeats the object of having it.

not sure what you mean, it does what it says - switches automatically without having to go to midi to do anything manually