Can iTunes Match recognize songs recorded from analog sources (line-in, cassette, vinyl LP, or FM radio), or only digitally-extracted CD audio

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This question about converting cassette music for an iPod inspired me to ask:

Can the iTunes Match service provided by Apple recognize songs recorded from an analog source, such as recording via analog line-input from a cassette player, an LP turntable, or any other device's line-out .. say, even FM radio?

Has anybody tried a variety of analog sources with iTunes Match? Was there any success, mixed or otherwise, or no success?

What is publicly known about the iTunes Match analysis process or algorithms, and knowing how those may function, is it reasonable to expect that the service would work on an analog recording as well? Other than quality, is there something inherent to music extracted/ripped digitally from a CD that lends itself to easier analysis for matching?

UPDATE: I found this thread at Apple Support communities which contains strong anecdotal evidence that audio recorded from vinyl LP can be matched. I'm still interested in knowing if other sources can be matched as well (cassette, FM radio, etc.)

Best Answer

Analog Source over Line-In → iTunes Match:  It works!  Kind of.

I just ran my experiment. While I don't have a cassette player handy, I did have the means to make a reasonably good quality analog recording to try with iTunes Match, as follows:

  1. I used this old CD player:

    KOSS CD player

  2. And this excellent CD:

    INXS - X

  3. I plugged the CD player into my Windows* PC's blue audio input (line in) with this cable:

    3.5mm male to 3.5mm male analog audio cable

  4. I recorded the entire CD using EAC's "Record WAV" feature. Then, I split up the resulting single, large WAV file into individual WAV files (using EAC's "Process WAV" menu item.) I judged the track boundaries by eye/ear, and I ended up within a second or two of the actual track lengths reported elsewhere.

  5. I compressed the WAVs into MP3 using EAC w/LAME.

  6. I renamed and copied the resulting MP3 files to my Mac.

  7. I added the MP3s to iTunes, and then added them to iCloud. After a few minutes, iTunes Match finished doing its thing, and 10 of 11 tracks were Matched. Proof:

    iTunes Match worked successfully on 10 of 11 analog-recorded tracks

Summary

It doesn't appear that a strictly digital-sourced (i.e. ripped) MP3 input is required for iTunes Match to succeed (somewhat) at matching. However, I did make sure line levels were appropriate during recording to avoid clipping, and though my recording was analog, the source is high quality.

What I still don't know is if iTunes Match would work with audio cassette, LP, or FM-sourced audio. Does anybody care to run a follow-up experiment? :-)

* (my apologies for using Windows for the recording part of this experiment. I'm not yet familiar with audio recording/editing on the Mac.)

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