Apple Music rewriting Metadata info?

Questions
1

Hey Everyone,
This is just a heads up. It affects my use of Djay Pro in the sense that I make up my mixes on the fly and use the metadata (genres, comments) for my search in both the DJay Pro music collection and the Apple Music folder in the Tree view.

So if DJay Pro is not getting the correct metadata info, it’s not possible to search accurately within the Apple Music view.

I would like to suggest that Algoriddim reach out to Apple Music since they have a close relationship with them.

The issue: I change the metadata to my needs (Genre, Comments, BPM, etc) and Apple Music is changing it back automatically to something more generic, as well as changing the BPM (often doubling or halving it) and erasing the Comments.

When I click Get Info and go to the dialogue box that pops up, and then close it, the metadata returns to how it was. But until I do that, DJay Pro reads it as the generic version (“Dance” instead of say “Tribal House”), thus limiting my ability to search.

Is anyone else experiencing this? I made a movie that I can upload to either a Google Drive or Youtube if required.

Thanks for your help

3

Hi @djantona, thank for the info.

  1. What version of macOS and djay are you using?
  2. Please upload your video to Google Drive, enable sharing permissions and share a link to the video here. I’d like to forward this to engineering to see if they can replicate this. Thanks!
5

Hi again @djantona, I’m just following up on my message from a few days ago. The engineering team needs this information so they can try to replicate your issue. Thanks!

  1. What version of macOS and djay are you using?
  2. Please upload your video to Google Drive, enable sharing permissions and share a link to the video here. I’d like to forward this to engineering to see if they can replicate this. Thanks!
1 Like
6

Hey Slack_Jaw,
Just got this, thanks. I’m in the busiest period of my season, with contracts almost every single day all over the Province, each with their own distinct criteria.

Here’s the requested info:
Mac Ventura 13.6.7
DJay Pro: 5.1
Apple “Music” app: 1.3.6.14

Link to video:

[Apple Music changing metadata – Google Drive]

Let me know if you need something else?
I can make a video with more details, and even a voice over if required.

I guess the engineering team would have to download the album shown in the example, change the metadata, and see if it happens for them? For me, it was when I clicked on the song to play it. I thought it was changing it to what Apple thought it was, and was undoing it when I clicked Get Info.

But now I am trying it with some older songs and it seems that Apple has already changed the songs metadata, and clicking the song to play it changes it back to what I had originally entered as metadata. It’s happening very predictably; like if I click 10 songs it will happen to a good 50% of them. Sometimes it changes the Genre, sometimes, just the BPM. Sometimes both. Usually with fairly well known songs, or songs they sell, but also with WAV songs I bought elsewhere.

It doesn’t seem to make sense as a theory, -as it’s Apple changing it to what it thinks it should be (based on it’s database, as opposed to my local one) but I’m wondering if there may be some local database corruption that is playing into this? Especially if no one else is able to reproduce this behavior?

Most recent example happened with Damian “Jr. Gong” Marley, “Move!”. It’s a well known song. You might want to try it with that one as well. Change the metadata, close the app, wait some time, and see if it’s changed? If not, click to play and see what happens?

Thanks for the follow up,
Antonio

7

I had the same issue years ago with Serato, I had a big and well organized library on iTunes that was even “automated” via the smart playlist feature of that software (basically I could populate the playlists by simply adding a word in the comments and/or a star in their five stars charts Sistem). I went through a free Apple Music subscription of three months and it messed up everything :man_shrugging: i.e. a track that was in a “Kick and Snare Indie Dance 5 stars” playlist because it had 5 stars, Indie Dance genre and “ks” in the comments, turned into a generic Dance track without comments and shit… and I’m talking about tracks I had purchased from their store​:man_shrugging:
I believe there’s no solution for this, I’m creating my playlist by drag and dropping tracks now

3 Likes
8

Thanks @djantona. This is very helpful. I’ve passed it onto the team for further review. I’ll report back here if they have any follow up questions or suggestions.

9

Heya,
Thanks for replying, and good to know I’m not the only one this happened to!
Such a crazy thing, eh, to have your metadata overwritten? I don’t know if this is related to me being an Apple Music subscriber or not. I can only work the metadata in the Music app on my computer.

10

Hi @djantona, sorry for the delayed response. I heard back from engineering and they are wondering if you have "Automatically update artwork for imported song” option set in iTunes/Music? If so, can you please try disabling it to see if that solves your issue?

image
image1189×377 82.6 KB

11

Hey Slack_Jaw,

Excellent try from the team! Unfortunately, even with this setting unchecked, it is still changing/adding a BPM and occasional Genre that it thinks is correct?

Most recent example: “In My Secret Life” by Leonard Cohen was changed from Pop to Rock, and the BPM was changed as well.

12

Thanks for the requested info and video @djantona. This is very helpful! I’ll forward it to engineering for further review.

13

You’re most welcome, Slak_Jaw. I appreciate you and the team being on top of our concerns.

I posted another video, in the same place as last time:

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/10NnTRSQ4f-0Me85S1RDa7iWU6UBoieiD?usp=sharing

The settings were as requested:

Automatically update artwork and metadata unchecked
Automatically update artwork and metadata unchecked1264×782 75.1 KB

14

@djantona

I’m curious:

  1. Are you currently subscribed to Apple Music?
  2. Do you have “Keep Music Media folder organized” :ballot_box_with_check: checked?
1 Like
15

Thanks again @djantona. I’ve shared this with engineering.

16

Hi @djantona, I spoke with engineering:

For testing purposes you could try creating a new Apple Music database by launching the Apple Music app whilst holding down the option key, and picking create library:
image

Then add some of the affected files/albums and see if the same editing problem occurs with the new library file.

1 Like
17

Hey Michael,
Yes to both…

1 Like
18

Hi Slak_Jaw,
While I was not able to replicate this in the new library with the files previously shown/mentioned, it did happen again with two songs. In one case, it changed it from what I had entered as a Genre to what it originally had been when downloaded from the iTunes store [changed from “Midtempo” to “Dance”]. In the other case, it changed it from what the iTunes store had it categorized as, back to what I had changed it to (just by double clicking the songs to ‘play’ them); [changed from “Music Francais” to “Sensual Latin”].

It was much more stable, but then again, I only had a handful of downloaded songs in this library version; the vast majority where cloud/stream versions.

It was set to Sync Library and Automatically Update Artwork for Imported Songs was unchecked.

19

Thanks for the additional info @djantona

20

You’re most welcome. Really appreciate the support of the team.
I have a video, but it will just show what I’ve described. Very curious situation…I will also be speaking with Apple.

1 Like
21

Hi @djantona, engineering is recommending that you try disabling this setting:

image

22

Hi @djantona, I’m just following up on my suggestion from 2 weeks ago. Did this solve your issue? Thanks!