solo and riddim guitar problem... feedback please!

Hey wikiloopers!

I have been thinking to offer the guitarrists another choice when declaring their remixes:
Untill now, you could choose between acoustic (classical) guitar and electric.
Next step would be to differentiate between "Solo/Lead" and what I would call "rhythm"-guitar.
When you get a guitar offered as optional remix, the guitar-Icon should show a little "S" for solo or "R" for rhytm, so my idea so far.

Now two questions for you:
First: since I'm not a native english speaking person, please let me know if the choosen terms are self explanatory (wasnt sure about "lead"...).
Second: There still remains the problem, that it is most interesting to know wether a S-guitar is soloed to the last second, or wether there is a solo, but much space for another one... Hope you know what I mean.
So this is where I think we need anoher differentiation wihin the solo-guitars, but I dont have a clue how to declare that, especially not when thinking of the guitar icon... best idea so far: show a guitar with "S" for all full, and "S+" for space left, HEEEEELP!

thanx!

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Edited by Dick on October 03 2011 17:10

... wondering why this distinction would be useful?
I believe, the search engine results would be better if you could choose tracks with room for soloing...
right now, the system does a hard cut, everything with more than 3 musicians is not a backing track no more... still, there are sessions with drums, bass and one git, that are soloed up to the maximum, no sense to offer as a backing (there were complaints ;))
So if we put some more thought to track declarations, it will be much easier to spot a jam needing a great solo. Thats the idea, for the three-musicians-cut is a quite stupid thing the longer you think about it.

Ok I think I understand. Honestly I have always just made a mention in the comments of the track I upload of whether I solo all the way or just in a certain part. I think an indicator would be good, but I don't know if its worth the trouble for you....

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Hi Dick
My English is bad and I take a program to help. So, if something sounds funny then please do not be surprised.
My question is, why all divide into "solo" and "Rhythm"? You can hear everything and depends on. (also left box to the right box you can hear)
At a session of one never knows what the other wants to do.
.... maybe it's a good idea if you created a template for direct song ideas. Projects with clear ideas separately.
greeting

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as a bassist, I just use the "no bass" filter, but that does not really work with guitar players looking for a backing track, I'm affraid -
and if you have to listen to 10 better guitarrists' solos before finding a strum-along song, you might feel depressed before getting started, lol

it may not matter for one browsing for fun, but when looking for a practise-backing I think its relevant

das musste mir noch mal auf deutsch verklickern. Mein Übersetzungsprogramm hat so blöd übersetzt, Sry:|

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I don't feel this would be useful at all.
the distinction between rhythm guitar and solo guitar is not always clear! Sometimes I have uploaded a track with some soloing plus passages with chords for a backing.
Or sometimes a one-note line fills the function of a backing. Like the "montuno" in latin guitar: a repeated set of single notes underlining the chord structure. Also we should not have too many categories.
Let's not do like our government: to solve a problem they make it always more complicated.
And if a track needs a solo guitar or not is question of taste.

And: we have so many tracks with solo guitar AND still space for another sologuitar.

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Edited by Lutz on October 03 2011 19:06

hmmm. I do understand the way you look at this - you are taking the point of the artist that needs to decide into which box he's going to fit while none really does.
I try to look at it from the point of someone trying to find what hes looking for with the search engine (which does not use track comments analysis) - as long as you are happy with your search results, I wont bother :)
Any more opinions?

After your last comment Dick I totally see your point. It would be useful for someone just searching through the tracks. It would save time, instead of having to open each track and listen and read the comments they can see on the main search results. I would use it, definitely.

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Sometimes a guitarist will add both a solo and rhythm in different sections of the same track. I see no need to specify solo or rhythm. I think it might add to confusion.
And I have no problem understanding anyone's English in this thread. Thank you all for your efforts, and apologies for not understanding Deutsch.

OK, I have slept over this for another night, let me do one more attempt to make my point :)
I'll try to keep it simple in my explanation, so I'll offer you an example:
fresh user Bob is a guitar player looking for blues tracks he can jam along to.
First, he looks via search engine, filtering by style"Blues" - what he'll get as first ten jams (looking it up right now), OK, so there is
1034 in top position, feat. RobH on guitar... now thats a song so packed with Robs great solo, Bob doesnt feel like he can add something on top of that.
So back to the search results... bass & drums results sound a little naked to Bob, he'd like to have some strummed guitar to fill it up, so he goes for the next offered blues with guitar.
So he ends up listening to more tracks featuring Dannys Solo skills... not what hes looking for either...
lets say, Jacob did a rythm guitar remix to a blues, just strumming along. That would be the one Bob is looking for, but, since Jacobs rythm guitar didnt get a lot of thumbs, it will be shown as jam 32 on page three of the resuls list - and Bob might not want to dig this deep and prelisten to 31 Sessions.

We could make it easier to spot exactly the kind of jam you are looking for, if guitarists would declare their remixes to be either:
A: a jam with solo and rythm parts (guess that would be most)
B: a jam with rythm guitar, solos welcomed (like the straight reggae or metal shredding stuff we've got)
C: a Solo jam not really leaving space for another guitarist

I do believe, it should be possible to give an assumption, into which of theese three your jams fit - if you dont like to specify, you may stick with option A and all is well.

Since so many where against complicated stuff, lets say you dont even get to see what the user choose when listening to jams, all guitars looking like they did before, and ONLY on the search engine there would be an option to filter using this criteria...
I think Bob would love that, and it would not bother anyone much.

My personal expectation would be, that tracks that are declared with riddim-git will get more remixes, for they are easier to find that way, and if you are working on your solo skills, this is what you will go for instead getting depressed on some other users skills ...

I tried my best to avoid nailing the artist down too much, sure dont want to put a break on creative flow (a rule like "NO SOLOS BEFORE THIRD REMIX" would be a no-go-way of solving the same problem), so I hope you can agree on this.
Like I said, it would be offered as optional info within the ulpoad formular, if you dont like to choose an option, it will be sat to "A" automaticly.
What do you say now?
I bleive in this idea quite strongly, imagine there being 5000 jams on here, it wont get easier to find the jam you are lookin for...(thats why I keep saying: use your thumb!! user ratings are the best way to keep things in order!)

thanks to all following this discussion!

let me add two thoughts - I love RobHs Bluestrack, same about Dannys guitars, dont get me wrong friends!
And, if the majority of you is sticking to the feeling of "not too many rules please", I'll respect that. Dont want to be pushy on this, just trying to come up with ideas how to maintain the collection in order.

One thing is right:
wikiloops needs a good search system for people like Bob. Namely for the time when we will be 2000 musicians with 12 000 remixes.
I can see now your Idea, Dick, I think this is helpful, and will make search a little bit more effective - even though the way of creating on wikiloops will always be a bit anarchistic, free, less structured - which is also what makes it special

most of the time a solo is on top of a song.
if there is a melody guitar, sax or something like that playing important scales for a groove it is something different from a solo.
isn't it possible to say from now on we allow solos just for musician 5 and 6 in a session . Not as a rule just as a direction.
Just like, lets do solos on top of a song. Or don't do a guitar solo before you made a rhythm guitar
Because I think the most users want to jam to a backing at home and now they could kick the solo by kicking the last musician, who isn't important for the basic groove.

That would be a easy solution to get the jams more backing track like.
But it is also cool to share solo parts with different musicians on backings and stuff like that, so wikiloops would probably loose some great ideas and individual notes of the users.
I hope you understand what I mean. But it would be an easy solution to get the tracks usefull as backings

Totally different idea. But Engineer style :-)
An area for backings and an area for total song creation, where you can use the backings to present your idea. If you want, in cooperation with other users like solo part sharing and things like that. I mean, where you can create a complete song with vocals solos and everything.
This would change the idea of Wikiloops a little bit, but would make it richer on possibilities
But I think my idea is too complicated. That was meant by engineer style :)

ciao pete

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Edited by Pete-Silence on October 04 2011 19:09

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that's the point Lutz. I'm enough addicted to hear nearly every song, but I'm afraid for 2000 musicians with 12 000 remixes.
and then we need a good search

sorry i forgot the easiest way, like Lutz said, in my words: "let it roll this train ain't gonna stop anymore !!! "
let's play and look what happens. :)

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Edited by Pete-Silence on October 04 2011 19:14

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OK,
I had another nights sleep on this (yeah right, a few nights) and started coding on a system that will allow a little more distinction -
if you choose to upload a guitar track, you may then select one of theese three options:
strict rythm guitar (for tracks craving a solo-git)
free jammin git (with space for some more guitar)
solo-git (no need for more guitar action in this track)

within the search engine, there will be another dropdown thats only shown if you search tracks without guitar.
basic setting is "strictly no guitar" (thats what it was till now),
but "allow tracks with rythm guitar" and "show tracks needing another solo" are added as fine-tuning options for searching guitarrists.
Got it working OK so far (still lots of beta testing needed)
right now I'm dealing with the following issue:
as I said, you will be able to choose your guitar declarations for new uploads yourself, soon - but with the 1.20X sessions we have so far, theese info needs to be added afterwards...
I was thinking to ask the guitarrists to do this themselves, but that would lead to some chaos and people sending me PM with tracklists and additional info... I dont really see it happening,
so I'm going to code a little flip-thru gadget to take me from guitar-jam to guitar-jam and try to add theese categories myself.
I'm really not keen on that job too much, and I really dont feel like playing the judge here, but I hope you will be OK with my choices once beta-testing is on. I'll do my best, and I'll rework the system until it brings you results that make sense, promised.

for all thoughts and suggestions on this, thak you very much!
@pete, since you took time to ellaborate some ideas on this:
Of course, a rule saying "no solo before position 5 and six" would fix the problem, but that wont work on here. People are in creative flow, and not every song needs four instruments to be ready for a solo... it just wont work (lets be honest, who of you read all the rules before posting your first track? see!)
about your second idea, the engineer-style (?!):
I hope I understood you right in this, let me tell you what I understood:
You are saying, it would be nice to be able to present a song you recorded, and ask the wiki community to record another version of this song, following the structure and layout you presented? That makes sense to me, and yes, there is no corner in wikiloops for theese presentations so far.
My question: Would a forum area with allowed file attachments do the job? Lets say, you post your rocksong in a thread in the musicians forum, asking people to rerecord this track with you?
That would be an easy way of doing this. Another alternative (if its a song you dont want to share with the world) would be doing it within a private band - you could upload your preproductional track as a template there and start the recording on another template (rules are loose within band projects, since no-one but you has to understand what you are doing :))
and third:
just letting the train roll... now thats a comment likely to make it to my secret "funny comments on the wikiloops project"-list :)
I am glad this train is a rolling, no doubt, but I want to see it rolling around the globe, growin, uniting, and staying the nice way it is. If I let it roll, here come spam and trolls, we'll be lost in music we dont want to hear and this will become a dump-place for anyone needing free webspace to share music... I've seen great web-projects die within a few months, just because their train took the wrong direction and no-one dared to pull the break. It may sound strange, but I feel responsible for this site in a very personal way, and I have to do the best I can just to show respect for all the music and time you guys are putting into this... lets let creativity roll, but stay on track :)
you guys are great, you really are! thanks again, and feel free to comment on anything I've said.

@ lutz: I would declare that montuno-git as rhythm, its not strummed, but its a basic structure kept up thru a song.
thats why I asked if rhythm guitar would be a good term to use, basicly I'm trying to differentiate "structure giving"-tracks from "free solo/impro/leadmelody"-tracks... I hope thats not too difficult to understand. We'll see, I think most guitarrists have already adopted first uploading background, then solo as another track, so it wont be much of a change.

just set the new search page in effect - hope you'll like the results :)
Changes are the auto-renew on set filters and the addittional no-guitar finetuning filter shown when no guitar is selected.
I think it does help a little... hope you think so too :)

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Edited by Dick on October 15 2011 17:33