State Your Favorite Underrated Track

I've come across a few jams on here that seem to be lacking thumbs. Sometimes due to the volume of uploads and the way the world's time zones are, tracks get overlooked. Some tracks are just harder to find with the search option than others. Some wikiloopers have more followers than others. So go ahead and let me know - what is your favourite jam you think deserves more thumbs? Can't be one of your own. Make sure you give your reason why you think it's awesome.

Here is one I've come across. JonJon on 53514. Great rock track with fantastic guitar riffing in the context of a complete composition with many changes. Great stuff!

- Slim

There is a lifetime of music here like that. The shelf life of a collaboration is very short. 24-48 hours on average.

Wikiloops is primarily a jam session with a focus on today. Most tracks as a "product" are forgotten and archived for the random adds through the years.

The albums are the best way to give old tracks a chance to at least be previewed for a few seconds. Coming to terms with the fact that most of our recordings are useless and forgotten after a few days is part of getting the most out of Wikiloops as a daily jam session.

I disagree with that. My tracks get remixes over and over again. Never stops. A really good initial song template can really last a long time here.

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Edited by Slimdaver on January 19 2016 08:40

Maybe I'm in a minority (not unusual). I feel that there's no hurry in joining any track or that there is a shelf life to these. If you post a good add then it's out there for others to hear, comment on and add to as well. I don't think I've ever put up an add to a track in less than three days. Many are months old or older.

I download heaps then as time allows go through and add to as many as a dozen in one sitting. Editing takes considerably longer. It's never a single track at a time process. Even after editing I don't put these back up as soon as done.

I play instruments that are of minor interest to most, so putting up more than one track a day ensures that few will listen. The number of fine players is increasing all the time and it's not like we all have extra time to listen to more. So being realistic it seems that the majority are (in order of numbers) guitarists, bass players, drummers, vocalists, synth/composing, and keyboard players. It's natural that each is most interested in other players on the same instrument or complimentary instruments to jam with. Minor instruments like harmonica, brass, sax, etc. have limited appeal which dissipates in inverse proportion to the amount on offer (more tracks = less listens). So, I've got tracks sitting around that I dribble back without any thought for how fresh the track is. Would it get more listens if posted in less than 24 hours of the original template? I doubt it.

Might be time to stop and think about this. Is there some advantage/reason why a track has to be acted on immediately? Is this site just a musical tagging format? Hard for me to consider it that way as I'm hearing so many tracks that are very high quality. Maybe that can be done quickly, but is there a REAL imperative for haste?

We all need egos to bother to do anything. Playing music or entertaining in any way is certainly about sharing what you do with others. Some (for whatever reason) deny this and think it's not about pleasing others and just self expression, but then why share it? We won't go there...

I’m sure the observation is correct about many adds taking place immediately after a template is posted. From my own experience it seems to me that an add will get a listen no matter how long it’s been since the template was first aired. The only way I seem to get fewer listeners is if I’ve posted too many and exceeded what the majority will bother listening to (as a minor instrument).

Cody is an example of this. He produces fantastic work regularly. When he posts four or five in a day his listener count and comments crash. That may or may not matter to him as he’s so prolific. I’m not so prolific but still produce more than I can realistically post and have a good airing/listen/response.

Open question: given that (in my experience) it makes no difference how soon one posts an add, would this site (or the music therein) be better or worse if everyone took more time and had less of a tagging attitude?

Wade, I agree with most of your comments. I try to take my time, and I actually LOVE finding old forgotten tracks and do something with them...and the thing about the number of listeners/likes has a lot to do with how popular someone is, and a lot of factors that are not always related to the quality of the music. I have seen wonderful tracks here that had 6 likes, and other pieces that were very mediocre getting double digits. The way I see it, I love playing and mixing and what not, and I upload it if I think it is half way decent. I just love burrowing in the dark corners of the Wiki loop archives :D . I haven't got a good sample at hand, but I will post it here when I find one :)

Girard, Wade, TG, you guys are all correct. All valid points, and reminds me how cool this site is. Every musician can approach how they use this site differently. You have to thank Dick, for allowing that freedom at very little cost to the musician.

Let me know of a favourite incomplete track. Might be impossible to name one? There are many.

I'd just like to also point out how cool it is to chat like this with other musicians. You're all great, and if you're not, you're trying. Why? Because you're here. - Slim

Cheers Dave maybe I'll just post some tracks I have liked here. :)

Slim,

great question and great discussion. The Loops really is unique. What might be more pertinent and easier to answer question is, "Who is your favorite musician who you think doesn't get enough thumbs,"?
I live in Myanmar, and have tried posting songs at different times to get the most exposure. It never made a difference, I always seem to find my sweet spot of likes, sometimes a little higher or lower. It seems my level of popularity/exposure is pretty consistent. I think it is also true that the more you jump on songs doesn't mean you get more thumbs, and sometimes the opposite. One last thing, I to like to go back and jam to old songs, and I think the site would benefit from more people discovering as well and giving new life to songs. Hopefully the albums help this happen.

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It's great to step away for a few weeks, then come on and just take your pick of new collaborations. I also like to sometimes dig deeper into the archives, but the Albums thing intrigues me. I haven't seen that yet?

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Hi Wade, You made some good points. And I'm with you, I'm never in a hurry to jump in on a post. I like to take my time and really get the feel for a song first if it inspires me to want to add something to it. I don't completely agree about sax and some other instruments not being as popular. I think it's more of some instruments not being as compatible with the music most are posting. Over the years I've played with some very talented musicians. But it always became clear no matter how good they were, the less diverse in the variety of music they listened to. The less able they were to hear in their head and incorporate other instruments into their own music. And far to often most of the guitarist I've known get in what I call the genre rut. They will only play in one genre which limits their creative thinking. Most guitarist who loved Jimi Hendrix music would not believe that he listened to classical composers. In his own words..."I dig Strauss and Wagner" and listened to them often between his own concerts. One can only wonder just how much that music inspired his own. But I believe he was a master because of it. Anyway, just wanted to share a few of my thoughts. Stay cool...

As a bassist, I personally look for jams through the "tracks without bass" filter and don't care one single second about the date they have been uploaded or their popularity. I'm just looking for tracks that inspire me something, play along a lot of them, record very few and upload only some of them (it's a matter of skill and level mainly, I'm still a beginner). So the question of the lifetime is not involved in my case. In the contrary, I can be attracted by "forgotten" tracks.
Besides of that, I wonder if some musical styles are more "in the hurry" than others, and maybe relatively to the public getting involved. Metal and classical are not inspiring the same musicians (there are exceptions, of course).
Last point : I simply forget to thumb tracks ... Shame on me :(

Oh, by the way, the results of the searches can be listed by date or by rating. Maybe a "random" listing could be interesting, also ?

Being new to this site I have just posted my first template and so was wondering what the "shelf life" would be of it before it disappeared into obscurity. I was interested that 24 to 48 hours was mentioned which I found somewhat disturbing as it leans towards the transience and superficialness of Facebook. This is definitely something I personally don't like to see which is why I don't have a FB account any longer. I will definitely be perusing the back catalogue of songs to download and play with but in my time, and when I can devote the attention to it that a good mix deserves. To rush headlong into a jam is what some will do I'm sure although I don't know any members habits or situations to judge them one way or the other. For me the pleasure will come from finding those hidden gems and adding my little bit for no reason other than the delight of playing with someone else in whatever style. Obviously others will have a different lifestyle to mine and some will spend all their spare time sitting in front of the PC or in their own studios bashing out mix after mix...And why shouldn't they if that's what they can do, but for me I think it will be collaboration and the delight of finding others to crafte a song from thin air with or finding that little old track that I "think" I can add to.
You can't rush a good tune

#42259

42259 is an excellent example. Cool heavy metal track. Thanks.

16027. Quirky, genius.

Hey Scrumpy. No worries. You'll find if you decide to take your time you will still find it rewarding. The email notifications work great if you are busy at a job etc. You don't have to continually check the website to see what is going on with your track. - Slim

One thing i noticed is that the time a track is exposed on the start page is very short. Just few hours, and getting shorter as the number of memebers and their activity increases.
Maybe we should think of different ways of presentating. And maybe supporting members should have some advantage.

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Slim, #42259, just liked it, but would you say that is a underrated track? Seems to have a decent amount of likes and views...

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Agree, and this was always going to be a problem. In anthropology there are lots of studies that look at social groups and how large they can get before splintering or splitting. For now it may become cliques of followers who listen to each others music and ignore the 100 other tracks that might be posted each day. We each only have so much time to listen and create music. For most of us this can't be expanded. The categories are there, but I find that my tastes run towards quality rather than genre.

Group social dynamics are rather "organic" so hard to predict other than knowing that large numbers (as you point out) can and will eventually force changes. Those changes can be directed, or left to develop in their own way. I'm not sure that Richard is ready to cut off or handicap members who are not supporters (although that could be one answer). His vision is very altruistic. Whether this blinds him from those social (group) realities that are coming up we'll have to wait and see. Giving the feedback directly to him may at least make him aware (he probably doesn't bother reading these forum pages).