Wikiloops Radio And Catalog

I've been contemplating the idea of internet Radio lately. I used the wikiloops Radio page fairly often when I first started loopin', but nowadays, if I wanna listen, I'll tend to listen to tracks I've contributed to, albums based on genre or musician, or simply the latest posts.

Basically, the point to this post is that the wikiloops catalog is immense and the radio section seems to me to be on 'needs work' side of things.
I don't listen to the radio much, and remember vast stretches where the same sets were up. There's a wealth of listening hours stored on the site and the mechanism for easy of use tasks like radio listening.

Any folks here get to contemplating the radio site here, I bet there'd be some people who would be interested in creating sets of music as a side hobby using that huge back catalog. Something like that would help me keep my nose out of commercially run radio sites. I realize that Dick pretty much codes the whole project himself, has a family, jobs, and that discussion of undertakings like this just kind of 'stir it up'. I suppose part purpose of the forum is for folks to voice opinions, ideas, and that's why I am posting this.

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Good to hear from you Michael. Some of us had made a lot of comments about the radio and prospects before it actually appeared. My hope was for it to be a window to the outer world of wikiloops. That wasn't to be and it has remained an internal function. The tracks are supposedly selected by an algorithm, but I don't know how often it is renewed (something only Richard can answer?).

When Wikiloops became relatively invisible in google searches for "backing tracks" I thought that it would be a good time for the radio station to go out into the world, but that didn't happen. So it (IMHO) has never been optimized for what I think was its potential.

The site is 100% owned/controlled by Richard, so all decisions/changes are strictly his to make.

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Ive mentioned before that itd be cool if members could have their own radio stations and play DJ....id call mine Radio Tu <3 I would choose my fav jams perhaps evening add spoken voice introductions etc and you could refresh it as often as you like. :D

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Good idea Tu. The reality is that if you are attempting to take Wikiloops to the outside world it requires consistency in terms of being available/visible/audible all the time. It also takes Richard's permission (possibly something you can work on?).

The reality is having enough funding to set it up (a separate web site) plus either a bunch of volunteers or a lot more funding. I guess it's possible to just automate it all, but that then looses the personal touch...and DJs are (for whatever reason) very popular. I've always believed that there is a large volume of original music here which is vibrant and completely different compared to the commercial crap one hears. It's well within the realm of possibility to find a fairly sizable appreciative audience. That could include many venues who would would value presenting their clientele/customers with fresh new music instead of the crap one hears most of the time.

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I'm glad folks are interested in extra creative ideas.

I wonder if someone can create albums of other peoples material.
One could create a dj set by uploading spoken voice breaks as new templates. Then create an album called 'Tu's monthly picks' (can we delete albums?). Using of course, those tracks of others and the voice breaks.

This would be a great way to communicate esp. given present social restrictions.

The voice breaks would clutter up the new upload trough somewhat, but if album deletion is possible, then it is possible without code alteration.

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#106200 check this out

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Sweet and nice with good intent to get people talking and making them feel comfortable.

A very nice intro for newcomers, but would have needed promotion by being sent to any new members, Not likely they would find this on their own.

Back to the radio?

We already have an internal radio station. Sounds like some of you would just like to re-vamp that and make it a bit more personal, which is a good idea. Hard to know how much it's used/appreciated as it is. Would it have more use/appeal if it had "features" like the suggested DJ show as another channel? Maybe.

Seems like it could be a good time for a survey/poll to ask members about several things. However we must always recognize Richard owns this site and ultimately makes the decisions.

A poll example:
1. How much time do you have to listen to other's tracks?
2. Do you feel like you would spend more time if there was a DJ radio show as part of the site?
3. Would you like to have your music that's currently on Wikiloops played and promoted to a wider audience outside of Wikiloops?

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Some more brainstorming about internal wiki radio. (That's using existing code inside the user login.)

Album collections might work given existing code. But, what would certainly work would be a show uploaded just as if a standard new template.

Since both album collections and mostly finalized mixes can be download, someone
interested in a showcase of tunes, voice breaks, and carts could easily upload a finished show after recording a stream. I won't spell out in detail how it could be managed, but I can imagine several ways this could be done.

That the uploaded file would be much larger than the usual tunes is the only possible deal inhibiter I can come up with.

This is something I might do: work on a show over a period of months and upload 'MikeB's Best of the Loops-June-July' or something.

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I posted this and have gotten no feedback, thus far.

https://www.wikiloops.com/backingtrack-jam-220692.php.

Hmm.

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