SoundCloud API: sorting by hotness using the created_at filter does not work

Question

I am trying to identify the hottest tracks in the range from May 1, 2012 to May 10, 2012.

Unfortunately, the following query returns an empty set of tracks:

http://api.soundcloud.com/tracks?limit=20&order=hotness&created_at[from]=2012-05-01&created_at[to]=2012-05-10&consumer_key= 

However, it is clear that there are tracks created in this time range because the same query works when the order parameter is omitted:

 http://api.soundcloud.com/tracks?limit=20&created_at[from]=2012-05-01&created_at[to]=2012-05-10&consumer_key= 

I was hoping that the hotness algorithm would work in any time range.

Another strange thing I discovered is that when the query parameter is set along with the hotness and created_at parameters, the results are returned:

 http://api.soundcloud.com/tracks?limit=20&order=hotness&created_at[from]=2012-05-01&created_at[to]=2012-05-10&q=a&consumer_key= 

Unfortunately, the results do not seem to be sorted by ardor (although I think they may have been at some point in the past).

Any tips on how to get a list of tracks sorted by heat over a specific time interval?

Answer 1

The hotness parameter was deprecated as of April 16, 2013. Alternatively, you can rank tracks based on the number of songs ( playback_count ), downloads ( download_count ), favorites ( favoritings_count ), comments ( comment_count ), likes ( likes_count ) or reposts ( reposts_count ) on the track object.