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MARK II

Mark II began as a completely separate alternative to StreamCycle. My original idea was to have guests in Zoom, capturing their audio separately via the browser application Cleanfeed. I would layer up my audio on top and apply a delay filter to the guests video in OBS and viola, we're in sync. Before long I realised that I could potentially layer up more than one player using this method.

The real breakthrough came when I realised that instead of sending a stereo signal down the chain, via Audiomovers Listento plugin, I could set up each player's DAW with 5.1 surround sound. That way we could layer up individual mono signals into the 5 separate channels in the master signal. And voila, I was able to mix the audio at the end of the chain. 5.1 became 7.1. After that... the audio routing got pretty ridiculous to be honest.

We were now able to send guide and click tracks into ghost channels that got replaced by the real thing. Guests were still able to go live from their smartphone into a private Facebook group where I captured it and piped it to the start of the chain. It was far from perfect of course, and I don't deny the gigs were be riddled with problems that we needed to troubleshoot on the spot. Players' individual internet connectivity was a big factor. So was the CPU processing ability of players' individual machines. One damaged or broken link in the chain and it all came crashing down. It was still incredibly difficult and treacherous. But it was something. And it was potentially something that could inspire, entertain and comfort.

That's something.

***UPDATE***
08/04/21

After weeks and weeks or research, experimentation, trail and error and error and error, the original Mark II model proved perhaps more difficult than its predecessor. Yes, it has relieved the strain on the musicians' computer systems but, by doing so, put an unmanageable strain on the master/director system ie my own.

We were finally unable to pull of our original vision for Mark II. However, we did create something else, a live-overdubbing method like no other and we were able to showcase it at our concerts all the way through till the end of our programme. Nobody said it was gonna be easy....

Thinking back now, it's remarkable the lengths we went to to create music together, the boundaries we managed to push, the barriers we broke and the edges we blurred.

***UPDATE***
23/05/21

After a bunch of successful streams and a few not so successful, we announced that we're ready to take things to the next level and start looking at the early stages of development for StreamCycle Mark III. Over the 3 months of Mark II concerts we'd made some great strides forward, and also come up against some really challenging questions. We suspended all gigs and focused on taking things even further.

Mark III, though it is yet to be officially launched, has now successfully increased player count, improved audio/video quality further, make mixing much more manegable, maximised player and viewer experience, and focused on finally nailing the audio/video 'sync'.

StreamCycle remains incredibly grateful to each and every viewer, subscriber, supporter and fan.

When we're ready to delve back into this deep, dark world again, we'll see you then, maybe in the future, maybe in the past... X

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