If you do much work with surround or immersive formats, upmixing and downmixing are a fact of life. With Penteo, good results needn’t cost the Earth.
Penteo is an upmix/downmix plug‑in that started life way back in 2012 as a stereo to 5.1 upmixer. It quickly became something of a standard in the world of film and TV audio, and has since expanded to include many more channels and features to make it just as useful in today’s multi‑format immersive‑sound universe.
Penteo is available in three versions: Penteo 360 ($299) offers 5.1 upmixing and downmixing to 13 audio formats; Penteo Pro ($499) provides 16 channels of upmixing and downmixing to 43 audio formats, so can be used for Dolby Atmos formats up to 9.1.6; and, finally, Penteo Pro+ ($799) allows you to work with up to 64 channels of upmixing and downmixing to an impressive 62 audio formats, and is the version I was sent for review. (There’s a helpful comparison table for the three versions on Perfect Sound’s web store.) Formats are divided into Stereo (stereo LFE. LtRt), Surround (3.0, 3.1 through to 7.1), Atmos (2.1.2 to 9.1.6), Immersive (Auro 9.1 to 13.1 and DTS:X 11.1), 360 Audio (Sony 5.0.2+2B to Sony 7.0.7+2B and Cube 0.0.4+4B) and Ambisonics (AmbiX first‑, second‑ and third‑order, FuMa first‑, second‑ and third‑order, and UHJ 2, 3 and 4 formats). All the plug‑ins support macOS (running on Intel or Silicon processors) and Windows 10 and 11. They’re available as AAX, AU for Logic (up to 7.1.4) and VST3.
Getting Started
A pretty self‑explanatory GUI makes it simple to get going fast, but there are some ‘beneath the hood’ options and some things you might need to configure, so it’s definitely worth reading the manual or watching some of Penteo’s helpful YouTube tutorials (www.perfectsurround.com/videos). For example, on first inserting an instance of Penteo on a stereo track, I noticed a shift of signal to the left. That didn’t seem correct, but on further investigation I discovered that in the settings pane you must select the in and out channel order to suit your DAW workflow. By default, it’s set to ITU (L, R, C, LFE, Ls, Rs, Lr, Rr, Lw, Rw, Ltf, Rtf, Lts, Rts, Ltr Rtr) but Pro Tools, which I usually use, uses the Film layout (L, C, R, etc). In and out channel order can easily be changed and stored as a new default, so it’s something you need do only once, but it serves as a good reminder to look over the manual!
The main controls are shown in the centre, with the input channels displayed on the left and output channels on the right. Audio always flows from left to right whether you’re upmixing or downmixing, which in my opinion is the logical way to approach it. Controls are available to adjust Centre, Lss‑Rss, Lsr‑Rsr, LFE, and Upper. Each set of controls is colour‑coded, and the colours can be changed in the settings pane if they’re not to your liking. Each control has a few options or parameters that can be adjusted, helpfully displayed in the same colours. So it’s pretty simple to see what’s going on.
Input gains can be adjusted individually by dragging the thick fader‑like line at the top of each channel. The channels also feature a level meter, keeping the GUI concise and clutter‑free. Grabbing the triangle icon to the right of the input level display allows you to adjust all the input channels together. The input section also allows soloing and muting of each input channel as well as a digital value display at the bottom.
On the output side things look very similar. One difference is as default here, all the levels are ganged together. This is deliberate. One advantage of Penteo when upmixing is that it guarantees ITU downmix compatibility (more about that later). Obviously, that’s going to fall apart if you start changing the levels of the individual output channels but, if desired, selecting the gain button above the output section will allow you to tweak the...
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