New Music Gear Monday: PerfectSound Penteo 360 Upmix/Downmix Plugin

Back when I was actively mixing 5.1 surround projects, I could always count on getting a few projects where they couldn’t find the multitrack tapes. As a result, we’d have to resort to different ways of upmixing a stereo track to 5.1. Life would have been a lot simpler and the results much better if PerfectSound’s Penteo 360 was around. The upmixer/downmixer is currently a lifesaver for engineers everywhere that have to deliver different formats but are hindered by lack of assets.

Used on feature films like Aquaman, Jack Ryan, Solo, The Lion King and many more, Penteo 360 supports 16 input/output formats from stereo up to 7.1, plus 1st and 2nd Order Ambisonics, Sony 360RA, and binaural. Unlike typical upmixers that rely on phase tricks, Penteo’s patented phaseless process ensures clarity, depth, and translation so that mixes sound exactly as the mixer intended.

Today it’s super important for every upmix you create to be be able to be downmixed back to the original as accurately as possible. This might be for broadcast compliance, archive delivery, or repurposing content across platforms, but it’s a must these days. Penteo delivers a 100% ITU Downmix back to any source.

Easy To Use

The plugin consists of an input and output section with up to 8 channels for each. It’s fairly simple to use in that all you have to do is play the stereo input track and Penteo gives you a fader to adjust the level for the center channel, rear surrounds, and side surrounds if needed for 7.1.

There’s also a separate LFE (Low Frequency Effects) section giving you the ability to adjust the level, the cutoff frequency, and even diverge some of the low frequencies into the left and right channels.

Add in 3 center modes, Rear Shelf and Rear Diffuse controls, 3D visualizer, and even Facebook/YouTube360 presets, and you have a plugin that will do it all when it comes to upmixing and downmixing. Plus there’s even a binaural headphone monitoring mode if you need to do an upmix but aren’t in an immersive playback environment.

Penteo 360 is $299, but if you need more control of Atmos upmixing/downmixing there’s Penteo Pro for $499. It’s available for Mac and PC for Pro Tools and VST3 certified DAWs, which include Nuendo, Reaper, Pyramix, Resolve, Ableton Live and Cubase Pro.

You can find out more here, or watch the video below for more details about how it works.