Penteo 16 on Sound Forge 14 - works!

[JonUrban]

(Due to an unexpected turn that deserves its own thread someday) I did a clean install of Win10 on my music pc, which meant that I had to reinstall everything as my backup was from from a RAID set and I wanted to go back to AHCI. Like I said, long story. Anyway, in doing so I decided to upgrade my Sound Forge to the latest version along with all of the reinstalls of everything else. Once I was done I wanted to see if Penteo would work with the new Sound Forge. So, I tried it, and it worked, but it's really convoluted compared to the integration with Reaper. For $60, just get Reaper.

Anyway, here's how it works. Of course, I may be doing it wrong, but this is my finding.

FIRST: You have to take your stereo file and paste it into a 6 Channel wav file, putting the stereo channels in the fronts.

STEP 2: Open the FX drop down and select Penteo 16:

STEP 3: Run the plugin. The progress bar at the bottom of the screen will fill as it runs. It's pretty quick.

STEP 4: Now I ended up with a 4.1 file in a 6 Channel wav file, but the channels were in strange places.
The Fronts were in 1 and 2, the rears in 3 and 4, the LFE was in 5, and channel 6 was empty as the placeholder for the not used in 4.1 center channel

So, it works, but not well. Just thought I'd share this info with y'all!

 

[J. PUPSTER]

Very cool Jon!

STEP 4: Now I ended up with a 4.1 file in a 6 Channel wav file, but the channels were in strange places.
The Fronts were in 1 and 2, the rears in 3 and 4, the LFE was in 5, and channel 6 was empty as the placeholder for the not used in 4.1 center channel

Did you go back into the Penteo Settings (the little notched button under the power button) and set the Output channel selection to the right sequence?

 

[JonUrban]

No. I left it at default. I am sure that will work though. I just never got around to it doing all of the "reinstalling" of everything, crossing my fingers that all of the licenses would work!

 

[JonUrban]

JP, it works perfectly - of course. I should have thought of that.

So, I can say that it works, but I don't think there is a batch mode like Reaper. So for a one-off, it's convenient for sure just staying in Sound Forge, but for a list of songs like when you're doing an entire album, it's no match for Reaper.

 

[J. PUPSTER]

JP, it works perfectly - of course. I should have thought of that.

So, I can say that it works, but I don't think there is a batch mode like Reaper. So for a one-off, it's convenient for sure just staying in Sound Forge, but for a list of songs like when you're doing an entire album, it's no match for Reaper.

I'm still using Audacity (just know it best) and the Output order still isn't correct for Audacity as the center ends up at the bottom and I have to move it (easy-drag it & drop it) just below the fronts. But I don't think Penteo is configurable other than the few set options they provide?
Also whenever I have to shut down Penteo and re-boot my NUC (rarely do) it seems to go back to that first Output option which usually catches me off guard

 

[JonUrban]

One thing I noticed in SF is that whenever I start the Penteo plug-in it begins in default settings. There is probably a way to fix that but I haven't looked for it yet.

Sometimes, I know, it pays to look at the documentation - - but why start now?

 

[HomerJAU]

You can save your Penteo settings and make them your default (in Penteo)

 

[HomerJAU]

BTW: I reported the 4.1 channel order error to Penteo a couple months ago. But it looked like the support person wasn’t clear it was a problem even though I sent 2 emails with multiple screen shots. I never got a reply from my 2nd email so I figure it was ignored.

Their first reply said I hadn’t set the correct output channel order in Penteo but my initiating support email clearly showed I had set the correct order set: L R C LFE Ls Rs... (LFE before surrounds).

The Penteo Tool in MMH fixes that when you select a preference option setting. It copies tags from the input stereo WAVs to Penteo MCH FLACs, renames FLACs to ‘Track. Title‘ and remixes the channels (if preferences set and input FLACs are not 6 channel). All in batch mode.

I usually UM multiple albums using Reapers Batch mode, then run the MMH Penteo tool to auto tag, rename, remix in batch on all album folder files.

Edit: With Reaper and MMH I can do about 30 albums in a day, upmixed and tagged quite easily.

 

[JonUrban]

.......Edit: With Reaper and MMH I can do about 30 albums in a day, upmixed and tagged quite easily.

You are a "lean, mean, upmixing machine!"