Blackhole Immersive and MicroPitch Immersive

[Samazar]

I am not a mixing or mastering engineer but love listening to all my 2-channel music via a classic upmixing codec in my home theater processor called Dolby Pro Logic IIx. Some people here may even know of Logic7 developed by Harman which is even better. I am hoping that the Eventide Audio technical team know of these upmixing codecs or hopefully; fellow members of this forum have used them in the past.

Let me explain my objective. I want to be able to invest in hardware (Mac Mini / Mac Studio), good basic interfaces and a DAW just to run the right plug-in that can automatically upmix any 2-channel source to 7.1 channels (or Atmos formats). Let me explain further for the sake of clarification; I want to be able to use a preset in the plug-in or fine-tune a setting and save it as my own custom setting. This will be done only once and never be touched again, I should then be able to listen to all my music which the plug-in will upmix to 7.1 for music listening purposes.

If I can get or better the results provided by Pro Logic IIx and especially Logic7 then that will be fantastic. To be honest, I don’t like the other upmixing codecs available in AV processors and Receivers such as Dolby Surround, Auro 2D/3D and DTS Neural Upmix so please don’t suggest those alternatives. Actually, Pro Logic IIx and Logic7 have been discontinued, coders tried to replicate their effect but could never achieve it effectively because their steering algorithms were never made public.

It’s time to upgrade my system and after a bit of research I came across three plug-ins that seem to be able to do what I want: Penteo, Halo and Blackhole Immersive. I learnt about Blackhole Immersive and MicroPitch Immersive recently via a forum. Penteo seems like a comprehensive solution, Halo has a really nice interface and Blackhole Immersive seems to be simple yet quite capable for my purpose. Is Balckhole immersive a stem based system just like Penteo and Halo?

This is how my workflow needs to be:-

Music Streamer (Spotify, Tidal, Local Library) –> DAC unit (RCA in and Out) –> A good basic interface –> Apple Mac Mini or Studio running a DAW just to run the Plug-in(s) –> Connected to an AV Processor via HDMI-in from the Apple device –> connected to Active speakers.

I presume the crossovers for the lower end will be set in the AV processor. Furthermore, the levels and delays can be setup at the AV processor level.

I need the system to be simple to set-up and reliable in terms of not crashing or having to restart it every now and then.

Any input from fellow members and talented mixing and mastering engineers will be appreciated.

 

[ndeshpande]

This user and I have already discussed some of these high level needs over on gearspace, however I want to open an avenue here for other users to chime in. Additionally, if more people express interest in such use for Eventide Immersive, that can inform how we tune the presets (or even adjust the algorithms) under the hood in future updates. So I want to open up a discussion for other users to chime in here on similar use cases.

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