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Message: [QUOTE="Queen, post: 90558, member: 27"] [SIZE=17px][COLOR=rgb(15, 15, 15)]FabFilter extended Pro-Q 3 and Pro-L 2 to Dolby Atmos 9.1.6 layouts back in December 2021, though the AAX builds still stop at 7.1.2. That gap between formats is the honest version of plugin support. One developer, one plugin, two different ceilings depending on which wrapper your host loads.[/COLOR][/SIZE] Most producers assume the opposite. Steinberg's own Cubase documentation told users that any VST3 plugin features multichannel support and can be used in a surround configuration even if it was never designed for one, and its forums have spent years pointing out that this is not what happens in practice. Drop a stereo-only VST3 on a 5.1 track, and it processes left and right. The other four channels pass through untouched, with no warning anywhere in the interface. The VST3 specification explains why. A host proposes a speaker arrangement to the plugin, and the plugin can accept it, adapt to something close, or fall back to its own default and report failure. Nothing forces it to say yes. The plugin's answer settles what happens inside the bus, while [B][URL='https://goldmidi.com/community/threads/most-daws-still-fight-you-over-multichannel-routing.75948/']the ceiling each DAW puts on bus width[/URL][/B] decides how many channels ever reach it. [HEADING=2]The link button lies about what it links[/HEADING] Pro Tools users get bitten in a specific way. When Avid describes multi-mono plugins as linked, it means parameter linking and nothing more. Move the threshold on one channel and every other channel's threshold follows by the same amount. The detection circuits stay separate. Metering tests show gain reduction moving independently across channels while the controls track perfectly, because each instance only listens to its own audio. Panned material gets squashed on one side and left alone on the other. Now scale that to twelve channels. A vocal ad-lib flown into a single overhead triggers gain reduction in that one instance while the bed sits at full level, so the object drifts backward in the image every time it peaks. The fix is old and boring. Sum the channels to mono, feed that sum into the sidechain of every instance, and let one detector drive the whole thing. Compressors, limiters, gates, and expanders all behave once you do. [HEADING=2]Reverb is the one processor you cannot chain[/HEADING] Chaining stereo plugins across channel pairs works better than it sounds. Three instances cover a 5.1 bus, the first taking channels one and two, the second taking three and four, and so on, with the routing editor deciding which pair each instance sees. EQ survives this. Saturation mostly survives it. Instance count climbs fast, though, because a 7.1.4 bus needs six stereo instances of anything you chain, and every one of them is another set of controls to keep aligned. Reverb does not. A true surround reverb runs every channel through one algorithm, so the tail describes a single space. Three chained stereo reverbs give you three unrelated spaces playing at once, and the illusion falls apart the moment a sound moves between them. Dedicated tools exist for that reason. LiquidSonics Cinematic Rooms covers layouts from stereo up to 9.1.6 in both editions, with the Standard at $199 and the Professional at $399, the latter adding surround editing planes and its own dynamics section. Paying once for a reverb that understands the format beats rebuilding the same room three times and hoping the seams do not show. [HEADING=2]Wrappers now do what hosts never bothered to[/HEADING] Fiedler Audio released Armada in April 2026, aimed squarely at this problem. It wraps VST3 plugins for immersive use at up to 128 channels, covering 9.1.6 Atmos, NHK 22.2, higher-order ambisonics, and Auro-3D, and it sells for $249. The channel count is not the useful part. Armada offers global sidechaining and parameter linking across instances, which removes the manual mono-sum routing entirely, and its OBAM version can run a full Atmos mix through one instance. The engine is multithreaded, which starts to matter around the fortieth instance of anything. [B]Wrapping a stereo processor for immersive work[/B] is still a compromise, and it deserves to be read as one. No wrapper invents multichannel intelligence that the underlying algorithm never had. It can link detection, distribute processing sensibly, and stop channels from falling through the cracks, but a stereo reverb inside a wrapper remains a stereo reverb. The test takes two minutes. Route pink noise to one rear channel of a wide bus, insert the plugin, and watch which meters respond. Anything that stays still is not being processed, and no amount of format branding on the product page changes that. [/QUOTE]

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