Blue Cat Patchwork 16-Channel Update: Revolutionary Feature, Frustrating Bug

In this video, I explore the recent update to Blue Cat Audio's Patchwork plugin, which now supports 16-channel processing—a significant advancement for immersive and spatial audio production. While the audio industry might seem quiet lately, developers have been quietly updating their plugins with multi-channel capabilities that enable configurations up to 9.1.6 or third-order ambisonics. I demonstrate how Patchwork's new 16-channel support can integrate multi-channel beds into Dolby Atmos Composer sessions within stereo DAWs like Ableton, showing the practical workflow using Cinematic Rooms reverb and the Fiedler Audio Beam plugin.

Unfortunately, I discovered a significant bug in the effects version of Patchwork that limits it to only 8 channels, at least on Mac systems, despite the 16-channel specification. The instrument version works correctly with all 16 channels, proving the feature is technically implemented but currently broken in the effects plugin. I've tested this across multiple DAWs (Ableton, Bitwig, Studio One, Reaper, Cubase, and Pro Tools) with consistent results. While I expect Blue Cat Audio will address this issue soon, I recommend testing Patchwork on your specific system before purchasing. Despite this current limitation, the 16-channel update represents a valuable development for anyone working with immersive audio formats.