To preserve the legacy of this iconic synthesizer and provide today’s music producers with an ideal tool for production, Cherry Audio has added another life to The CAT with the introduction of Octave Cat. The CAT synthesizer remains an iconic piece of music technology, representative of Octave’s legacy of groundbreaking innovation and a relentless drive to make audio and music technology accessible to all.īe sure to see our fascinating exclusive interview with Carmine Bonanno recounting the incredible inside stories of The CAT and Octave Electronics, from his earliest days at Syn-Cordion to his views on the future of synthesis! Octave Cat: A Curious Collaboration Some of the biggest names in electronic music have used The CAT, including Devo, Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark, Dave Greenslade, Split Enz (notably for the keyboard break in their hit track, 'I Got You'), and, more recently, The Prodigy and The Chemical Brothers. It also caught the attention of more affluent musicians, who praised its exceptional performance and versatility. The result was The CAT synthesizer - an elegant and easy-to-program monophonic/duophonic synthesizer that offered an innovative combination of features including cross-mod, configurable sample and hold, extensive modulation, dual sub-oscillators, combinable waveforms, two types of oscillator sync, and a lowpass filter with uniquely powerful resonance.Įven more revolutionary was the 1976 introduction price of only $599 - a game-changer for musicians who couldn’t afford more expensive alternatives.

Recognizing this, a small group of engineers in New York led by the brilliant 22-year-old Carmine Bonanno decided to shake things up and create affordable synthesizers with innovative features, giving birth to Octave Electronics, which later became Octave-Plateau™.ĭrawing from his own designs for a modular system, Bonanno and his team set out to create a synthesizer that was not only accessible to up-and-coming musicians but also boasted groundbreaking features. In the early 1970s, portable synthesizers were a rarity, and only a select few musicians could afford the legendary Minimoog or ARP Odyssey synthesizers.

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