A manufacturer of synthesizers and electronic music equipment from about 1975-1985. Originally founded as Octave Electronics by Carmen Bonanno. Its first product was the Cat, a performance synth similar in concept to the ARP Odyssey. However, it both improved on the Odyssey in several respects (such as suboscillators for both VCOs), and it cost less. This made it a sales success, enough so that ARP threatened to sue, but that went nowhere. The improved Cat SRM, launched in 1977, including a duophonic keyboard with sample and hold capability for both the upper and lower control voltages, an unusual feature. This meant that when the keyboard was played in duophonic mode and one key was released, the VCO associated with that key would continue to sound the pitch of the released note, instead of jumping to the note still being held. Few of the 1970s synths with duophonic keyboards had this capability. Octave also offered a one-VCO, stripped-down version of the Cat which was named, naturally, the Kitten.
In 1979 Octave bought Plateau Electronics, a synth service center, and took Octave-Plateau as the combined name. This had no immediate effect on the product catalog, but Octave had some research work up its sleeve. In 1983, the company introduced the Voyetra Eight, a radical departure from synths of its era. It was an 8-voice polyphonic synth based on SSM integrated circuits, and it was packaged into a rackmount format. To play it, one needed to also buy the VPK-5 keyboard, which was the first MIDI controller keyboard. A monophonic version, called the Voyetra One, was also developed but did not make it to production. The Voyetra Eight was a very capable synth, but it did not sell well, in part because it was expensive -- about $6000 with a VPK-5, in 1983.
The lack of sales for the Voyetra put the company in a financial crimp, and in 1985, it decided to change direction. The company developed Sequencer Plus, the first successful MIDI sequencer package to run on an ordinay personal computer. At this time, the company decided to adopt Voyetra as its company name. Voyetra Sequencer Plus went on to sell millions of copies. The company continued to develop sequencer and audio processing software packages, and also made a business out of developing driver software for the early PC sound cards. Voyetra's sound card drivers were bundled with computers sold by many of the large PC manufacturers, resulting in a long-lasting stream of royalty revenues.
The company merged with Turtle Beach in 1996. It has stopped all development of music products; today it focuses on products for gaming and multimedia audio.
