Octave-Plateau Electronics

Octave-Plateau Electronics, a manufacturer of synthesizers and electronic music equipment from 1975-1986, was founded in 1975 as Octave Electronics by Carmine 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 was significantly more affordable. As a result, it became so successful that ARP sued Octave in an attempt to slow sales of the Cat by claiming that the Cat duophonic keyboard infringed on their patent. However, the suit was eventually dropped because Octave presented prior art that showed the duophonic keyboard concept predated the ARP patent.

The improved Cat SRM, launched in 1978, included a new 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 merged with 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 1981, the company introduced the Voyetra Eight, a radical departure from synths of its era. It was an 8-voice polyphonic synth packaged into a rackmount format with a remote keyboard which connected to the Voyetra rack module via a common XLR mic cable. A monophonic version of the Voyetra Eight, called the Voyetra One, was also developed but did not make it to production. Instead, the company released a software editor that ran in DOS on the IBM PC. 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) but mostly because the Yamaha DX-7 digital synthesizer (introduced in 1983) decimated the analog synthesizer business.

The lack of sales for the Voyetra Eight put the company in a financial crimp, and in 1986, it decided to change direction. In 1984, the company had developed Sequencer Plus, the first successful MIDI sequencer package to run on the IBM PC platform. In 1986, Octave-Plateau changed its name to Voyetra Technologies and became a music software company. 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.

Voyetra Technologies acquired Turtle Beach in 1996 and became Voyetra Turtle Beach. Today it is a publicly traded company named Turtle Beach Inc. and focuses on products for gaming and multimedia audio.