Octave Cat

About

Cherry Audio’s Octave Cat synthesizer emulates The CAT duophonic synthesizer unleashed by Octave Electronics in 1976. Developed in partnership with The CAT’s original designer, Octave Cat retains all the growl of the original hardware’s fat, savage sound and replicates its aggressive resonant filter. Octave Cat features the flexible modulation, screaming audio-range oscillator cross-mod, and fierce oscillator sync of the original hardware, and extends it with expanded polyphony, a robust integrated effects suite, and a versatile dual-step sequencer.

In the early 1970s, portable synthesizers were a rarity, and only a select few musicians could afford the legendary Minimoog or ARP Odyssey synthesizers. 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.

Features

• All aspects of the original CAT precisely modeled in exacting detail
• Over 300 presets
• Dual Panel Views with an authentic Main view for synthesis controls, and an additional FX/Seq panel with extended features
• Monophonic, duophonic, and polyphonic (up to 16 voices) voice modes
• Unison for mono and duo modes
• Two distinct VCOs with discrete wave, modulation, S+H, and sub octave settings; VCO1 with saw, triangle, and pulse with PWM, and VCO2 with square and saw waveforms
• Vintage-correct four-pole 24 db/oct filter, based on the original “cascaded OTA” SSM2040 filter with precise replication of The CAT’s unique resonance
• Accurate reproduction of the original’s Transient Generators section with two envelope generators: a standard ADSR (attack/decay/sustain/release), and an AR (attack/release)
• Sample and Hold with VCO1, VCO2, or Noise as source, with Glide that slews the voltage steps for smoother transitions
• User-selectable Bend Depth, Octave Shift, and note Glide
• Tempo-syncable LFO with onset delay
• White noise generator
• Classic-style dual-channel, eight-step sequencer, independently assignable to oscillator pitches, filter cutoff frequency and VCA amplitude, with tempo sync, quantization, and keyboard transpose
• Studio-quality integrated effects: distortion with tube and fuzz, 2/4/8/12-stage phaser, flanger/chorus, three syncable delay types, and five reverb types
• Selectable original “Mark I” or later-style “SRM” skin
• Standalone virtual instrument and plug-in versions included
• Channel pressure and polyphonic aftertouch as a polyphonic modulation source
• Support for MIDI Polyphonic Expression (MPE) -- Pitch, Channel Pressure, and Timbre -- making Octave Cat capable of more organic and expressive performances when using MPE-compatible controllers
• Complete MIDI control and DAW automation for all controls, with easy-to-use MIDI learn and mapping
• Cherry Audio’s popular Focus zoom-in feature, as well as standard UI zoom and resize via drag
• Complete documentation available directly online from the instrument or in downloadable PDF format
• User-adjustable oversampling control
• OCTAVE CAT is available in AU, VST, VST3, AAX, and standalone formats.