| Notes | The Voyetra-8 (Voyetra-Eight) is an eight voice polyphonic analog synthesizer. Released in 1982 by Octave-Plateau Electronics (later renamed Voyetra and still later merged with Turtle Beach Systems to became Voyetra Turtle Beach, Inc.), it was one of the first analog programmable synthesizers to be rack-mountable and remains one of the most flexible digitally controlled analog synthesizers.
The Voyetra-8 has 8 separate programmable analog voice cards. Each produces one voice of the maximum 8. It can store 100 "Voices", and can play either one 8-voice sound in Whole-8 mode, a different 4-voice sound on each half of the keyboard (or on different MIDI channels) in Split mode, or two 4-voice sounds per note (which could both be the same) in Layer mode.
The keyboard mode, key assignment mode, two selected sounds, and a number of parameter trims and tweaks (such as octave shift on either Voice, detune, and cutoff frequency offset) are stored as a "Step". The instrument can store 100 Steps. Generally, a performer will call up Steps, not Voices, during live performance; each Step will call up two of the Voices and tweak them for the song to be played.
Each voice has two VCOs, one VCA, one 24dB/octave lowpass VCF, two LFOs, two ADSRs, noise generator, sync VCO 1 to VCO 2. (More detailed specs follow.)
The specs belie the complexity of the sound architecture, because of the great deal of control the programmer (and the player) has over various aspects of sound production, including key assignment modes, modulation routing, and envelope parameters.
Polyphony - 8 voice
Oscillators - 2 VCOs per voice (saw, sine, sqr, pw)
LFO - 2 LFOs
Filter - 24 dB/oct low pass resonant filter with ADSR
VCA - 2 ADSR envelope generators
Keyboard - 61 note remote keyboard (velocity + aftertouch)
Memory - 100 patches
Control - V-bus (or MIDI on many models using XLR connectors, few used standard 5-pin cables)
Date Produced - 1983 - 1986 |
