Octave-plateau Electronics Inc. family ad, Keyboard 1981

Octave-plateau Electronics Inc. family of gear advertisement including Catstick synthesizer controller, and "The New" Kitten II and Cat SRM II synthesizers from page 39 of Keyboard Magazine 1981.

I'll get to the advertisement in a second, but first - can you believe it? Go to start the computer to scan in this ad, and my computer wouldn't boot. And I haven't backed up any of my scans for about four months. *Panic*

I did manage to get the computer going again, but a reminder to everyone - BACK UP YOUR STUFF!

I've haven't spent as much time blogging about Octave/Octave-plateau ads as I have with some of the other gear companies such as Moog or ARP. But, there is a bit - so, some history first.

Octave's first set of ads in Contemporary Keyboard were... well... very original with their enjoyable custom illustrations, and then they did the musician-photo thing for a while. But it wasn't until Plateau joined the team that they started to focus more on the gear in the photos.

And now with this rare advertisement, I've jumped a little bit ahead in the Octave-plateau time line because I like this ad so much. As far as I can tell it only appeared once or twice in Keyboard (I'm missing an issue here and there during this time period).

Normally I would be bloggin' all over this ad - there is just so much to talk about. The messaging, the gear photos, even the font used in the title "Second Generation Technology". But, as I was flipping through issues to see just how often this advertisement ran in Contemporary Keyboard... er... I mean Keyboard magazine...

Wait? What?

Yes, July 1981 was the issue that Keyboard Magazine dropped the word 'Contemporary' from their name. And not only that, they also dropped the 'All Styles - Amateur and Professional' tag-line as well. A tag line that had been positioned above the magazine title for quite a while.

I decided it was time to look back at the evolution of the Contemporary Keyboard masthead.

Here's a summary of the evolution:

November/December 1975

March 1977
Thickened up 'KEYBOARD' type-face. Widened the flair in the
stem of the 'Y', much like the fashion in pant legs at the time

October 1977
Added the keyboard keys image on far left

August 1978
Changed 'The Magazine For All Keyboard Players'
to 'For All Keyboard Players'


April 1980
Removed 'For all Keyboard Players' from the top right,
and added 'All Styles - Amateur And Professional' above
a much smaller 'CONTEMPORARY' type-face

July1981
Masthead changed to 'KEYBOARD' and stem of the
'Y' is narrowed (skinny pants are back in style!)

It's really interesting to see the slow change over time up of the CK logo (until the big 'Keyboard' change in July 81. One of my theories is that as the cost of technology continued to drop, more and more amateur musicians were able to afford gear. Add that to the fact that synthesizers were becoming more and more common in music as well. And although CK had included the tag "The Magazine For All Keyboard Players" since the very beginning of the magazine, I'm thinking the magazine wanted to make sure that the growing number of amateur musicians were being recognized on the cover, without loosing sight of the 'professional' musician either.

But, the big change to 'Keyboard' in July 1981 was the most interesting of them all. Most people I know called it 'Keyboard' magazine anyways, and simpler usually is better. This final change makes total sense.

The communications professional in me always wants to know the reason behind big changes, so I thought it would be interesting to see just how the magazine positioned the July '81 change with readers. I was sure Jim Crockett, the publisher of CK at the time, would mention something in his monthly introductory column.

But when I took a quick look at the 'From the publisher' piece, I surprisingly found NOTHING related to the change.

Could the magazine have dropped 'CONTEMPORARY' in the name without a mention anywhere? That would never happen in today's world. The change would probably be a trending topic on Twitter, and a Facebook group devoted to bringing the original name back would have been created in under 24 hour of the mag hitting mailboxes. Maybe even before.

I contact Jim Crockett, now part of Dameron Communications, to ask him about the changes, and although he doesn't recall the reason behind the April '80 change, it turns out that from the very beginning he wanted the magazine to be called 'Keyboard':

"I originally wanted to call the mag Keyboard, but a tiny mag for teachers had that line tied up as a part of its title (which I don't remember). So I went to Contemporary (smaller type face) Keyboard until their copyright/trademark expired (or maybe the publication itself did). As soon as I was permitted to, I dropped Contemporary and got the name I originally wanted. I never mentioned it, hoping it wouldn't stir up any legal snags."

Excellent! If you look at Jim's columns, there is some evidence that the name change was on its way prior to July. As late as December 1980, Jim was referring to the magazine as 'Contemporary Keyboard' or 'CK' in his column. But in early 1981, he started referring to the magazine as 'Keyboard', even though the title was still officially Contemporary Keyboard.

Possibly even more interestingly, two other subjects came up in his publisher's column that month:

1. Jim mentions that Keyboard and sister Guitar Player magazines were selected as two of the five finalists in the hobby magazine category of the Maggie awards. He gives us a great statistic as well - that music is 'more than a hobby for 2/3 of' CK's readers. Not sure if that bodes well for my theory that a lot more amateur musicians were reading the magazine. Hmmm...

2. Jim announces that 2,000 randomly selected subscribers would be receiving a detailed questionnaire asking for their opinions about the publication, musical preferences, equipment and vital statistics. Change was definitely underway in the industry, and Keyboard wanted to make sure they were remaining relevant to their audience.

I did look back a bit further at some of the other masthead changes to see if there were any mentions in the magazine when they occurred. In the April '80 issue, when the 'All Styles - Amateur and Professional' tag-line was added, publisher Jim Crockett does slip it in to his column:

"You may have noticed that our cover is a bit different this month. You didn't? For shame! We spent hours working on it. The cover story is a more important CK first, though..."

Nice segue! :o)

Anyways, time to run. And I guess I never did get around to blogging about this ad - just got too into the CK history. I'll have to save that for another day. Now it's time to go enjoy the weather and think about a better back-up solution for my scans.

Octave Electronics CAT SRM reference sheet, 1978

Octave Electronics CAT SRM fact sheet from around 1978.

This fact sheet isn't in the best condition, but I had to post it for a few reasons.

First, this fact sheet contains A LOT of great reference information - all in one document!

Second, a while back I did a blog post on the Cat and Synth meme that has existed on the Web for quite some time. Well, this definitely has to be one of the earlier photos of a cat posing with a synthesizer. :o)

The third reason I posted this fact sheet is because it contains no date on it, and I'm having a hard time putting a time-stamp on it.

But I think I have narrowed it down a bit. Here's my logic in giving it a 1978 date...

This fact sheet references Octave as a division of Syn-Cordian. Octave also included this line of text in the CAT SRM ad that ran from December 1977 - March 1978. The next CAT SRM ad doesn't show up until August 1979 and that later ad references Octave as a Division of Plateau Electronics. So, it would make sense that this fact sheet was probably created sometime between December 1977 and August 1979.

Also, usually fact sheets will take on a bit of the personality of the rest of the marketing material. This fact sheet definitely doesn't have the look of any of the advertising done by Octave before March 1978. No synth hero or illustrated stylized cat synthesizers here - just a good solid close-up of a CAT SRM (WITH A REAL CAT!). Sure, a fact sheet SHOULD have a close-up the actual synthesizer, but if it was part of any earlier advertising, I would have expected some graphic elements to cross over. So, I can probably narrow down the publication date to sometime between March 1978 and August 1979.

The opening text in the fact sheet also gives us a clue - the first sentence suggests that the synthesizer is relatively new:

"The CAT SRM - the newest addition to the CAT SYNTHESIZER FAMILY from OCTAVE."

If this fact sheet had come out later in the CAT SRM's life cycle, it probably wouldn't have introduced it as the 'newest addition' to the family. So, I'm thinking we have a fact sheet that was created some time earlier in the CAT SRM's life. Probably early- to mid-1978.

One thing is kinda throwing me for a loop though. This fact sheet is part of the Home Demo Kit that appears in the CAT SRM and Kitten ad that ran from August 1979 until February 1980 (you can see it peaking out from behind the record in the bottom left image in the ad). That ad references Octave as a division of Plateau Electronics - so either this fact sheet was re-printed later on with new affiliation information, or they must have had a lot of old stock on hand.

End note: This fact sheet also throws out another term near and dear to my heart - the term 'Human Engineered' in the second sentence of the fact sheet. Octave's major rivals ARP and Moog were using similar buzzwords in advertisements and promotions around this time period. I've blogged about ARP using 'Human Engineering' in a number of ads and newsletters including these ones from 1974 and 1976. Moog used a similar term - 'Musical Engineering', including in this ad from 1977. It would make sense that competitors of ARP and Moog would also try and pepper some of their promotional pieces with similar buzzwords - and it looks like Octave definitely did.

Octave Electronics Kitten and Cat SRM ad, Contemporary Keyboard 1980

Octave Electronics Kitten and Cat "SRM" synthesizer ad from page 67 of Contemporary Keyboard Magazine February 1980.

Octave Electronics took what looks like a 16-month break from advertising in CK before running this ad from August 1979 until February 1980.

The ad itself is quite different from all previous Octave Electronic ads - and it is all good. For the first time in CAT advertising history, you actually get to plant your eyeballs on AN ACTUAL CAT SYNTHESIZER! All past ads (going back more than two years), either used an illustrated representation of a CAT synthesizer or small and blurry synth-hero photos that didn't really give you a good idea of what a CAT synthesizer actually looked like.

This ad not only features a great view of the CAT SRM and Kitten synthesizers, but for the first time also includes a free offer for a 'home demo kit' featuring a demo-record, reference sheet, patch blank and product literature. Oddly, there isn't a cut-away form of any kind to fill in your name and address to actually send in for the offer - but I almost don't mind since it makes more room for that large lovely photo.

A hint to why Octave Electronics may have drastically changed its advertising strategy is visible near the bottom of the ad. If you look closely, you will see that the address of the company has changed to 928 Broadway, New York. More importantly, you will find this text in very fine print - "Division of Plateau Electronics Inc."

That's right! We are witnessing the beginning of the first of the mergers, acquisitions and name changes that eventually turned Octave Electronics into the company known today as Voyetra Turtle Beach, Inc. And with many mergers often comes shifts in marketing strategies.

The full history of the company is available on their current Web site, but this paragraph in particular sums up the first merger:

"In 1979, Octave merges with Plateau Electronics, a prominent synthesizer repair facility located in downtown Manhattan, the center of NYC’s music district. The company is renamed Octave-Plateau Electronics and, in addition to manufacturing synthesizers, becomes a popular synthesizer maintenance facility for professional musicians and recording studios in the NY metro area."

So, this ad came out after the merger, but before the actual name change to Octave-Plateau.

Almost as interesting is the fact that the current President & CEO, Carmine J. Bonanno, was the founder of Octave Electronics in 1975 - that is 35 years in the biz!

In case you didn't notice - I actually posted this scan back in February 2009 without a write up. But, since becoming obsessed with Octave Electronic ads, I thought it deserved another post so I could include a bit of my latest research :o)

Octave Electronics Inc. CAT SRM advertisement, Contemporary Keyboard 1977

Octave Electronics CAT SRM advertisement from page 41 of Contemporary Keyboard Magazine December 1977.

This ad ran in CK magazine for four months starting in December 1977, introducing a new updated CAT model - the "SRM" (Series Revision Model). After the ad's last appearance in the March 1978 issue, it looks like Octave Electronics took a 16 month break from advertising anything in CK magazine, with a new ad not appearing until August 1979.

The previous CAT ad showed up only once in the November 1977 issue of CK. And if you recall, it wasn't one of my favorites. But, obviously some designer back in 1977 agreed with my reasoning, and solved many of the problems with that previous ad.

1. The tag line is of a reasonable length: The CAT "SRM" Synthesizer - now with 2 note memory. Simple and clear.
   
   
2. The text size has been increased a bit - and I think there is even a bit more room between the paragraphs.
   
   
3. No white-space abuse here. The white space between the title, photos, ad copy and logo footer are spread out creating a more balanced feel. In addition, the designer has incorporated a light gray background to frame the ad better on the page - unlike the previous ad where everything just kind of floated on top of the white page.

The one problem this ad didn't solve, and that NONE of the CAT ads have managed to do so far, is SHOW ME A CLOSE UP OF AN ACTUAL CAT SYNTHESIZER. Come on! Do you really think a real-life CAT synthesizer made it up to the local synthesizer shop in my little Canadian town?

Instead of a close up shot of a CAT SRM, we are treated to some much cleaner action shots of David Burns of 'Burns, Renwick & Rags' - or as PINWIZZ calls them in a comment he left in the last CAT ad post: synth-hero photos. Unfortunately, by the looks of the back panels of the CAT synthesizers, I think he is playing two original CAT synthesizers - not SRMs.

But, do you think the fans of David Burns would have notice something like that back in 1977 when viewing this ad? And does it really matter since the CAT and CAT SRM look almost identical?

Nowadays, it would matter. Many fans are gear-heads and will comb through musician's action shots and videos at a micro level to try and figure out what old and new gear is being used. Often the gear used is as important as the musician using/endorsing it. But are we focusing too much on the good gear and not enough on the good artists?

Just askin'...

Octave Electronics Kitten and Cat SRM, Contemporary Keyboard 1980

Octave Electronics Kitten and Cat "SRM" synthesizers from page 67 of Contemporary Keyboard Magazine February 1980.