I love this thing. It's a fun, unique little mono. Loved it so much I got two! You can come up with some crazy patches on this one. Check out my unboxing and demo here: https://youtu.be/hxHmHjARCJQ?si=r_eeNK9I0LU444X9

The synth actually is very lightweight. It doesn't feel substantial at all. The biggest issue I see is that it does not have a ribbon cable for eurorack use in the box. They aren't exceptionally expensive to buy, but it seems like a very large oversight by Behringer

I love synths and own a few Moogs. This Cat appeared with a client at my studio and I was immediately impressed with the sounds that it could produce. It does have some limitations and the MIDI / USB connections on the face are not ideal for my setup, but that's just my preference. For the price, this is a solid machine to make cool music and noises. It's been on my desk for a few weeks and has been integral in my compositions. I'm happy with this Cat and would recommend it.

I bought the Cat because the Model D started looking lonely... They play surprisingly well together and cover different sorts of territories. I didn't think I'd use the Duophonic function much, but I'm enjoying the sort of bagpipe drone + melody I can get out of it. Good times!

fell in love when i took it out of the box, will edit this review once i have a chance to step away. thank you behringer!

I believe that the original keyboard on the CAT was fine but nothing to write home about, a few notches above the WASP's, which is easy. The original CAT was a late 70s clone of the ARP Odyssey, and if you don't believe me compare the layouts of both control panels. Sliders were swapped-out for knobs. But the CAT did have a distinctive sound with an incredible range, jaw-dropping filtering, and a seemingly endless capability to generate new sounds on the fly. This is a nearly perfect copy of that synthesizer minus keys, but with MIDI and USB patching, it can be used with virtually any compatible keyboard, the more, the merrier. A beefy, roaring animal with great low end, the Behringer C-A-T, is the real thing, and addictive as they get. Why haven't more companies done this kind of a thing?

I got a CAT from Sweetwater because of the two year warranty. I was concerned that the Cat might be fragile or have defect, based on some comments on the Net. Three weeks in, I'm satisfied that it is pretty well built and works as it should. It's in a home studio, no moving it around. For my purposes it's great!

Behringer Cat

I am a big fan of Behringer's remaking of the Classic Synths from the 70's and 80's. I've either owned or worked with virtually all of them at one time to another. This is one of the main reasons I've bought all of them except for the Wasp which I was never to fond of (but I still might buy it someday)

I never owned the original Octave CAT or the CAT SRM (Series Revision Model but had quite a few opportunities to play both of them when I was a Recording Engineer and Synthesizer programmer back in the 1970's. They were very unique Synths for the time, sort of but not really similar to ARP's Odyssey. There was always something quirky about them but special.
They sported twin oscillators, each with squarewave and sawtooth outputs, plus sub-oscillators. In addition, oscillator 1 offered a triangle wave output, and pulse width modulation of the pulse/square waveform. You could mix all seven waveforms simultaneously, which was very different and create some really thick sounds. Also, the oscillators could cross-modulate the other (and both could modulate each other simultaneously), making the CAT a powerful special-effects machine. It had a fully resonant 24dB/octave filter. The ADSR and AR envelopes as well as the LFO could be sent to a bunch of different destinations. Add to it, Sample & Hold, auto-triggering of the envelopes, a noise generator, and portamento, the CAT was just a different kind of Synthesizer.

Behringer has done a great job bringing all of this and more to their CAT, so when I saw there was a price reduction I immediately had to add one to my Synthesizer ensemble.

The Behringer Cat is a powerful & fun two oscillator paraphonic analog synth with multiple waveform mixing on each oscillator for powerful and thick sonic shaping. I had a real Octave Cat years ago and although I can't remember exactly how it sounded, this synth completely reminds me of it AND feels like an upgrade for having MIDI, multiple CV patch points, and a non-vintage price tag. I had never really used any modular systems before but I consistently drive this with five CV connections, three from a Novation Circuit Mono Station and two from a Korg SQ-1. This is seriously fun and sounds so alive and fresh. I also play it live and tweak the controls in real time. The layout of the synth is exactly as I remember it from my original Cat but the ability to drive it with CV and MIDI really drives it to a much wider sonic territory. All in all a really fun synth for the money and definitely might make you more curious about modular processes if you aren't already.

Between this, and my WASP, I can retire. This is my INITIAL review. Dock 1/2 star because as always I'm used to a better build quality but that being said, these have solid pots and sliders so far. Just a picky thing for me personally.

The sound, even without preamps or effects, is very nice. The VCA is quality, if you record and monitor Line-IN, you should have PLENTY of good sounding usable gain. The synth is fat. Smooth to grainy, with a 70's Transformer amp like sound. The filter is very simple and the biggest drawback. While a good filter, it's low pass only, but very modulatable.

Basically I treat the CAT and WASP like electric guitar players and let them go crazy. Find a tone, put it through some effects and an Amp, and tell them to thrash. They comply. These things are amazing plugged into your favorite mic pre or something like Analog HEAT or Otto. The patch bay will lead to some mind blowing patches if you give it a chance.

On both units I've had good luck. None of the bugs from earlier builds. And patch repeatability has been surprisingly good. Once I power on the unit again and let them warm up for 30 mins, if no one has moved the settings on the surface, the patch is 90-100% back to the way I left it. So I can "save" a patch by photographing it as well. These are 70's replicas. If you want a unique sound and experience get one of these.

This is my new favorite synth. So unique

For sure, it's not for everyone. There are things I can do on this synth that I haven't figured out how to do anywhere else. I can replicate the tones on other synths, sure. (This has some really great bass.) but this synth doesn't want to behave and I like it, otherwise I'd probably just use an odyssey instead. Some of the switches seam a little glitchy here and there, there was that weird thing with the s+h but it seems like the firmware update helped. All in all, I dig it and kinda want another.

I love this thing. So unique! The poly mode is dope. It's not routed like many other synths.


I really like the filter. Pretty squeaky when you push the resonance.

You can get CRAZY bass out of this. You can go from classic to modern techno in a few knob turns..

I'm going to drop this into a eurorack and build around it.

So, I'll start by saying I've sold the Cat and replaced it with the K2. My intention was to integrate this into a eurorack setup which I did for many months.
For the price, it's a great synth but was just not what I needed.
The lack of cv inputs was my main reason for selling.. if you're into lots of turning knobs/ sliders this would be great, I was hoping to use it with separate modulation.

Aside from that, the sound was pretty good but sometimes inconsistent. I'd find the unit slewing out of tune or control from time to time, which made it kinda frustrating. I also feel like it's great at one sound which is easily achieved by other units. I never was able to use the glide for some reason either. The filter cutoff is very sensitive which gets tricky to find/ hold a sweet spot.
There's a ton of high end on this unit, so those smooth sounds were not as i hoped for.

If you're looking for a fun tabletop synth to twiddle with, this is great. Eurorack setup isn't ideal.

It baffles me how little attention this synth gets. I'm not typically a Behringer fan, usually, I'm a bitter critic. But this shuts me up. It sounds absolutely amazing. The sound is punchier and thicker than any modern Moog, and the multiple waveforms per oscillator gives you a wide range of sonic options to get some vintage synth goodness. The overall sound is like a vintage mono Roland SH plus vintage Moog hybrid. Absolutely floored with the sound that comes out of this thing.

Behringer is doing a great job remaking vintage classics. But like lots of bands/artists that cover hit songs, a lot of the time they just aren't the same as the original. Good concept but definitely not the same sound as the original. It lacks the grit and growl (sound) of the original.

This cat's got claws. It could be more dangerous with a little better filter section, but it sounds great. Also the modern additions are welcome.

This is my new favorite synth. Two oscillators, both with blendable wave forms *and* sub-octaves... then you get osc 2 modulating osc 1 for some amazing sound textures that no other synth can do. ...and then you modulate the filter with osc 1 to make an even deeper sound. Just sounds incredible, plus there's a fade-in for the LFO to make beautiful vibrato, key tracking for the filter, duophonic mode, sample & hold, and you can access all this stuff right on the control panel without any patch cables or menu diving. It's just fantastic.

I met a person in 1978 who was here on a Green Card from England. He had to go back home and sold me his gear, which was an Arp 2600 Blue Meanie, an Arp Odyssey/Little Brother, several sequencers, a Roland RE-201, AND an Octave Cat (Rev 1, non-SRM). The Cat was my favorite by far and I did many recordings and played live in clubs in San Francisco. I went back to school and got an Electrical Engineering degree and stopped my musical adventures for years. I sold off the gear I had.

Many years later I got the Octave Cat SRM II from a seller on EBay, but it had many issues and I did not have a good analog tech, so I sold the synth. Now, Behringer has released The Cat and I purchased a unit from Sweetwater. I must say, other than moving things around a bit on the front, it reminds me exactly what I had in the past, a wonderful two osc analog synth. This little module sounds GREAT and is truly so close to what I used to have in the past. I have not used any of the patch points, but expect them to offer a bit more functionality.

This synth can do about anything you want, just spend the time to understand the particulars. You can get really wild and sci-fi sound from it all the way to very mellow and beautiful, and run it through an echo and reverb to really fill out the sound. The controls all feel very tight and responsive and the build quality is excellent as are the other Behringer units I now own (Deepmind 6, Neutron, Pro 1, Poly D). I am not one to bad mouth Behringer for rereleasing these classics and love the fact that I don't have to spend thousands of dollars for a classic that will have issues over time or will right away (potential money pit).

This is kind of a stroll down memory lane for me and the stroll definitely leaves a big smile on my face ;) If you want to experience the Octave Cat, then either take a chance and buy an original unit or else grab the Behringer Cat and make it PURRR!!!

Peace

I bought my first synths in a package deal in 1978, and one of the synths was the Octave Cat (first gen, non-SRM). I loved that synth even more than the Arp 2600 Blue Meanie and the Arp Odyssey I got in the package deal. I recorded The Cat mostly running it through a Roland RE-201 and played live with it in San Francisco in many clubs. I went back to school to get an Electrical Engineering degree and left my musical adventures behind me. Much later in time I bought a Cat SRM II and really enjoyed it, but it needed a full servicing and due to time constraints and not knowing an excellent analog tech, I sold it.

Now, Behringer has released the clone of the Cat SRM II and I bought it from Sweetwater. This is a very close representation of that classic synth. The sounds are exactly as I remember them, this is just a smaller version without the keyboard and the layout has been tweaked just a bit. The movement and play on the sliders is a bit sensitive, but all the controllers feel excellent all-in-all. The build quality is very high and I assume this will be more stable than a much older classic Cat you may find and it sure is much less money ;)

I've been using an Arturia Beatstep Pro and an Arturia Keystep with The Cat and they work very well for what I want. I haven't used any of the patch points yet, but they will be interesting for added options. Running the synth through various reverbs and echos really bring the sounds to life and having multiple waveforms per primary osc gives full and varied sounds (reminds me of the microBrute a bit).

This purchase was kind of a walk down memory lane for me, but I do find this little synth very inspirational and it sounds great. I plan to use this with the Behringer Pro-1 and Neutron for some excellent live jams, with the Arturia Drumbrute laying down the beats.

great synth very vintage like sound odyssey on Roys