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Korg Poly 800 Mark I 

First real synth I bought. When I started programming it I thought it could do anything, then I tried to program an Orchestral hit and fell into a deep depression. Later on I managed to make some pretty good sounds with it, particularly when I put it though some guitar effects and eq. Mine has reverse coloured keys and I have painted it with florescent irregular stripes it looks great... at least I think so. Some people found it hard to program because it has virtually no knobs. I had no problems as I never had a synth with knobs and there is a clear map of the parameters on the front. There aren't that many parameters to play with so I had them memorized before too long. There are real time editing modifications available on the web whereby you add some knobs onto the device and wire it to the existing circuit board, this gives you real time control over the usual things filter cut of and resonance amongst them. It also has a feature called chord memory that can be used to create some great analogue stack sounds if you set it to a unison chord. This feature also transmits over midi that makes the stack humungous when layered. The sounds can be stored to tape on all models, it has no support for sysex patch transmission in the mark I, but later versions like  the EX800 ( desktop version) and the poly 800 mark II do and there are DIY retrofits to add sysex to the mark1. I have been using it as a midi controller even though it doesn't transmit velocity and I'm planning on committing some of the hotter sounds to a sampler in future.

Sounds

Can make some warm fat sounds. Good organ sounds and its own sort of analogue string, It can also make some pretty good analogue res bass sounds in a wide sort of way.  It can have 1 or 2 Oscillators per voice. If you switch it over to 2 oscillators per voice detune them set the chord memory to a unison chord and turn the chorus on you get the fattest sounds. It can make all sorts of throw away analogue effect sounds. Makes spooky atmospheric hollow thin pad sounds. The presets that come with it are pretty good for presets. So if you have one I would recommend you take the time to load them up through the tape deck interface or sound card. It also sound great if you layer it with another analogue device (I have played around with it and the D-110).

Relations

Though is was released just after the Poly Six and Poly 61, the descriptions I have read of the sounds these two create make me think they are related in name only. It is probably best described as Neanderthal ancestor of the DW-6000 and DW-8000. Keyboard version of the Ex-800 and poorer brother of the slightly better specked out Polly 800 Mk II. The Poly-800 mark 2 had sysex patch dump, battery backup and the option for chorus or delay.

Modifications

Filter cut off and resonance.

This mod is pretty good it takes the internal trim pots for filter cut-off and resonance and puts them on the front panel.  Because the factory default resonance is tuned a bit low you may get some sounds out of the poly that you have not heard before. 

This is a mod I got off The Ex/Poly 800 Page by John Sepulveda, the usual legal stuff applies, i.e. nigher of us are responsible for any damage you do to yourself or any body or thing else in trying to carry out these instructions. They are put here as an "as is" service without any assertions as to wether they are safe or certain to do anything in particular.

1. Remove the filter cut-off trim pot VR2 and the resonance pot VR5 from the big green board not the little brown board its real hard to unsolder I had to cut the trim pots of first. 

2. Wire a pair of 100K audio taper pots in their places.  I did this with figure 8 audio stereo cable one channel for each pot, putting the shielding on the side of the wire onto the section on the board that had 2 of the original trim pit legs on it.

3. Drill a hole in a nice place in the front panel to put the pot.

Have a look at Johns  The Ex/Poly 800 Page it is the source of this article and worth a read if you want a chuckle. It is also where I got the wave file of the presets from.

Power and Midi

I have a 5 pin cannon socket mounted into the back that carries both midi and power to the keyboard. This prevents the somewhat crappy power socket from coming unplugged in the middle of your "Jimmy Hendrix should have played keyboards" solo. I have also bought a stack of rechargeable C cells that makes it a great portable synth note pad.

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Poly-800 MK-1 memory backup battery

The Poly-800 didn't have any dedicated battery for keeping the patch memory.
(The MK-2 and the EX-800 have backup battery as standard.) If you remove the power and C-cells at the same time the patches are lost.
This modification shows how to add a dedicated backup battery. After the mod the patches will be kept at all times.
However, beware that the firmware of the MK-1 has a bug which cause a total crash with memory loss when hooked up to certain sequencers.
If you have this problem, try to connect the Poly-800 after the sequencer is started.


The mod:

• Open the Poly-800 by removing all screws at the bottom. Locate the processor board. This is the large circuit board next to the battery compartment.

• In the upper left corner you'll find Resistor R1 and Diode D1. Remove these. (Just cut the legs, but leave as much as possible of the D1 legs, see next steps.)

• If you have a late revision MK-1 there will be two fairly large solder "islands" in the centre of the board. The battery is mounted here. The "island" to the front of the keyboard is ground.

• If you have an early revision you won't find this. The battery must then be connected by wires, the plus to the junction between R1/D1 and the minus to the other leg of D1.

• Any 3V lithium with solder lugs can be used as long as it is not to big physically for mounting to the board. A wristwatch type (2025, 2032) is fine.

That's all!

analong.no

analong.no

Poly-800 MK-1 sysex

The Poly-800MK1 does not have sysex functionality which means that you have to deal with that awful cassette storage. Neither can you edit patches via midi which is also a pain considering the user interface.

The EX-800, which came two years later, corrected this problem and at the same time had some bugfixes which eliminated the Poly-800's nice "feature" of crashing loosing the patch data when connected to a sequencer as well as making the midi channel permanently stored in NVRAM. The EX is special in that it use virtually the same electronics as the Poly-800. But the firmware is different because Korg couldn't fit the sysex implementation in the Poly800, there was simply not enough free space in the EPROM. So they removed the keyboard interface routines in the EX firmware to free up space.  (Back then you could buy a "sysex kit" for the Poly-800 which utilized a larger EPROM that could store both the keyboard and the sysex routines.) What this mod does is to add a an EX EPROM and a switch to select which firmware to use. Normally you will keep it in the EX mode, but if you for some reason want to use the Poly-800's keyboard you just flip the switch. (When power is off) Your local dealer can probably supply the EX prom. If you have a burner you can download the EX firmware here. The dump request macro for the patch data is F0 42 21 01 10 F7 (To my knowledge, dump/load of individual patches or parameters is not possible) Some parameters are changed in EX mode: Parameter 85: Midi CH, 86: Program change, 87: any EX owners who knows what this is?

The mod:

• Piggyback the EX and 800 eprom, solder all legs except 20 which should be bent out 90deg. Wires from switch are soldered to these legs, one leg to each side of the switch.
  Because of limited clearance in the cabinet the two eproms must be soldered directly together, it is not enough space to use a socket in between them.

• Switch can be mounted f.ex. above the program advance jack socket. (Use a two position mini toggle switch)