Archive of the former Yahoo!Groups mailing list: Korg Poly800/EX800 Users

I'm new here...just some thoughts. I had both the Poly 800 and 800
MKII back in the 80s, and I've always been as fascinated with this
synth's limitations as with its capabilities. As the Keyboard
Magazine review said, corners were cut in its design, but creatively
so and I consider it a fine synthesizer. Which is why I have just
caved into temptation to relive the 800 and have gotten one on ebay.

Well it's arrived, and the front of the Poly 800 is very nice
cosmetically...all lettering still intact. This is a bug plus for me,
getting one that survived its ride to the present.

Had a panic when I fired up this 800, its memory had totally dumped,
although I was able to do programming from scratch. I would swear
that my original Poly 800 had memory backup; it's a revelation to
find that with this one I will have to keep battery juice supplied in
order to retain programs. I'm thinking to maybe experiment with using
a small 9-volt battery hooked into it to accomplish this, as all my
use of the machine is done using wall-power.

About the Poly-800's single filter architecture...I don't consider it
a limitation as I did at first. I've come to accept it as part of the
reality of Korg's marketing choices at the time. I like it's single
VCF and use it with and without resonance.

I think the Poly 800 would've been awesome if it had more waveforms,
but then again I like square waves so why complain. The sawtooth
simulation is close enough for me. Long live the POLY 800!