In my humble opinion, the only thing that really limits the Poly-800 are the oscillators. The fact that they are all stuck on the same master clock, there's no pwm, the detuning of DCO1 to DCO2 is awful; all that adds up to a significant loss of harmonic variation. When I listen to this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hT_1k9XlBpw I hear what the Poly-800 misses. The square wave lead is classic Poly-800 but the sound effect percussive blips with the amazing PWM simply cannot be created on a Poly-800.
I don't have the time but if I did, I would create a brand new bank of oscillators with independent clocks, which would allow independent detuning, independent pwm. The square and quasi saw waves don't bother me that much because you have enough control and the filter rocks(!). But the fact that four oscillators are all stuck on the same clock removes an enormous amount of harmonic richness from the sounds that the Poly-800 produces. If the clocks were independent (even if they were out of phase slightly) the harmonics would be significantly richer. Alas, the MSM5232 has two clock inputs and all four voices in both bank DCO1 and DCO2 are rock solid clocked to those two masters. So when you play two A440's you get two A440's that are in perfect phase with each other (because both signals are being directly out of the same TG ROM lookup).
The single filter is a limitation but after playing with the EX-8000 for awhile (which has 8 NJM filter chips instead of Poly's one) I realized that the way in which I play music tends to be either chords (in which case a single filter is fine) or fast individual notes (arpeggiator like) which also means that the individual filter is not ∗much∗ of a problem. If I played alot of doubles, triplets or quads then I would agree that an individual filter per osc' would make a difference. But electronic music of the kind I listen to and play doesn't use them much. So I use a different synth when I need them.
I imagine that if we were able to produce a killer oscillator board for $100 bucks or less then I'd have a market for it. So if I could find a really cheap way to create a tone generator with 8 independent oscillators so that we could drop it into the Poly I would consider doing it. But I just haven't any found any tone generator cheap enough that could do all of the above.
People send me example this or that chips but once you try to put them together into an eight voice solution, it gets expensive. I am more than happy to hear from any of you that might think it can be done.
Hang on, haven't we had this discussion before?
Mike
From: Jason Adkins <jason_ralf808@...>
To: korgpolyex@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Thursday, August 22, 2013 8:52 AM
Subject: Re: [korgpolyex] Is it a real polysynth?
The Poly800 does not sound cheap,ok the Poly 61 sounds slightly
better ,I know I used to own one but it didn't sound that much
better,even retro fitted with midi the Poly61 wasn't exactly a classic.
The Juno106 is a classic but very expensive,have you got £600 handy
for a shitty one?
I wouldn't go near a Juno 60 unless it had been retrofitted with midi
and serviced,
The JX8P is a classic too,I have probably said this before but I used
to have a limited edition version in very dark grey almost black which
stupidly I sold for £150 It had no names on the preset buttons but a
magnetic strip containing the preset names you could stick to the top
panel.I bid £400 for a normal one a few months back but got outbid.
There is a Honda generator that will run on coconut oil on a desert
island ;)
http://youtu.be/SA_FLKHPR88;)
On 22 Aug 2013, at 12:15, Daniel Forró wrote:
>
> Probably because all voices share one filter, and because saw wave is
> not real saw wave here, but only its approximation from the mix of
> four square waves. This all makes it sound "cheap" and thin even in
> the comparison with Korg Polysix or Poly 61, and it can't be compared
> with the other synths of those times with more typical "analog" sound
> - Roland Juno 60, Juno 106, JX3P, later JX8P, JX10, MKS70...
>
> This doesn't mean at all it's a bad synth. It has it's own character
> and identity. But if I should decide if P800 or DX7, second one is a
> winner :-) The only problem with desert island is the missing electric
> power... so ukulele or recorder would be better.
>
> Daniel Forro
>
> On 22 Aug, 2013, at 7:49 PM, Jason Adkins wrote:
>
> > I cannot understand why certain people say the poly 800 is not a
> real
> > polysynth over 50.000 couldn't care less, My favourite patch is the
> > one with the Japanese percussion and the string coming in
> > underneath,if it isn't a true polysynth I couldn't care less
> too,If I
> > was on a desert island with a generator I'd rather have the Poly800
> > than an FM synth.
>
>
>
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