--- In
PolySix@yahoogroups.com, "psicraft_designs" <tony@...> wrote:
> Back to the Polysix: in my view, Johannes Hausensteiner is another key member of the legion of vintage synth rebuilding superheroes. His Polysix MIDI mod (the Mark II version of Ricard Wolf's original mod) is the best ever made since it also makes the Polysix editable via MIDI control, and is a truly professional design. Johannes should be working in the music products industry as a hardware designer in my opinion - He's simply that good.
I'd give Ricard his due as well. I'm currently building Ricard's original Midi upgrade from scratch and he's been immensely helpful.
Yes, I could have paid more and did Johannes' upgrade.
Yes, I've had a few people point out to me that you could now easily recreate Ricard's mod using an FPGA but it's not the destination I'm seeking here -- it's the journey. This project has taken more than a year because I'd rather learn fundamentally what I'm doing rather than take a shortcut.
> I believe Jed and Andy's KLM replacement board is going to kick-start quite a bit of demand for the Hausensteiner Polysix MIDI upgrade - It's going to be an interesting few years as the market sees more and more modernized and fully functional Polysix units up for sale (and more importantly) being used to make new music.
It will be interesting to see if people take things even further and add stuff that was never there in first place - things like portamento and S&H. I'd like to see someone create an expander out of the remains of a dead P6 (part of the reason why I'm working through the nuts and bolts of how the P6 allocates voices). Just seeing what the Hawk upgrade has done for the Poly 800 is astounding and there's a lot of potential in the P6 just waiting to get out.
One other thing just occurred to me, the Polysix emulation in the Korg Legacy collection has likely contributed to people wanting the real thing. Just seeing where Korg has taken their MS-20 emulation lately (DS-10 and now the Monotron) has me wondering if the Polysix emulator might pop up in the future where we might not expect it.