Archive of the former Yahoo!Groups mailing list: Discussion about the Korg PolySix synthesizer

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Subject: Re: [PolySix] RE: Successful mod but something else changed!?

From: Chris Logue Smart <smarteeism@yahoo.co.uk>
Date: 2013-12-07

Wotcha Jim, 

Cheers for this. It did seem fanciful. I might try this thing. I sold my Juno 60 recently (hard times here in London) and although I clearly made the right choice, the cleanness of the Juno is certainly an advantage in some ways. And I really miss being able to just push the env release up with the arp on and hearing almost any sound spread out and just go. Was admittedly disappointed when I realised I couldn't do that any more without very carefully adjusting to quite lovely but often very one-use-only sounds. 

But equally the Juno is a baby compared to the sound you hear from this still thing. I guess with that quirky (& quite obviously money-saving influenced) placing of the effects and their implementation you do kind of wish you could just cut that out a bit. But then again, when I hear a Prophet 8 my heart sort of sinks and I dread doing something like that to my lovely Polysix. Do you think it's lost anything? Or is just pure improvement? 

Best wishes, 
Chris

Sent from my handheld device -  please forgive me for mistakes and brevity.  

On Dec 5, 2013, at 8:38 PM, <jim@saltlands.com> wrote:

 

Chris,

I've heard from many sources, in person and online, that people have had success putting insulated foil above the effects board to reduce noise. 

So I tried it too. I put a few sheets together and wrapped it in a layer of thin tracing paper on both sides, and added a ground connection to the foil (as indicated in that link you found and posted in the semi-mod thread) and listened very carefully as I brought the top panel down and there was just NOT a bit of difference for me. So maybe it depends on the version/revision of the boards. Who knows. Didn't help mine at all. 

But I am VERY pleased with the difference in quality when patching directly out of synth pre-effects. Yes I feel the polysix is awesome with its effects for more aggressive sounds, but the more mellow or deeper palette of sound is hindered by going through the effects section EVEN when they are turned off. This is sorta the point of the mod I cited above. You can avoid the gating/eq'ing that's going on, and it's a huge difference.

 I suggest you try the direct feed from voice board (pretty easy even without being comfortable with schematics) and see if you are happy with the difference in quality and noise. I was happy with quality, but not fully satisfied cause I could hear some noise still, so this is when I raised my top panel permanently. Now it's simply stunning how open the synth sounds and with barely any noise at all when a note fades out. Very exciting.