Korg Poly800/EX800 Users group photo

Yahoo Groups archive

Korg Poly800/EX800 Users

Archive for korgpolyex.

Index last updated: 2026-03-30 01:10 UTC

Thread

New Member

New Member

2006-07-02 by Tom Hoelle

Hello - I'm a new member so I thought I'd introduce myself.  I'm a guitarist and I have a home studio set up in my basement.  I have been writing/recording for many years and finally released a cd in 2004.  You can visit my web-site if you'd like to hear some of my music:
 
I have an Emu Proteus Plus keyboard that I've been using for fills and what-not for quite some time.  But on a recent visit to my local guitar center, I stumbled onto a used Korg Poly 800 mk 2 and spent some time seeing what I could get it to do.  The price seemed really reasonable and I thought it sounded pretty cool, so I ended up buying it!
 
So I've been on the net looking for info on this thing.  I ended up buying a cassette from a guy on e-bay that has the original patches in it.  I assume that means I can use a standard cassette deck to hook up to the back of this thing and save/recall settings?  I remember a similar arrangement on an old Yamaha drum machine of mine... in fact, I may still have a "data-cassette" that I used to use for that.  I assume that'll work...
 
Anyway - that's me...
Tom
====================

Do you Yahoo!?
Next-gen email? Have it all with the all-new Yahoo! Mail Beta.

New Member

2007-12-04 by Roby

Hi,
I'm Roberto from Italy.
I'm happy to join your group.
I've just purchased a broken POLY-800 -
no display no sounds at all - and at this moment
I've seen two broken transistors, Q17 and Q18.
(some of you have an idea for a substitute of Q17?)
I hope to repair this synth, because I've heard it's
a good synth.
Thanks!

Ciao
Roby

New Member

2015-11-12 by yj_gu@...

Hi everyone


Thanks for letting me into this group. I've just recently purchased an 'unmodded' Poly 800 (mods removed). It does not power up. I've no knowledge of electronics but I've replaced batteries on old synths before. So this may be out of my league. However, I shall see it as a learning experience and hopefully the Korg can be revived one day.


I think I shall start by looking for a photo of what the 800 was supposed to look like originally, and make comparisons. There was a bulging capacitor which I replaced but I think it's going to take much more than that. The amount of info in this group is amazing.


Happy synth days!


Regards


YJ

Re: [korgpolyex] New Member

2015-11-13 by <backshall1@...>

Let us know what version of main board you have (KLM-596-2, –7 or –8) so we have a better idea of what you should be seeing. Do you know what mods were removed? What capacitor was replaced?
Don B.
 
Sent: Thursday, November 12, 2015 11:43 AM
Subject: [korgpolyex] New Member
 
 

Hi everyone


Thanks for letting me into this group. I've just recently purchased an 'unmodded' Poly 800 (mods removed). It does not power up. I've no knowledge of electronics but I've replaced batteries on old synths before. So this may be out of my league. However, I shall see it as a learning experience and hopefully the Korg can be revived one day.


I think I shall start by looking for a photo of what the 800 was supposed to look like originally, and make comparisons. There was a bulging capacitor which I replaced but I think it's going to take much more than that. The amount of info in this group is amazing.

 

Happy synth days!

 

Regards

 

YJ

Re: [korgpolyex] New Member

2015-11-16 by yj_gu@...

Hi Don, the main is marked as a KLM-596-8. I took photos of where mods were removed but have no idea what these mods are called, or where they were connected to. When the last guy removed the mods, some OEM components could have been taken out as well, and I'm interested in restoring those. Hopefully the 800 will come back to life.

I bought a 100mF 16V to replace a bulging one near the edge of the board, next to the 'resistor on a piece of card' thing. I think the location is marked C1.

There are two cables going under the main board to where the line out connector is. Brown and black. Not sure if this is normal. A hole was drilled into the case for an extra dc adapter socket. So whatever mods were run in the past, they must have required an external power source of their own.

Re: [korgpolyex] New Member

2015-11-16 by yj_gu@...

Hi I've taken some photos of my 800: 


I'll describe them from left to right starting from the top row, left to right.

  • A piece of rubber was stuck onto the back to permanently disable program write. 
  • There's an additional DC IN possibly to power the mods. It is not connected to anything right now. 
  • Some potentiometer holes and two little push buttons. The LED on the dial doesn't light up. No wires connected to it.
  • Back of the potentiometer hole section.
  • Next is a pic of me holding some wires coming out from the daughter board. There's some electrical tape there round two pairs of black and white wires. 
  • The whole daughter board with a weird looking droopy resistor.
  • Some marks left behind by a large mod?
  • Under the LINE OUT jack on the main board. Lots of flux, and wire stumps. There are two holes in the board (circled) - missing capacitor? Notice the brown and black wire.
  • Next is the top side of the main board. The brown and black wires in the previous pic connect to a blue wire that goes all the way to the daughter board. Also, from what I've seen on the web so far, my KLM 597C board looks different. Is it a design variation? It's only linked to the main board with one black wire. I hope nothings missing.
  • Finally a broken resistor on cardboard, which I suppose I should solder to the silver tab that's sticking out?
: )