New Poly-800 joystick - the HawkStick
2018-03-28 by support
If you are one of the unlucky ones that has either a smashed Poly-800 joystick or it's just given up and those darn pots can't be replaced either by the way, then here is one possible way to get the joy back into your Poly.
Introducing the HawkStick! lol Yes, a replacement joystick unit that is based on the original Playstation 2 joystick unit. So it isn't an exact replacement by any stretch of the imagination. But it is a total functional exact equivalent of the Poly-800 joystick.
Now the interesting thing is that I've found the PS2 joystick in the Poly-800 is actually an improvement because you can use your left thumb (and grab the side of the Poly with your fingers) and rock it back and forth and left to right with some excellent control. I always found the Poly joystick to be a bit of clumsy thing. And trying the thumb action never worked because the stem was too long. It's probably why the Poly-61 ended up with a longer shaft. Korg went in the wrong direction and made it longer! Well, I made it shorter and I think it works great!
I'll have a replacement kit available for everyone on the HAWK website soon. I haven't done the math yet, so I am not sure how much it will be selling for probably around $40 or less.
The only detail left is how to hide the open space around the PS2 joystick. Have a look at the pictures. Any suggestions, please do share them.
Also, the push down button can be wired into the 'tape enable switch' on HAWKed Poly's so that we will have yet another performance control and I am wondering what people would like to do with it. I am thinking that a fast/slow LFO would be a very nice thing to do so you can push down on the joystick and speed up or slow down the LFO. Anyone got any other ideas for it?
Check out the pictures!
/Mike