Discussion about the Korg PolySix synthesizer

Hi,

Can anyone help a newbie? I have just bought a POLY6
in my local paper (london, uk) for £165, as I loved
the sounds and interface of the synth (although I hear
the MS2000 does a plausable impersonation). Was that a
good price?

It also came with a MS-04 foot modulation pedal which
is a bizzare beast to say the least!

1) Alas, the Poly6 has a key which doesnot seem to be
working at all and another that doesnot always make
contact. I shall attempt to investigate (using the
help of your wonderful oldcrows keyboard maintenance
article) to see about hte iffy key, but Im not sure
about the totally dead key(D2). Any ideas?

2) Also the output socket of the poly6 is at a dodgy
angle and upon bringing it home I found that it only
works on the right channel, (obviously been tugged at
somepoint in the past) although the phones works
perfectly well in stereo !. Any ideas ?

3) Should I sell the poly6 asap and trade up for a
MS2k considering all the problems it has or shall I
soldier on?

4) The Poly6 has the same old battery, which needs
replacing, although I belive that the keyboard hasnt
been used that much in its studio environment and the
power supply may well have been filtered too (for what

its worth)!

5) Can I just slice the battery legs and move it off
the circuit board so that it can leak over the case
somewhere elese (as I dont trust my soldering skills)!

Or is there a simpler, more satisfactory fix of
attaching a new battery elsewhere?

Your thoughts would be welcome, especially if you can
name ideal components in uk based Maplins or somesuch
supplier!

Thanks for your help,

J.


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Hi John and welcome to the list,

>I shall attempt to investigate (using the help of your wonderful

oldcrows keyboard maintenance article) to see about the iffy key, but Im
not sure about the totally dead key(D2). Any ideas?

The totally dead key may also be simply a dirty contact. Quite often
they either work or not at all. Cleaning normally solves the problem.
However, it may be a dead rubber cup. This is harder to fix, and you'll
probably need to find someone who will give you an old one.

>the output socket of the poly6 is at a dodgy angle and upon bringing it

home I found that it only works on the right channel...

eh... the polysix is only a mono instrument. Stereo jack plugs will only
give you one sided outputs. So its probably working.

>Should I sell the poly6 asap and trade up for a MS2k...

You mean trade down... the MS2K is just a ... sorry I won't go down that
road. Call me a luddite :-)

>The Poly6 has the same old battery, which needs replacing...

It may have well already leaked. Most of them have or you could really
be very lucky. I think you should take it to a repair tech and let him
work wonders. Peter Blackett is in North London. Should be in the Yellow
Pages as Dragon Services... If not mail me, I'll give his details. He
also has a webpage, although the URL is not stored on my system. Nice
chap.

I can also do it, but you'll need to send the board/synth up to me.

Please do not attempt to do this any work on the P6 unless you are
totally happy with the instructions on Scott Rider's (old crows)pages.

Regards,

Tony Allgood
Penrith, Cumbria, England

www.oakleysound.com
My music: www.mp3.com/taklamakan

I paid 200 US for mine. I'm not sure what the conversion rate is, but
mine was also damaged.... (battery problems... surprise!)

> It also came with a MS-04 foot modulation pedal which
> is a bizzare beast to say the least!

sounds like a good deal

THe dead key might just be a worse-off version of the "iffy" key. You
might be able to clean them both up. or you might also be able to
change the pads around so the dead key lands elsewhere... probably
doesn't help much though..


you might want to inspect the output socket, but AFAIK, it's a Mono
output anyhow. This means that if you are using a stereo 1/4" jack,
the audio will only be on one channel. You can instead plug into the
headphone jack (turn volume way down) or get a mono-stereo adapter, or
look into modifying it for stereo output (listed in order of ease)

I haven't looked into it, but the person that did this modification to
their JX-3P said it should work on a PolySix..

http://www.fa.camelot.de/diy/jx3p/jx3p_mod.htm

you *could* cut out the new battery and move it, but you'll have to
solder wires into the battery holes to make the connections anyhow, so
you are probably best off just doing the mod from old crow replacing
the rechargeable with a lithium-ion.

I love my Poly6. Nuff said. I think a couple issues are still dodgy
with mine, but I can deal with it.

-ben

> >Should I sell the poly6 asap and trade up for a MS2k...
>
> You mean trade down... the MS2K is just a ... sorry I won't go down that
> road. Call me a luddite :-)

I'm a long time Polysix user (since 1984) and I have the MS2K too. It
complements the P6 very well. As I just got the P6 MIDIed recently, I can
synch both arpeggiators to my computer's MIDI clock and jam away! Oddly, the
P6 won't synch to the MS clock directly (my Zoom drum machine will), but
only the computer (no biggie).

Anyway, I have nothing again VAs, and the MS will do cross-modulation,
ring-mod, hard sync and things the P6 won't do. But there is NOTHING like
real VCOs and the Polysix sound and I will never let mine go!!!!!

- Ells