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Korg POLY-800

19-Mar-2024

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Korg POLY-800



Category:  Products / synthesisers / dco synthesisers

Added: 20-Dec-98  |  Author: admin

New price: discontinued  |   S/H price: £150 - -200 (uk)


Korg POLY-800



The Korg Poly-800.... I aint used one of these since about 1986.... small plastic cased unit, with a simple LED 2 character display..... easy to edit.... check it out... 8 note poly DCO synth with real analog synthesis section, including nice Korg filters. The Poly-800 was lightweight, could be battery or mains powered & included guitar strap buttons to wear & perform with it live and to that end it added a joystick controller with which you could tweak Pitch bend on the left-right horizontal axis & DCO pitch mod for vibrato & Filter Modulation on the up/down vertical axis.



 



The Poly-800 had a stereo output & a Chorus built in which gave pads and other patches a rich stereo sound.



 



The Poly-800 is 8 note poly at 1 osc' per voice...... 2 osc per voice at 4 note poly is usual, so it's more likely to be a 4 note poly unit in most patch cases.



 



The DCO oscillators make their waveform tones by using either a selected Saw or Square wave by adding harmonics using additive square wave synthesis & Each DCO has its own 6-stage digital Envelope generator. There's a further 6-stage EG for the Filter & Noise.



 



The Poly-800 was actually unique in that it was the first synth to have a noise envelope seperate from the oscillators and that allowed Korg engineers to use white noise to simulate breath artefacts like attack 'chiff' for some sounds & create other noise effects.



 



The Poly-800 has an analog resonant low-pass 24dB/octave VCF shared by all voices which is switchable between single or multiple modes. In single mode the first key pressed triggers the filter envelope and unless all keys are released, the filter does not re-trigger with subsequent note presses, so it's like a filter latch with the first key press. In filter multi mode each key pressed in turn re-triggers the filter envelope, even if other keys are still pressed down.



 



64 program slots - built-in 256 note polyphonic sequencer which could be clocked to MIDI - The Poly-800 had 3 Key assign modes:



 

  • Poly - 8 or 4 note with 2 DC's per voice is played as normal
  • Hold - using the same polyphony (8 or 4 voice) rules, notes will sustain once pressed & released until new notes are played
  • Chord - again using the same polyphony (8 or 4 voice) programmed chords of harmonic intervals can be played from a single note


 



It's an under-rated synth tbh which can generate some super 'classic analog' sounding growling or warm & rich pads, DX-7 like timbres a-plenty, very deep and solid basslines as well as flutey delicate & airy or howling, rasping & cutting leads; it can even do decent organ sounds too. One way to sum up the Poly-800 is that it can sound much more expensive than it was on release.



 



There was also a MK2 version Poly-800 which added a digital delay and a new colour scheme from the old green,  so not great for long decay stuff, but a decent selection of waves make this little sibling to the DW8000 & 6000 great as a bargain-bin item.



 



The Poly-800 II arrived in 1986 for £599 which was almost identical but added a 1024ms max time delay with editable parameters which could be saved per-patch & a 2-band eq.



 



The super value £350 quid EX800 expander version was released in 1984 



 













Product Manuals or Files

no user manual




Product Resources










User Comments

Product:  Korg - POLY-800
Name: Dean Nye
Email: Email supplied but hidden
Activity: part-timer
Date: 04-Nov-99

I've had my Poly 800 for about two years, and it has good analog sounds, but don't expect any 303 emulation from this one. It's more about Erasure type patches. The oscillators
are analog, but they are digitally controlled. Editing sounds is possible, but only with an up/down button interface. I finally got fed up with mine and wired a filter cutoff knob on the front panel (replacing a trimpot on the circuit board). Next is a resonance control! :) I got my Poly for $90US, and it's worth two to three times that to me.

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Product:  Korg - POLY-800
Name: 303BASS
Email: Email supplied but hidden
Activity: Hobby-ist
Date: 10-Jan-00

I've got the poly 800II and it rocks!! It's possible to fatten up the sound by setting the delay to a very short time, very cool for basses. You can make those cool korg lead sounds with it and it excels in cheesy synthpop sounds :)
I'm going to do filter mod soon..

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Product:  Korg - POLY-800
Name: Jangler
Email: Email supplied but hidden
http://www.nettilinja.fi/~jangler
Activity: Hobby-ist
Date: 19-Jan-00

the picture is a poly-800-ii. poly-800-i has green colour instead of mk2's blue.
a nice machine.

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Product:  Korg - POLY-800
Name: Anthony
Email: Email supplied but hidden
http://www.geocities.com/theswitch56/index.html
Activity: part-timer
Date: 04-May-00

this synth is a steal! you can get so many cool sounds from it and it is relatively cheap so pick it up. It goes for $100 US on ebay!

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Product:  Korg - POLY-800
Name: Tinde
Email: Email supplied but hidden
http://www.mp3.com/lootus
Activity: part-timer
Date: 07-Jan-01

Poly800mk2 is a kick ass synth. It's the warmest synth in my studio. Pads are simply great =) Sooooo waaarm and fat. I got mine really cheaply from finnish sort-of-ebay-site. I have never regreding buying this little beast.

BTW Can u use midicontrol messages to control filters? what are the controller numbers?

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Product:  Korg - POLY-800
Name: neil
Email: Email supplied but hidden
Activity: Hobby-ist
Date: 26-Nov-01

I had one and sold it for a kawai K1 - dont regret getting the K1 but wish I could have kept poly 800. It was very cool with excellent sounds.

Still looking to buy another one

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Product:  Korg - POLY-800
Name: alan
Email: Email supplied but hidden
Activity: part-timer
Date: 28-Nov-01

Not the most exciting of synths, but capable of some very usable sounds none the less. Good bang for buck if you get it cheap (as you should be able to).

I Modded mine to add knobs for cutoff/res/pitch/delay - this was very easy. Didn't work exactly like true knobs on a synth, i.e. the level of control you got depended on the parameters programmed in the patch.

The same mod could be done properly for a better result. e.g. I just added a knob, soldered on the wires to the connects on the trim-pot - as opposed to replacing the trim-pot wholesale.

You'd have a pretty ripping synth for the money in that case - sadly I've sold mine so I cant butcher it further. ^___^

Modding and then fiddling with the delay can yield some craaazy distorted effects... VERY gnarly.

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Product:  Korg - POLY-800
Name: Lee
Email: Email supplied but hidden
Activity: Hobby-ist
Date: 10-Feb-03

Looking for a WAV file of the original Poly 800 presets to restore.
Can anyone help please?

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Product:  Korg - POLY-800
Name: Poly-800
Email: Email supplied but hidden
Activity: Hobby-ist
Date: 20-Sep-03

Lee, you wanted a .WAV file of Poly-800 presets. -Try these links: http://www.aracnet.com/~tloepp/support/800.html

or http://www.geocities.com/SunsetStrip/Studio/3507/ex800info2.html

or
http:analog.no

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Product:  Korg - POLY-800
Name: Larry Shone
Email: Email supplied but hidden
Activity: Hobby-ist
Date: 16-Nov-04

This is a real fun keyboard to play with, the sounds can be a bit metallic but its features make up for any sonic downfalls. Its possible to save settings to an audio tape, so you make a patch that you like, and you can keep it for as long as you need. Its like an old analog synth except its not stepless, but its pretty close! Dead lightweight n all The pitch bend/mod stick is variable and really gives it extra life.
Theres some really neat white noise ocean sounds possible with this keyboard, and plug it into the MIDI in of another keyboard and combine that ocean rush with the other keyboard's sound!

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Product:  Korg - POLY-800
Name: olivier.b
Email: Email supplied but hidden
Activity: part-timer
Date: 07-Jun-06

I recently found a mint poly 800 (reloaded w/ the original presets..the guy kept the original tape though)..i've been messing w/ it for three weeks and been quite impressed by its sound possibilities, it just lacks a bit of human realtime filter control (knobs).
now it is between the hands of a professionnal electronician who will perform the "TWEETER EATER mod" as well as the "FM 800 mod". I wanted to do it myself but when i opened it things looked so so tiny in there that i prefered not to touch anything afraid of breaking something. (it will cost me just another 50euros))
cannot wait to get the 800 back and play w/ those 3 extra pots.

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Product:  Korg - POLY-800
Name: Besim Maxhuni
Email: Email supplied but hidden
Activity: part-timer
Date: 28-Jul-07

I have a KORG Poly 800, nothing else, no audio tapes, no adaptors, and the synth has no sounds in it. It's all blank. And I can't use it at all. How can I insert any sounds in it? Please help me someone! I Appreciate your help.

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Product:  Korg - POLY-800
Name: jonathan
Email: Email supplied but hidden
www.myspace.com/jonathanbruno
Activity: part-timer
Date: 24-Oct-07

i just got my hands on one last week with the filter & cutoff mod, i went ahead & bought one despite the bad reviews that i kept on reading, i gotta say, it's totally underrated. great analog sound for bass & pads as well as weird noise fx & percussion type sounds. worth buying for even for 4 times the price you can find them for now. the thing is?..... this is a warm & phat analog subtractive synth for the price of a casio toy machine. awesome machine.

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Product:  Korg - POLY-800
Name: rompy
Email: Email supplied but hidden
Activity: Hobby-ist
Date: 20-Feb-09

These are KILLER VSTi controllers.

I'm a guitarist turned VSTi noisemaker, and I don't like the poly 800's sound, so I just flip them off with that local sound switch, which is located on the back. Then just use your programs options to use the korg as you would any other controller to play VSTi synthes.
It's incredible, and you can pick them or something similar for cheap.
That's the best part.

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Product:  Korg - POLY-800
Name: John
Email: Email supplied but hidden
Activity: part-timer
Date: 14-Mar-09

if you go on ebay you can but a tape with the sound effect presets on
it
instructions may not be included but if you have your manual it should
tell you how
if you do not have a manual email me at rycnhoj@yahoo.com
and i can send you a scan of the manual no problem

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Product:  Korg - POLY-800
Name: savojr
Email: Email supplied but hidden
myspace.com/savojr
Activity: Hobby-ist
Date: 07-Apr-09

Good overall sound. Fat OSC's and nice filters.

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Product:  Korg - POLY-800
Name: Nathan Reeves
Email: Email supplied but hidden
http://natemac.homeunix.net
Activity: Hobby-ist
Date: 22-Dec-10

I have several of these units and love everyone. Think new order, erasure, mid 80s DCO new age action! Gotta love the joystick!
Not the most fun to program but just start with a great preset and tweak it to liking...

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Last added comment

Product:  Korg - POLY-800
Name: Bert Lundblad
Email: Email supplied but hidden
Activity: part-timer
Date: 13-Oct-13

hi
yes ive lost my manual for my poly 800. U ve it?.
Can u e-mail it?
Bert in Sweden

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