The PolySix was a milestone because, along with the Roland Juno 6 which appeared almost simultaneously, in 1981 the PolySix was the first opportunity ordinary mortals had to get their hands on a proper programmable polysynth. Up until then, you had to be loaded to afford a Prophet 5, Oberheim OB-Xa, or Roland Jupiter 8.

At first glance it looks like a scaled-down Mono/Poly, but really it's not! In fact it had a lot of great new features such as 32 memory patches, 6 voices of polyphony, cassette backup of memory, even programmable modulation effects and Chorus, Phase, Ensemble!

The Polysix has warm-sounding real analog oscillators, softer and brassy-er sounding that the Juno. Engage the built-in Chorus on a simple single-oscillator sawtooth patch and you were pretty darned close to that expensive Prophet sound. But the big ace in the Polysix's hand was the Ensemble effect. Instant Mellotron-like strings.

Like the Mono/Poly the voices can be played in Unison for a 6-oscillator lead sound that was so big, it was often too big! The advanced arpeggiator can memorize and sequence chords across the keyboard. The PolySix has now been recreated in software as part of the Korg Legacy software bundle! The PolySix has been used by Eat Static, Geoff Downes, Astral Projection, Jimi Tenor, Global Communications, Kitaro, Robert Rich, Keith Emerson and Tears for Fears.

Richard

March 9, 2012 @ 6:17 am

Even though I prefer the Juno-6/60 for its creamier, warmer sound, the Polysix is a fine poly. My favorite bits are the phaser and arpeggiator. Not al lot else to say on it, I sold it because - like other Korg analogs - I never really liked the sound of it, but many do.

theacidjoy

January 27, 2012 @ 2:25 am

@Waylen Roche :
you can sync it easily this way:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CTX32NqVDXM

Waylen Roche

January 5, 2012 @ 6:16 pm

@carl I'm trying to sync up my p6 to redrum like you described, using a Helix Board Firewire Mixer...can't seem to get the arp trigger to respond. Any pointers? Thank you.

Todd Zimmerman

December 20, 2011 @ 4:21 pm

This was an amazingly good synthesizer, and I wish that Korg would reissue
the actual instrument, but I will say that I am impressed with their software
version. Naturally the sound is not exactly the same, but it is about as close
as you can get with an emulation. If you are at all a fan of the sound, the
soft-synth is worth checking out.

Matti Smith

December 17, 2011 @ 8:59 pm

Does anybody know what kind of Battery one needs to put in it? I've not yet opened it, how easy is it?

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