Vintage Synth Explorer

Korg • Poly-61

The Korg Poly-61 was released in 1982 as the successor to the Polysix. It was somewhat of a step up from the Polysix, as it has 2 DCOs for better reliability. It also retained the arpeggiator of the Polysix. It has a very dirty sharp sound much like the Yamaha DX7. This is good if you are into the lo-fi sound of electronica. The Poly-61 can provide cool gritty basses or trippy analog sounds and fx.

Also added is the familiar Korg joystick, which can be used to modulate the VCO or the VCF. However, its filter only has 7 steps of resonance and is not as fat as the Polysix's filter. It also uses the same method of programming the Poly-800 and Yamaha DX-7 use, so it's not a very useful synth for real-time-tweaking junkies. The first Poly-61s didn't have MIDI, but the Poly-61M released in 1984 corrects this. Overall, the Poly-61 is still a decent synth, and it can be acquired for practically nothing! It has been used by FM Static and The Faint.

VISITOR COMMENTS

Comments page 4 of 8

Click here to add a comment

Your Name:

Email Address:

Image verification:

Message:

Posting Rules: Please keep your comments relevant! Do not post requests for help, do not use for sales, do not post unless you have something interesting to say about this instrument, or we may delete your post.

 

Siebe Pol

Posted 199 days ago

It's possible to add midi to the Poly-61. Check my youtube clip:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ON-f 43zaspw

I used this link: http://www.angelfire.com/geek/srlabs/p6r etro.html

Greeting from The Netherlands

diane colyer

Posted 202 days ago

i have a poly 61 i would like to sell. In very good condition with one sticky key. Have anvil case too if interested. want to move it

if advice on other sites pls indicate.

pls email to dcolyer@comcast.net

frankie

Posted 207 days ago

i own 2 of them,if you keep the filter quite close you can obtain sounds much more smooth than juno106.Using the (simple but useful) arpeggiator or the hold function is a pleasure and tra nsforms very much the sounds.Unbeatable and peculiar organ sounds ,but use always a chorus at the output.Only 1 true minus:Rubber contacts of the keyboard that you can't find when thy are old

Donovan_Juan

Posted 209 days ago

This synth was the start of my keyboard collection. It was not my first synth per se - I owned one of those awful Casio VL-1 as a kid - but it sparked my interest. Soundwise, this excels at dirty and cheezy sounds and I'd rank it ahead of the Poly800. Control-wise this is not a very fun synth due to the lack of knobs, but then that was the trend at the time. While a Juno-106 would blow this out of the water, for the $150 AUD that I got this for its a real steal. Certainly not a classic but definitely underrated, I'll never get rid of mine if I can help it.

youknowjuno

Posted 261 days ago

Just acquired one of these. You can tell it came out around the same time as the Juno 60 as the back panel is almost identical. It doesn't sound too different to a Juno 106 imho. The great thing I've just discovered is that the arpeggio trigger in works through my 60's DCB midi box so I've been able to midi sync the arpeggio.

<87654321>