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.
- Demos & Media
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Audio Clip 1 - Some nice demos to give you a taste of the Poly 61, submitted by Antoine G.
Audio Clip 2 - Some nice TB demos to give you a taste of the Poly 61, submitted by Antoine G.
Audio Clip 3 - Some nice analog demos to give you a taste of the Poly 61, submitted by Antoine G.
Manual - Download the original owner's manual from SoundProgramming.net.
- Specifications
- Polyphony - 6 Voices
- Oscillators - DCO1:sawtooth, pulse, and square; DCO-2: sawtooth, square
- LFO - 1 LFO can modulate the DCOs or the Filter
- Filter - 1 lowpass filter w/ ADSR
- Memory - 64 patches
- VCA - ADSR
- Keyboard - 61 keys
- Arpeg/Seq - Arpeggiator with external sync
- Effects - Chorus
- Control - MIDI (on later Poly-61M models)
- Date Produced - 1982 - 1986
- Websites of Interest
- Resources & Credits
Images from Perfect Circuit Audio.
Errors or Corrections? Send them here.
another underrated synth!
This one's a true bargain right now.
The sound of the oscillators is so amazingly cool!
Especially the 2nd osc. which is this lo-fi 4-Bit Osc = AWESOME!
I wish osc. 1 had the option to turn it off, like osc. 2.. (Mod? Yes probably!)
"The unique sound if the Poly-61 is because under the hood, there is nothing at all like it. The fliters used were a run of SSM chips that were not produced very long and only used in a few devices."
This ^^^ is just awesome as well :)
Also, I think I can sync the arp with a constant Impulse-Machine click from my Machinedrum..
(If it's like the SH-101's syncable trigger input)
Anyways, awesome, awesome synth, DX-7 comparison is way beyond me, haha.
Thumbs up!
Ooops. I wrote that first paragraph, THEN found the schematic . . . duh. Anyhow, that service manual out to help. There's no space in "Ko rg" as shown, don't know why that got in there, in the link.
I don't know, because I've not looked at the schematics, but in that era, most electronics used battery-bacekd RAM, as Flash hadn't been invented, and EEPROM had limited writecycles.
To anyone who had a Poly61 . . . and needs to replace a battery. There's a tech manual posted at http://www.dompselaar.org/Korg/Poly61/Korg_Poly-61_Service_Manual.pdf
The service manual lists a battery partcode 52000900, description "3/170DK (3.6v 170 MAH) KLM-509" so there's a battery in there. I'll bet it looks like this: http://www.zbattery.com/3-6V-170mAh-NiCad-Cordless-Phone-Battery_6
This is what I find when I search for 3/170 batteries . . . a cordless phone battery. Verify it, and then grab one at your local electronics store, and your good old Poly61 should remember presets again (and not load ROM defaults!)
I had to do something similar with my old Yamaha DX-100, as well as some ham radio gear I have.
yes it is possible to add some nice knobs...........