Vintage Synth Explorer

Poly-800 was my first synth and I also had a Mk II. gigged with them for years. Comparison with Juno is pointless - Juno has a sub-osc while the Poly has four ranks per DCO that can be layered. its like as if the Poly-800 really wanted to be a monosynth (really - four octaves, no sustain and strap pegs ???), but didn't quite come out right (like a de-evolved Mono/Poly). I used the Poly to make fat juicy 5th saw lead that was drippy from detune and chorus and stacked the oscillators in Chord Memory for even fatter sound, and my Poly had a string pad with a low end that caused structural damage to whatever building i played in. that was nice, but damn if they hadn't stopped putting them tweaky knobs on the front panels in the mid '80, would've been much nicer. I'm too lazy to do the mods. Sold both the Poly-800 and the Mk II a few years ago and bought a DW-8000. I still have my Juno too, but they are just different synths.

I would not compare this to a Juno. It is a synth capable of additive synth that is closer to the larger Korg DW in sound. Could sound analogue from time to time. Was going to by one in late 1990's. Asking price was $500.00. They probably brought itin for$30-$50. The price wasgoing up on the cute little things like TB, TR,MC202 Poly 800 etc...

This is a sleeper synth. Uses DCO's not VCO's but it stays in tune! The single filter for all 8/4 voices is part of its sound. There are some sounds you only get this way (holding one note and hitting another which modulates the filter cutoff slightly).
I find it excels as short blippy industrial sounds, & long sustained ones using the steppiness of the envelopes to create a gate/sample hold kind of sound.
re the "free running" sequencer, all you do is go into param 88 and set seq clock to ext. Then it syncs to midi clock.
drawbacks are the cumbersome patch editing by number pad, 1 simple lfo, also the filter with only one mode.
With the "moogslayer" mod it is a different beast. And if you get the Hawk chip it has a lot of possibilities.
I own 2 and they get way more use than my DX21!

Remember Franky Goes to Hollywood? Keyboardist was a proud Poly 800 user, as seen on Saturday Night Live in 1984. This was my first synth (actually my second, b/c my first was a Korg Mono/Poly which we exchanged for a Poly 800, since it better suited my gig needs at the time). I was a sophomore in HS. What did I know?
ericrobertmusic.com

Check the site
http://www.frontiernet.net/~rlsnuffy/pol y800/index.html
Download and run the "custom" sysex, great job. You must listen to the preset 61, very analog evolving sound. This little machine is indeed a monster.