Formanta • Polivoks
The Polivoks is the most popular vintage Russian synth made in the early 80's - it was among the first synthesizers produced in the USSR. It had 2 oscillators with pulse or triangle waves, and 1 noise generator, the levels of which were controlled via the internal mixer. You could also connect an external input (guitar, electric piano etc) for mangling with the Polivoks' switchable high/low pass filter and LFO. The oscillators were unstable and difficult to tune, which means that the Poli is best suited to making screeching sounds or thunderous bass, both of which it excels at. One more thing though, if you buy one of these it would help if you can read Russian ;)
Check out this Panel Layout Translation to English.
Polivoks had been produced since 1982 by Formanta electronic factory (one of the biggest at the time); it was sold exclusively in the USSR. Polivoks has its own particular electronic parts, reliable keyboard (49 notes F to E) made in magnetically controlled contacts; synthesis modules consist of independent boards, which is convenient for maintenance. The synthesizer has 2-voices polyphony; each oscillator works with a keyboard note independently; two types of filters - bandpass/lowpass and external input for cutoff control. In addition, Polivoks is housed in an original body of uncommon design with handy controls. Being closed with a cover, the synthesizer turns into a strong aluminum case.
1)It's impossible to scale VCO 2 perfectly on mine - I get about 2 usable octaves at most
2)Several vital pots are so incredibly scratchy and filthy, live tweaking is not an option
3)The LFO speed range is very limited
It takes about 30 minutes to warm up into tune, the vertical switches feel kind of cheap, and nearly all the knob ranges are only about 40 percent used. It has crossmod(VCO2 to VCO1), but only seems to really work if VCO2 is a lower octave. It sounds monstrous through a keyboard amp. It’s freaky-deaky!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-I MpElp0a_Q