An 8-voice
polyphonic analog/
digital hybrid synthesizer with a 49-note
keyboard and a built-in
sequencer. Manufactured between
1984 and
1986.
The Poly-800 features one
DCO per voice, with
sawtooth and
square waveshapes for building your own
waveforms. Single-DCO sounds are quite
thin, but the two 4-DCO
oscillator banks can be layered to play
separate patches for a much
thicker sound, while limiting the
polyphony to 4 voices. A
noise generator is also available. The DCOs have their own 6-stage
ADBSSR envelope generators.
For a
filter, the P800 offers a single
resonant low-pass VCF. It features keyboard
tracking and its own
EG. Unfortunately, the filter has no
function for every oscillator, and won't for example be re-
triggered for each note when playing
legato.
A
sine-only
LFO is available, with controls for
speed and
delay. It can be used to
modulate both the DCOs or the VCF. Also included is a simple
chorus effect.
Furthermore, there is a a 256-
event step-time sequencer capable of holding both notes and
chords. P800's patch
memory holds up to 64
user patches with up to 50 editable
parameters.
MIDI support is included, and the P800 can even run on
batteries.
The Poly-800 is noted as
Korg's first
international succeess and it offered heavy
competition to
Roland's Juno line, mostly due to its surprisingly low price.
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