Korg Poly 800 Demo (no talking)

3 of my favorite tones:
0:34 Brass
3:05 Soft Keys
6:06 Big String Pad

The Korg Poly 800 was one of Korg's responses to Roland's lauded Juno series. There's a similar architecture, with 8 DCOs and a single VCF. You can run the DCOs 2x per voice to get 4-voices, or 1x to get 8-voices. There's also a pleasant onboard chorus. The tones are pure 1980s - there's still lots of analog vibe to it. The 2-axis joystick is super fun too, you can control pitch bend on X-axis and DCO/VCF wobble on the Y-axis.

Where this synth really excels is in soft keyboard tones, brasses, analog strings and pads. There are some decent bass & lead sounds that you could definitely massage in a mix, but "huge" is not a descriptor I would apply to this.

Programming is pretty easy, there's no menu diving, just type the numbers and set the parameter! Not as easy as a one-knob-per-function synth, but nowhere near as bad as something like the alpha-juno nightmare. There's an unusual 2-stage ADSR so you can get some funny slap-back effects.

It sounds GREAT while being run through pedals. You can even run it on C batteries and it seems to last quite a while. Honestly there are a lot of features that make this a good live synth - including strap buttons!

I recorded through stereo DI boxes into my Sound Workshop 1280 mixing board, then into my UAD Apollo 16. In this video, there's just a touch of hall reverb (Valhalla Vintage Verb).

#synthesizer #notalking #sounddemo #korg #poly800

[erebousde]

Staple in Swedish minimalwave and underground synthpop of the 1980s, some of the sounds are instantly recognizable

[urh]

You can maje incredible sounds of this Poly 800 synth.

[dark]

0:33 sounds just like Niagara Falls from The Weeknd 🤩 I hear some tunes that Tame Impala uses in this synthesizer too. The sound is so soothing

[brianvincent]

You've made me want one! Thanks for the vid.

[alexskibicki]

Awesome demo. 😎🤘🏻 🎹 this synthesizer sounds phenomenal.

[darrengoodenough]

Had one In my 80s band just bought another

[alistairsteadman]

I had one for Xmas in 85. I didn’t think much of it then and I don’t now.

[carlyletom]

Still got mine from the late 80's. I think I kept it for nostalgic reasons. This was Korg's entry-level synt. I am not sure if the data uploading cassette is in the case. Even the Yamaha PSR models of the early 90's blew this keyboard into irrellivance with better tone generators.

[mwmusic]

Nice demo - I'm getting ready to dive in on a Poly 800 repair. Should be interesting!

[rickybarrios]

Terrible sínte para la época y a un costo accesible Yo tuve uno y trabajé un montón con el

[ericportillo]

Awesome...there an option to turn off the reverb?

[FghhggJgghh]

А есть принципиальная разница между Poly 800 и Poly 800-ll ?

[Donilo.]

Hello, one problem, I really like this synthesizer, but the only thing I don't like very much (which was common in the 80's), is that it has 6 polyphony, it is very little to play more notes, I don't know if in others keyboards there is a pack or something where all the sounds of this synthesizer are but on another current keyboard, such as "Casio ct s 500"

[danielortizdecaracas]

Greetings to all, someone who can help me with my korg poly 800, connect a charger, I think it has a lot of voltage and it turned off and does not turn on anymore, what happened? could it be the protective diode at the input? Would the internal card be burned because of that? any trick remedy or solution here?

[sashaguryevmusic]

are these the stock sounds or a diff sysex? mine came w diff ones in the same program banks

[serbianman]

Sounds good maybe lay off the modulation stick a little next time though.

[SteCosi]

Hi,
are these the default patches?
Thanks

[maydaygoingdown]

Threw mine In a Skip about 28 years ago.
Horrible synthesizer, an utter slow death to make cut off and res changes on the fly, why Korg decided to use those 2 up down buttons instead of physical knobs is beyond me.
Terrible for live use.
Had to slap mine on the right front panel to whack it back into tune as it always drifted out of tune unexpectedly.
Uninspiring sounds considering the competition such as Rolands juno series.
One that Korg I bet would rather forget.
Thanks for showing though, even though it reminded me of how much I hated it and how much money I wasted buying it.

[spaceminers]

Start an AI video band using this awesome overlay style lol feed this video into AI and have it pump out separate drum, bass and vocal solo videos blended with the keyboard video all flying through the same tropical landscapes together playing what sounds like almost music lol

[elderchildren]

sick. how much can you edit the DCO? like rate, depth etc