Korg Poly 800 and EX 800 with HAWK-800 mod kit

A crude attempt at demonstrating the HAWK-800 kit installed in a Korg Poly-800 Mk1 and an EX-800. A little echo is added for efx but other than that there are no other synths or effects involved in this video. As an engineer, I am not that good at mastering, encoding, composition etc so you have to forgive me for the roughness of it all. The idea is to show MIDI control of the two synths and some of the other great features of the HAWK-800 and AtomaHawk upgrade kits. Look out for the VCF cutoff and Resonance control, the Chorus toggling, DCO MG via EG3, SLFO modulation of LFO's, random sample and hold and several other new features.

Category:

Music

Tags:

• Korg
• Poly-800
• EX-800
• upgrade
• modification
• kit

[LizzardHimself]

I have a Poly 800 in mint condition here, its the rare reversed key version. :)

The sounds are gone and the backup battery is dead, though. Still got the sounds on cassette. :)

I wanna know your opinion, should i mod my poly 800 as its the rare reversed key version? I have no idea what these things are worth or will be worth in the future.

[korgpolyex800]

@LizzardHimself I would speculate that the reverse key version is worth about double a mint normal Poly-800. That would put it around the 300-400 USD mark. In my opinion, and I am biased of course, putting the HAWK-800 and AtomaHawk kits into your reverse keyboard version is actually more worthwhile value wise than putting those kits into a normal Poly-800. I am biased since I am the one that developed and sells the kits. But one thing is for sure, don't drill holes in your mint condition synth.

[electronicexposure]

2:15 never heard that on a poly 800, how do I get this mod for mine?

[korgpolyex800]

@electronicexposure check out dub dub dub d0t hawk800 d0t c0m. The kits are listed there. You need electronic hacking experience but I do the mod's for you if you wish too.

[AnalogAudio1]

If your expansion would include an ARPGEGGIATOR and PORTAMENTO I would buy it. So please let me know when you succeed in integrating these features ;-)

[korgpolyex800]

@AnalogAudio1 The HAWK-800 kit already has portamento and I am working on the arpeggiator now. I expect the arp to be ready around December 2010.

[electronicexposure]

I don't have hacking experience but I know a bit about circuit bending...

I'll check out the site, thanks.

[korgpolyex800]

Thanks for that. Around 4:37 is where I try to demonstrate the LFO rate modulated by the SLFO's. I am always surprised by the breadth and depth of the sounds that you can wring out of the Poly-800. Good luck with the restoration.

[aspidistral]

P.S. I really like the intro bass line too. It's thin, but nice. Also the tones introduced around the 4:37 mark have a really nice light housey feel to them.

Seems you get a nice musical range from the synth, and filters sound clean and cutting.

I'm getting a broken Poly800 this week, and will start work on restoration soon. WIll definitely consider the upgrades.

Cheers