Fender Chroma Polaris | The Synths That Time Forgot 

Special thanks to Jack Zimmerman with Vintage Synthesizer Solutions in Sacramento - you can check out content from them at their YT channel - he turned us on to this particular model and sold us one fully serviced.

To answer the questions.. The Chroma Polaris was designed by Paul DeRocco formerly of ARP Instruments. It was developed in Woburn, MA with some input on the colour scheme from CBS on the west coast. (It began life in red, orange and yellow). For cost reasons the production was done in Japan. This is the same as the Sequential Circuits Prophet~600, Drumtraks and some Oberheim Xpanders. The Polaris II has some component tweaks and improvements but no functional differences. It also had later firmware, but this could be added to the original Polaris anyway.

This was the most advanced analog synth in its day and I played it for over 10 yrs. It had everything the Juno 60 lacked, Velocity, sequencer, split, layer, midi.... it set a high bar. The ring modulator was a break through and gave it the digital type edge. It had a motion sequencer, truly advanced for its day. I made 3 home brew albums with this synth back in the day. Main limitation was 6 voices... hard to allocate with split and sequencer. Moved on when after touch arrived in an affordable synth. It lacked an arpeggiator but with an Akai Sequencer/Arp and an Oberheim Strummer I could make it do tricks. Bladder membrane switches were funky.

I bought one of these back in the 80s. Used it on stage for a while. Then, after we moved, it sat in its case for, literally, years. I recently pulled it out and I was shocked to find that it still works and sounds great.

My older brother had one when I was a little kid. These sounds are the sound of my childhood. I remember every single one of them.

Just for laughs, there is one of these in the 80's movie, HE-MAN: Masters of the Universe with Dolph Lundgren. You can see it sitting on a Rhodes in the high school scene.

I have one of these in my shop and , it does have some aggressive patches. The issues it had when it got here . No normal boot up. ( A BUNCH of LEDs turn on with no actions to select) One fix was to tweak the power supplies on the PS board . There are 3 pots to help with that. Another was : The unit not always coming up in working mode. The fix was : take the processor reset chips out of their sockets and put them back in.

🎹nice playing at 12:10 dune 2 ( dos ) Also a Gem synth !!👍🏻🎶

For some reason it gives me Alesis Andromeda feels as if it would be it's ancestor... Or a Sequential offshoot joint venture with Oberheim or Linn from the Era... Nice find for sure!!!

ARP’s Philip Dodds (mentioned in the video) delivered the ARP 2500 used on the set of Close Encounters of the Third Kind. Spielberg liked his vibe and wound up casting him. He’s seen in the movie as the synthesist playing the 2500 communicating with the mothership.

I can tell I really like the Curtis chipset…and of all of them, this one sounds unique.

literally just found one locally a few days ago and have been on the fence about it as it’s hard to wrap one’s head around as you mentioned, but your patches are an inspiration. dig the jankiness of it - def has a lot of character. would love to see more use of the foot pedal for the “pedal steel”-type bending in a demo tho. tricky to get the hang of it but sounds really slick once you do.

I have seriously been waiting for you to demo/review the Polaris for some time. I love mine, but I now have to replace the membrane panels. 🙃Many thanks, in any case!

Love mine! I pair it with some nice effects and voilá - fat, dark, chocolatey analog. Slays when mixed through a PCM81. Got replacement foil panels to fit when mine breaks down.

I really enjoy your hand gestures... Feels like it needs a good stereo chorus.

Fantastic synth... Up there with the Opera 6/DK600, Bit One/99 & EK/EM22 which are some of the best vintage analogs that few people have even heard of.

I just watched Masters of the Universe movie and this synth was in the shop

Love that chroma Polaris I remember it new in the music store and me thinking it's the coolest

Got one, it got membrain fever. terminal, kind of, have new membrain but as yet did the transplant. The use of membrane cables that is exposed to i think ozone from the power supply which makes it brittle over time. But I did use it a lot back in the day. The big thing it could do which many don't know is all sliders have a midi cc number assigned to them and its active so you can record every movement, which then could be edited and sent back. so theoretically every perimeter has its own infinitely variable remote control. The units also had a db25 port, designed to link another Polaris together, similar to the chroma. And I often wondered if they were planning to make a synth module like they did for the chroma. It isn't quite as rich as its older brother, who had three osculators per voice and more voices, but the single -6 voice/12 osculators made the unit sound real big!

Ya, I had one in the 90s, and I remember how heavy it was when we'd take this to shows. Sounded really cool, though.

THANKS GOD - I HAVE ONE IN MY STUDIO - LOVE IT SO MUCH +++

Niceee!

I had one for many years, it was impossible to transport!!! weighed more than me!! But it was a wonderful synthesizer, I sampled some of the sounds because they were unique, unfortunately no one made a VST plugin to emulate it so far, I've been asking Arturia to do it, but they just told me that they'll take it into account, if anyone Of those interested, they could also ask Arturia to make more strength with them, I regret and regret having sold it, very good review, thanks for reminding me again!

Hi Alamo Great Video Do You Know How To Replace The D Batteries In It My Batteries Are 2 Years Old Should I Need To Worry Right Now Please Help Thanks Any Help Is Much Appreciated 👍

It has been used by Leftfield and Jimmy Edgar. Nothing on who made it, but Arp is mentioned here and there, can it be made by what was left og Arp? Price on Reverb are Loco... You can get a bonkers collection of the best VST's for the same price. Very interesting video!!

Wow! I love it’s character. How was this not a thing?

I believe it was built by Suzuki or Seiko just like the Oberheims from the same period.

It looks awesome imho. Scifi dystopian like.

Zach, you should really consider utilizing MIDI whenever possible in the sound sections of these videos. You could demonstrate far better the capabilities by doing a playing test, and also running MIDI and tweaking. It would make these videos way more comprehensive IMO.

IMHO one of the best poly synths ever. But a pain in the ass because of its tech problems.

Maybe this is one synth Behringer could be celebrated for recreating, without the membrane buttons obviously.

you doesn't seem to like the polaris really ;) a very versatile synth, from bass to strings, compared to modern analogue synthesizers (e.g. Deepmind), the sound is much warmer and fatter, you even get some nice fender piano sounds. the assingnable controls, with a pedal/footswitch, make this synth sing, playing split sounds is easy made. btw: the polaris has 6 voices but/and is 8 time multitimbral (1 main 1 link 1seq + 5more), which works quite well with the dynamic voice allocation. the ring modulator is digital & the envelopes are faster with the eprom rev11

"The Cash register 80-ies"! 😂

Sounded great, but that membrane panel was problematic.

Just watching masters of the universe. He plays one in that film

I suspect that if ARP hadn't put so many of their resources into the Avatar, they may have stayed in business and brought the Chroma to market themselves. No idea if the Polaris would have followed.

@Alex Ball knows who did the manufacturing.

Wicked Crazy Sound.. horrible control config... Someone should to a modern re-iteration with same voice + filter chips + updated mod capabilities, and a nice Arpeggiator to boot.... that would be so fire... I really wish Behringer put more thought into such projects rather than typical clones... like this and the Kawai SX-240... Total Synth wave Machine.. Dunno if John Carpenter ever used, but certainly fits right into such scores...

lol who the fuck disliked this video? seriosuly.... It was probably some bedroom studio guy's housewife who got sick of his synthmania

Put the Polaris thru a good reverb/delay unit and then tell us how bad it is. Not many old synths sounded very good until effects were utilized.

Soo both Fender and Harley Davidson made some strange (shit) and desicion in the 80s..

Nice, sounds predecessor of phaze distortion Casio CZ , hmm could Casio guys be the ones who were on that ❓ team..

fantatstic sounding synth-- one of my favorites. WHY DO YOU PUT IT DOWN SO MUCH? 'distopian"? "weird" ? It has awesome tone--awesome filter -- (killer range) one of the best fundamental synth tones ive ever heard. way ahead of its time with features that were way superior to the competition. so what if it says 'sweep ' ? why do you say "robocop' so often? --that is meaningless to me you didnt even mention the sequencer... yes it has some limitations compared to current technology --but it sounds LUSH and deep --not tinny or buzzy a real musical sound. i just wish there were more flexibility with the mod levers --- yes--the membrane switches do fail--but one of the original ARP engineers Paul Derocco now sells replacement membrane panels for $225 on ebay it will bring it back to life---- well worth the investment in a panel replacement

This is more a string machine than a synth