It might seem like this is the best sounding synth ever made, but a good portion of that is coming from the player ;) (yes I came back to hear it again)
@@theeltea You dont think this is special? its amazing for an early polysynth. It sounds amazing and has a great feature set inc multi timbrality for 1983 or whenever it was.
whoever you are out there who played this and made this video, can you do another, it & your composition/playing are just so fantastic, i have replayed it too many times, it is absolutely amazing
Best sounding vintage polysynth, I think! Maybe the Oberheim Eight Voice can compete but setting that one up is a downright chore - Polykobol has proper patch memory. Such sweet sound...
The sounds that everyone is hearing that seems impossible on any of your polyphonic synths, remember this is a bi-timbral synthesizer. You can replicate a lot of these sounds by using MIDI and stacking two polys on top of each other. I love playing an OB-6 MIDI'ed to a Prophet-6. Sometimes just making a pad on the OB-6 and scrolling through different lead type patches or arpeggiated patches on the Prophet will come up with some hauntingly beautiful sounds similar to what you're hearing here.
Actually it sounds remarkably like my Prophet 12 (which is also Bi-timbral) and the overall tone and organic feel is the closest I've heard from any other synth in sounding like a P12 ... I'm sure side by side you'd be able to pick out the difference, but honestly it sounds extremely close in tone.
The Kijimi from Black Corporation already exists. Black Corp make the absolute best replicas of legendary status synths like this one, CS-80, Jupiter 8 and Elka Synthex.
It surprises me that RSF didn't try sending Vangelis a free one- I bet he would have liked it very much, and the publicity might've helped RSF stick around!
Jai Bhimadevi Vangelis had already made his choice on the CS 80 for a while but it's true this Polykobol have his own personnality and he could have given his own stamp to it, sad it didn't happened, then just no velocity expression like the CS but weirdly it seem to got it somehow depending hiw it is played
only 30 where build, and they were unfinished, some features like velocity and aftertouch did not work. A musical success ( very good sound ) but a technical and commercial failure, i would say. A full working polykobold II could have interested Vangelis, i guess.
Oh my... is this kind of sound quality even real?? Absolutely the the most sweet and lush sounds that I've ever heard from any synth :o You are a great player, too
Voyetra 8 and Prophet 5 Rev 2 come to mind. Of course no surprise since all have SSM chips. Other incredibly sweet synths are Synthex, OB-X and Memorymoog. I’ve had all these except Polykobol! CS-80 was my least favorite truth be told
Too little, no financial backup . They were not able to finish all the functionalities on all their units. They were genius for the conception of the sound of their synth for the oscillators and the filter, and were equal to the greatest at this level,they had very good ideas for the functionalities of a polysynth, but they had not enough money for research for building components and finish all the features, etc... A great waste in the history of the synthesizer.
I remember locking at the sleeve notes on JEAN MICHEL JARRE'S "Concerts of China "Album...and there it was .....Dominique Perrier RSF KOBOL...also on the live DVD you can see Frederick Rousseau playing on aswell
Questions! *1: How/Where did you acquire THE rarest polysynth of all time? 1a: (OPTIONAL) How much did it cost you? 2: How many voices does yours have installed, and does it respond to velocity? This was intended, but was never completed in time for production. ***3: What is the upkeep like on a synth of this caliber? 3a: Does it fail often? 3b: Does it remain somewhat in tune for very long? 3c: Is there even a slight chance that you could replace a component should it fail? If you could possibly find time to answer these questions, I would greatly appreciate it, as it would help further my knowledge of rare synthesizers! Thank You, Adam Borseti
Adam Borseti 1- I bought that in USA. 1a- The price is the same that AKS ;-) 2- eight Voices Velocity doesn't work on the Polykobol 3- The big problems on the Polykobol are the bad contacts between the connectors, and the bad power supply. The synth is overheat rapidly. (3 µprocessor 68009 Motorola in this synth) The Oscillators are stable except when the temperature is too high. Rare components on the Polykobol : UA726, SSM2044, SSM2056. Seb
This thing sounds WONDERFUL!!! It's very smooth sounding in a pleasing way....a pleasure to listen to....especially the way you played it in this video. Fantastic job. Also, fantastic polysynth. I bet it cost an arm and a leg back then and even moreso nowadays.
Very expensive at its time, only 30 were build, and most of them are not working, you had to put your hand in the motor for making working properly . A working polykobold II, now , is very very rare , in the hands of some few guys (most in France ...). Then IF one is sold ( not a broken one ) it could be very expensive.
i know that for the kobol (keyboard and expander ) , they have tried to be the closer to the original in term of quality of the sound, it goes as far than building their own version of the filter , because they did not found a modern 2040 chip enough good for the filter of the kobol. This is the sign that they really want to get the original sound, and not just a simple cheap clone. Then we can hope a version of the polykobol close to the original like for the kobol.
Il n'y a eu que 30 exemplaires de produits de ce synthé Français , en comptant ceux vendus et les prototypes. Donc cet exemplaire est archi rare et qui plus est fonctionne parfaitement!!! En tout ca super démo et quel son majestueux, il donne des frissons. Il coutait 65.000 francs a l'époque soit près de 24.000 dollars actuels.
il est même unique, avec toutes, ou quasi toutes, les fonctionnalités qui fonctionnent. Il a trouvé des gars capables de l'aider à réparer, finir les fonctionnalités défaillantes, manquantes. Parce que à la base aucun n'était totalement fini ....
@@jean-louispech4921 oui c'est vrai que celui-ci est vraiment opérationnel, jean Loup Dierstein, avait lâcher l'affaire depuis longtemps sur ce synthétiseur. J'espère que c'est exemplaire fonctionnera le plus longtemps possible. A priori Behringer est sur en train d'en développer un. Il viennent de sortir le mono KOBOL expander qui est très fidèle à l'original
unknown , yes, because it is very rare : only 30 produced, and only some are really working. Underrated? not by peoples who know it, they praise its sound as one of the best for a polyphonic analog synth.
Truly a beautiful work of art you have there in this Synthesizer...Truly. And beautiful played and use of sound texturing...simply beautiful. Thanks for this glimpse into this Synthesizer.
Je crois que nous Français on se laisse vite abattre avec les difficultés ! RSF avait crée la une machine à paufiner et terminer au plan technique qui était au TOP du TOP de ce qui se faisait de mieux à cette époque,un synthetiseur polyphonique exceptionnel et aujourd'hui nous ferions parti de l'élite mondiale en terme de production de machines musicales ,malheureusement on s'est fait distancer par d'autres pays ! En France on a tous les créateurs de génies pour se réaliser mais on ne sait pas vendre et persevérer ! quel gachis .............
Hé oui, c'était fabriqué en France, du coté de Toulouse, je crois... Il est heureux qu'il en reste quelques survivants. Les RSF n'avaient rien à envier aux Moogs, Oberheim, Sequential circuits et autres ! Je dois encore avoir un tarif de 1983 quelque part...
I think they made the knobs first and said.. how are we going to make it sound like it looks?? (haha I love how he kept until the end for showcasing the filter with a bang! very deliberate suspense for synth geeks)
It seems Behringer has applied for a Trademark on Polykobol so there could be a clone of this in the future. I really hope so, this is an amazing sounding synth
@@seppoinnanen5577 Kijimi, is inspired by the polykobold but is not a clone. Peoples who have played on a real polykobold can hear the difference. Behringer on the other hand will work with the original technical documentation, and work with a specialist of the RSF synths who owns the documentation. In theory they can replicate the polykobold exactly ( including the technical flaws ) if they use the same components ( but this will not happens for many reasons ) .
I hope Behringer replicates this model because I will never have a chance to play one or afford an original Polykobol. Hopefully this synth doesn't fade out of existence due to it's rarity.
@@jean-louispech4921 Kijimi is based on the Kobol Expander.. and extended to be more like a PolyKobol via analysis of the schematics and such.. it's the closest thing we have for now. But yes, I also hope Behringer try and clone this synth too.. it's so rare that they may have trouble finding one to reverse engineer, though. But it's definitely a sound that should not be lost to time, and deserves to be more out there in the world of synths :)
@@Wagoo From what i have read the components are not the same than the polykobold, then not a clone. While i just have listen a demo of the kijimi where the guy was trying to recreate a music from a video made with the polykobold , it sounded good. The more easy to find are non working polykobold for Behringer, i guess. There is only one official full functional polykobold, from a french musician involved with the polykobold development, and may be another, if he is not lost or broken with time. This is the one used in most demos we can find on youtube. For the rest they are incompletes or broken. Yes it is very rare to find, but almost everyone praise its sound when it works. On the other hand it looks that behringer have a lot of relation with musicians ( like Vangelis playing on their CS 80 clone ).
j'adore ce son purée de purée!! ça ressemble au CS80 en mieux! sans rire!! exactement le son de vangelis dans les albums des années 70's (style So lon Ago So Clear) excellentissime. Plus profond que le MiniMoog a mon sens. une merveille
Chris Lindsay - I had to pull up Black Corporation's product and have a look! My hopes were for a true clone of the Polykobol II, as opposed to the earlier version. It's hard to tell which one this module is, but in either case, it doesn't appear to share the same electronics as the originals. One thing that definitely seems to be lacking is the SSM2044 filter, which is rare but still obtainable. There's a possibility that a discrete replication of the filter could be produced if the old ICs can no longer be made. As long as the end result sounds identical to the Polykobol II in every way, (original factory presets included), I'd still go for it. We'll have to wait and see. Truthfully, I'd love to have an identical keyboard reissue with wooden paneling and all. Only a few modest upgrades like full MIDI implementation, USB and expanded memory of course. :D
Roman's (Black Corporation's) circuits include a reproduction of the SSM2044 filter. The Kijimi is probably the closest anyone will come to a PK II reproduction
Excellente vidéo pour un synthé sublime ! Quelle merveille ! 5:16 ambiance très « La soupe aux choux ». Raymond Lefèvre en aurait-il eu un à disposition quand il composé la B.O. ?
