Why I LOVE the Korg Poly-61 

I’m so glad I started my morning with this video

Y’all are a blessing to the internet

I have owned TWO poly-61Ms and they are excellent!!

I love this synth as well. Every now and then I would pop open the case to my dad Poly-61 and start messing around with it. I myself have very little musical experiences other than knowing how to play the drums. But I do know that it was used in one very very popular song called Ghostbusters and I hope to one day learn how to play it. My dad owned it for about 40 years or so now.

Hi Doris ! The Korg Poly-61 is one of the synthesizers i really miss in my old collection, sounded so good,..it was so special, miss mine dearly,..but glad you got one and we can hear it on your and Matthew´s productions. Thanks a lot for shareing😍🤩

Good video. I've had 2. The first in 1985 and sold it and then got another, I still have, in 1993 almost new in the box. That it, it was in the box but only used a few times. I also knew where it came from. Anyways, here's a trick to do that it does a fantastic job at. Layered filter sweep. Program a nice slow rising filter sweep with lots of resonance but not to self oscillating. Save it. Then use chord memory to layer all six oscillators as you wish. Here's how. Press hold and hit every C note on the keyboard. Then hit chord memory. Now play one note for the entire sweep. Cool huh!! Hit Poly and then hold. Then hit the lowest C note 6 times. You will be stacking all 6 oscillators on top of each other. Hit chord memory. Now you have a very fat lead. Hit Poly again and Hold. Hit the lowest C note 3 times and the next highest 3 times. Hit chord memory. You get the idea. Also, has your Poly 61 been calibrated? If not, I highly recommend you have it done. This puts the VCF and resonance in tune. You heard right. Also the scale and squaring up the square waves. I've got the service manual and I do mine about every 5 years or so. And, mine is probably overdue. It's not a difficult thing to do. Not that many adjustments. Unlike my Jupiter 8 with 3 tuning trimmer pots per the 16 VCOs. It's an all day job to do it. Literally.

Dream Machine 2023 tour

Excellent review on an underapreciated synthesizer!!!

Good to see this! Only two days ago I brought mine back to life by meticulously cleaning the CPU board and adjacent ribbon cables which the old battery had eaten into. After a battery change and yup, even more internal cleaning I loaded all my old patches from 10 long years ago and its all circuits go!!! I've found you can easily get some delicious Prophet 5, gluey synth brass patches and the cathedral chimes are superb as well. Add some FX like a Strymon or a Microcosm and the pads become amazing as well. :) Peace out!!

Thanks so much for posting! I too LOVE the Poly-61..I used to have one years ago and it was a damn fine synth,,the brass, strings and organ sounds (to name a few) were great-sounding. You did a wonderful overview of a super-cool keyboard.

Had one in the 90s. I think many owners install a battery holder instead of just replacing the battery. This is what was done on my dw8000. I wish I still had my Poly61, it had a good sound.

still got mine, it was my first synth and still functioning. :) Despine the yellowed whit keys and broken joystick.

Had one in the mid 80s. Played Van Halen’s Jump, Eurythrmics’ Sweet Dreams & other synthersizer music on it for hours & hours. 😅 Such a great synthersizer, regret selling it in the mid 90s. 😢

Great video. My first synth along with second one the moog source. Used to connect both to my Linndrum. Had to sell the moog source for financial reasons but kept the poly 61 until it broke down. Great keyboard 😊

This clip gives you the me such wonderful memories of the Poly 61 as it was the synth in my secondary school. I pymohyemnrf the hell out of this synth between 1987 and 1990 as well as using it in the music department and for a number of gigs at the time. It was limiting in terms of programming but it was a perfect way to get into synth programming. I became a big Korg fan and owned over a dozen Korg instruments between 1991 and 2016 when I sold my very used Korg T3EX after over 25 years of heavy duty use!

Nice video thanks 👍

Hi! New fan here.. Thank you for producing such entertaining and informative videos! Great work all around.

Cant wait to buy the solo album.

As a tech that worked on many of these you did a really good review... yes those batteries i replace and move them off the board because they damage connector and PC traces and that's why it can get expensive..if anyone has one in a closet or storage get the battery serviced before it damages things,,

The bass on this thing can be soooo full. Can be hard to mix, but if you need it it's their for its all encompassing bass low dirty bliss.

I'm focusing on what I love, too.

This is the most early 80's synth I can think of from the era when everyone got a VCR or a C64. It just has that digital plastic-ness to it. Good video

I actually played a new one of these in a band in the '80s. It was affordable, had presets and sounded okay. It's a good intro to how synths work since it's relatively simple to program, too. What more could you want?

My dad bought one of those new. He had the dealer install the factory MIDI kit when it became available a few months after he bought it. I found it to be kind of fatiguing to listen to, to be honest. I did do some programming on it, and built a patch using a guide published in Polyphony magazine to get a human voice sound; by golly it worked and sounded pretty good. It's funny how I can just glance at the lettering on the panel now and instinctively know what everything does; it was pretty baffling when I was still in high school. Love your YC30; I've got one of those :)

Great job Doris

I had one and really miss it. :)

I LOVE THAT YOU LOVE THE KORG POLY 61!!!!

For change the bateri on poli 61 we must save the paches befote ?

Brass in octaves sounds nice, somehow it reminds me of.. Something.. But what is it..?

Lovely demo! I too love the Poly-61... Add a stereo chorus to the mono out and it is 80s DCO Bliss!

Thanks for this. They should do this for all keyboards.

Beatifull sounds ¡¡ thank's for your video...likes from Ecuador :)

1:45 yeah

Sometimes I like to torture myself by looking up the Poly 61. I used to have one as a kid in the late 90's. A friend of my parents heard I really liked music and wanted to play an instrument, so they gave me this one. I played the bejebus out of it, even though I couldn't actually play or understand synthesis. Then, in the early 2000's, we moved and my parents didn't want to 'lug along that old piece of junk.' I still miss that thing..

great video. I have 2 of these and they rock. I have aa MK1 and a MK2, main difference is the way the voice boards are connected and arranged. MK1 has way more connectors making it mode unreliable in general

One of the few synths that has the potential of a wide range sound pallet with only 20 parameters. Chord memory is also cool. The OFF function for OSC 2 is still a weird one though, it would've been great if the polyphony would double just like its inferior brother/sister/synthperson the poly-800 which has way too many params.

Hi there, have you ever done a comparison between the Korg DW8000 and 6000?

Great vid! I had one of these and always loved preset 18 which was a sort of pulsating, helicopter-like noise. I have never been able to confirm if it is a factory preset or was unique to mine. Since you had the factory ones loaded I was curous if you could answer this. Thanks!

That "popcorn" sound sounds like a kick drum to me.

I have one, but it hasn't been used in almost 20 years. Do I dare try to power it up?

Groovy..👌

SOOOO looking forward to your 1st solo album, Doris!!! This synth reminds me of my Korg Poly-800. (Just looked it up & it was released the year after.) I acquired the Korg Poly-800 in an odd way. I had a Sequential Circuits Max (very similar to the Sequential Circuits Six Trak you reviewed a while back.) but one cold winter day I got under the covers and stupidly dragged the synth on to my lap. This created a nasty static shock that killed it. I took it in to see if it could be repaired. 3 months passed by, so I contacted them about it. They seemed out of the loop, but offered me a 'loaner:' the Korg Poly-800. A year goes by, and the store contacts me about the Korg. I'm like- where is my Sequential Circuits Max? Hmmm, we'll get back to you. Next year, same conversation. Year 3: same, but by this point I was resolved that I would never see that Sequential Circuits Max again. Every year they'd call, every year I'd be ticked off. Finally after a decade of this ongoing situation I told them I would be keeping the Korg and that I never wanted to hear from them again. I still have the Korg to this day! (Mercifully, it miraculously does not have an internal battery problem?!?) Thanks for your cool videos- we always look forward to them!

I miss my 61. 😢

Oh man this rules so hard

Nice synth! Juno 6 has only 1 DCO/voice - JX-3P might be a little more similar in that they are both 2 DCO/voice synths. There are trade offs with each. Would love to have one.

Legowelt mods the joystick. Break the spring and you've got another LFO when you bend up.

I really miss my Poly 800.

Nice video. Kebu has one of these in his vast collection ( eg perplexagon part 3). Still haven't turned mine on in years. Reading comments had got me worried about the battery leakage potential. Ironically I sold my poly6 and kept the 61 because it sounded better, which spec wise it shouldn't

I scored one a little over a year ago for $100 as it was broke as shit. Rebuilt one of the cables, replaced some keys, replaced the voice board, and rebuilt the enclosure and she’s become a great synth. A lot of people tell me it’s a crap synth, but then love it with I play it live. Go figure lmao

Midi?

Yeahhhh korg poly 2 here but also my new casio ctk7200

That popcorn sound is pure Glitch, shouldve kept some of dem weirdo sounds

I prefer P61's sound over poly 6 although P6 has better filter and makes better stringer type of sounds but for classic poly 80's it sounds very organic and punchy (with a bit of digital flare) for being DCO synth imho. The simplicity makes the programing idiot proof but I know people will complain for not having knobs blah. It needs FX to shine. One useful mod is to have switch for enabling continuous 2nd free running LFO to Filter for nice sweeping effect controllable from a knob on the panel

My Korg DW 8000 has the same patch numbering. No 9's anywhere. It starts with patch number 11.

you will need to walk to get your beer..lol

Popcorn is for drum sampling.

Den musst du pflegen... Er ist nicht der jüngste. Hab einen Mono/Poly - Fällt auch langsam auseinander. ;)

5:55 Maybe Tomorrow

Ooohh I had one of these and a roland hs80 and a boss drum machine and a alesis sequencer, all for the princely sum of 280 uk pounds, this was mid 99s when nobody wanted them. Selling them was a gargantuan mistake.oooohhh

Ziveliii !!!

Gracias te doy, mujeres como tú nos salvan del tedio que es la horrible música actual. Propuestas como las de ustedes hacen que uno siga creyendo en el rock, nuevamente gracias 😉😊✌🤘

I have a polysix.

I had the 61m. Regret letting it go.

Two dcos. 👍

I was just wondering if you had a video where you actually shut up and play the keyboard?

Not entirely knobless, mind

All i heard was a muppet talking continously 😢

Too much talking, not enough playing.

I Love your equipment !