Poly 800 help?

I have a Korg Poly 800 that lights up, but will not produce sound. Does anyone have any idea what the problem could be or where to look first for possible solutions?

Has it sat for a long time? You may need to reprogram it.

Yes, it has. How does one go about doing that?

download a poly 800 factory wav file, get a 8th inch to 1/4 audio cable, plug it in from your computer or ipod or something into the tape in on the back of the 800. you probably want to google for the manual to figure out how to setup the 800 for import.

Im guessing I could play it straight out of my recording rig.

yea.. you'l have to keep messing around with it to get the right levels though other wise it'll keep showing ERR

You could just create one patch on it (this is what I did before the days of the interwebz where everything was a download away) and copy it over and over and over, then go back and modify the patches.

As you program it you will probably find that the levels for the DCOs are both 0, resulting in no sound whatsoever.

However, none of this will work if the battery is dead. It is a CR2032, but the problem on the older models is that it is soldered to the board.

You will need to go to Radio Shack (or the interwebz) and get a battery holder, solder THAT to the place where the battery comes out (being very careful to observe polarity), then you may change the battery as needed, now and in the future. The only caveat here is that the pins on the holder probably do not line up with the holes in the board. What I did was trimmed off one of the contact posts from the old dead battery and soldered it onto the holder post as an extension.

Make sure the battery is truly dead before doing all this, though. If you can make, store, and retrieve the patch later, the battery probably has some life to it (though it WILL fail).

+1 on what Suilebhain said. You need to replace the internal battery. Radio Shack as the battery holder and replacement CR2032 then you download a .wav or .syx to reprogram sounds into. Piece of cake, just a little time consuming if you've never done it before. Still fairly easy though if you're not afraid of a soldering iron.

Not sure if the Poly 800 had a LOCAL switch option under the MIDI utilities area but before going to all that trouble I would first check to see if the LOCAL is set to OFF.

ACTUALLY... I think the Poly 800 doesn't even have the button battery. Doesn't it rely on the big D-cells to hold the patch memory?

http://www.pallium.com/bryan/polybattery.php

Yes, the PolyII had the lithium backup battery (as does the EX-800). BUT the original Poly 800 keyboard (NOT the mark II) doesn't have it. So far as I know.

oooops. You're right. I had forgotten I had done this mod on the one I worked on.

http://analog.no/cms/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=50&Itemid=49

The Poly-800 didn''t have any dedicated battery for keeping the patch memory.

(The MK-2 and the EX-800 have backup battery as standard.) If you remove the power and C-cells at the same time the patches are lost.

This modification shows how to add a dedicated backup battery. After the mod the patches will be kept at all times.

However, beware that the firmware of the MK-1 has a bug which cause a total crash with memory loss when hooked up to certain sequencers.

If you have this problem, try to connect the Poly-800 after the sequencer is started.

Open the Poly-800 by removing ALL screws at the bottom. Note that those in the front are shorter than the rest.

Locate the processor board. This is the large circuit board next to the battery compartment.

At the middle of the board you find two square solder lands, you mount the lithium battery (CR2032 or larger), or battery holder, here. The upper land is positive.

Remove C87, C88, D23.

Cut the trace to the left of the plus lane as shown. Short between trace and trace and D15 as shown. (D15 can be removed)

Finish.

Sorry EP...

there is a version of the mkI that has an internal battery too which is identical to the mkII battery.

the removal and replacement procedures are the same though, desolder the battery, and solder in a new battery holder. any holder of the right size is fine, it just depends on if you want to put it on the board, or use wires and place it away from the board, which is what i personally prefer,.... there's so much space inside that there's little reason to try and cram it onto the pcb.

regarding the loading of patches from wave, i've found that if you turn the volume of your outs up to around the 50% mark, it'll take in one shot. it's picky about volume so i would turn it up to max first, then start reducing it by 10% till the patches take. its real easy and shouldnt take more than 30minutes till you get the right level.

good luck:thu:

Poly 800 thread!

^^^octopoly!

for some reason those bubble thingies made me think of tentacles