Would you have bought a Korg Poly 61 for $40?

If it was right down the street from where you live?


I could have done that, literally. Decided not to because I really don't need it (and demos didn't inflict enough gas), but the guy who was selling it on ebay lives within a 5-8 minute walk from my place. Maybe I should have...

For 40 bucks, they're not that bad

Not the best synth Korg ever made, but as good as an Alpha Juno or DX21

Listen here:

http://www.synthmania.com/poly-61m.htm

Definately worth 40 of your earth money

As long as it was in very good condition and no leaky battery, yeah. Was a great synth for heavy & dark spinning bass pads and such stuff.

well the keyboard player for duran duran thought it was worth over a grand when new so it probably is worth $40 now

it is a decent board i wish i had one for $40 sittin down the block from me.

I suppose it's worth 40 bucks but listening to those mp3 tracks, it all sounded the same. It made me realize why I sold my Memorymoog and never felt bad about it.

Analog is overrated. Useful for some organ/pad type sounds and some novelties, but otherwise makes me think about a house with just the wallpaper and paint and no frame.

Just another atmospheric enhancer like a dry ice smoke machine.

What I've just posted is heresy to a lot of folks but I guess it's just a matter of personal taste.

I paid $200 shipped from ebay with hard case for my my mint Poly-61. Everything looks brand new including the side panels. I don't use it that much. One of my buddies saw it and asked why I didn't have it hooked up to anything and not even plugged in. I replied that it was just for show.

I owned a Poly61 from about 1986 to 1990, and used it on my first demo recording made on a Fostex 4-track in '87. I liked it for some arpeggiated stuff (nice arp), and I thought it did some really nice spaced-out Floyd-type sounds, like stuff you'd hear in Ummagumma; at least some of the patches were like that.

However I hated that the resonance only had like 7 steps. It barely qualified as a variable control. The DCOs were pretty nice sounding, and if I'm not mistaken this was Korg's only true DCO based synth. The Poly 800 which immediately followed didn't have real DCOs, they were completely digital (square wave pulses that were wave-shaped to form "saw" waves etc.) That's why the P61 has a slightly crisper, meatier sound to it.