Polymoog Keyboard: A Plea For More Respect
Posted: Mon Jun 24, 2013 8:28 pm
Being an electronic design engineer and sound designer I repair and restore many a vintage synth these days to satisfy my eternal hunger for new sound sources (now 40 synths here in the studio!)....
I have spent the last two weeks returning a very dead Polymoog Keyboard (1976 number #3211) to working order for a world famous pop duo in the UK and its been really quite an enlightening experience. Having been with this instrument morning night and day slowly returning life to this 37 year old beast I now very strongly feel I need to make a heartfelt plea... these things deserve a new lease of life and a darn site more respect than they have received to date!! I can say this hand on heart because I know I'm going to be a little upset when I eventually let this one go back to its owners....
Like so many things in life we are all guilty of reading and reiterating popular second hand opinions and not giving things around us enough attention or even put them into historical context...
In short - there is so much biased garbage talked about these instruments! I can think of many a synth with a so say "stronger" reputation than this with nothing like the character the Polymoog has!
The extremely sad fact of the matter is that the Polymoog was a little too complex a beast for many a keyboard tech to handle and since it seems to have developed a poor reputation, and is subsequently undervalued, rather too many examples have come to grief having suffered many decades of neglect. Furthermore, it never sounded like a Polyphonic Minimoog which clearly upset many - but it was never supposed to - it was designed from day one to complement the model D, not displace it.
Every time I read another of these beasts being turned into a coffee table or parted out it truly makes my heart sink! I've seen some really sorry examples of late which is very sad.
I have spent hours retrofitting a much cooler running switched mode PSU in place of the original Faratron PSU and fixing a plethora of issues but here's the thing...
As a design engineer I can fully understand many of Dave Luce's design decisions and quite frankly, although there are some weak spots, the design is surprisingly logical and well thought out for something of this complexity. Many slate the fact that there are so many pcbs and too many connectors but quite frankly the instrument would have been enormous and totally unserviceable on tour pretty much any other way. Dave very sensibly used non-polarised film caps throughout (except the PSU which wasn't a Moog design anyway), made access to the lower pcbs through hinged upper boards, placed protection components on the pcbs to prevent serious damage from PSU failures (I wish ARP had done the same with the Omni!), arranged the harness so that any connector could be disconnected without damage for aiding fault diagnosis etc etc.
What is easy to forget is that when such a complex instrument is being developed there simply isn't the time or budget to reiterate a design before release hence the "huge" list of field updates (ECNs) which many try to use in evidence of a poor design is merely indication of the complexity of the instrument and the fact that they tried to continuously improve it with time. Many also slate its unusual PLL synchronised two rank divide down oscillator architecture, but quite frankly its clever and a nice refreshing change to be using a polyphonic synth with such a unique signal path. Some slate the Polymoog as an overgrown organ - this is a truly ignorant opinion. The only two "organs" I know of with full polyphonic dynamics control like the Polymoog's are arguably the worlds first string synths - namely the 1938 Novachord and the 1972 Eminent 310 (both of which I own and both of which are far far more complex than conventional organs and way ahead of their time!). To have implemented such polyphony using voltage control would have resulted in a calibration and stability nightmare - with this in light it is truly amazing that the insanely complex CS-80 is so stable but definitely the exception and a testament to some of the finest analog design coming out of Japan at the time. Using free running oscillators would not have permitted the clever sync option which is really very effective - at the slide of control you can polyphonically morph from piano to guitar to harp - something which is simply impossible with the older 12 top oscillator and single rank divide downs.
I've been playing testing #3211 for several days now and I have to say it's rapidly growing on me. It is a very very different beast to my model D but that is not to say it isn't a worthy instrument in the studio - it's just different. A few things hit home... like so many analog synths, it somewhat underwhelms on first play until you get inside it and gain a real empathy for what makes it sing. It is terribly subtle too and beckons to be played with its delightful weighted velocity sensitive P&R key action - the slightest tweak on any of the controls and it can make or break a sound. It's unusual too - I mean how many synths have you used that permit the use of a multimode formant resonator, a transistor ladder and direct sound to be mixed on the fly? Then there is the sound - it can be full of life with bags of character - there is a ton of movement in the dual rank architecture and LFOs and a load of internal distortion which can be used to good artistic effect but you have to work at it and I think this is where the preset versions of this instrument really make less sense. Some say it sounds thin - this is very bizarre, I'd say it sounds extremely warm - maybe too warm. Not capable of focussed model D like bass but still quite capable of making the windows move - especially with the resonator in action!
In short - this is not an instrument for those looking for instant gratification - you have to slowly eek sounds out and yes, it would make for a powerful source of new sample material in my sound design, and yes, I'd love one for myself - so maybe one day now I've satisfied my curiosity first hand.
I have spent the last two weeks returning a very dead Polymoog Keyboard (1976 number #3211) to working order for a world famous pop duo in the UK and its been really quite an enlightening experience. Having been with this instrument morning night and day slowly returning life to this 37 year old beast I now very strongly feel I need to make a heartfelt plea... these things deserve a new lease of life and a darn site more respect than they have received to date!! I can say this hand on heart because I know I'm going to be a little upset when I eventually let this one go back to its owners....
Like so many things in life we are all guilty of reading and reiterating popular second hand opinions and not giving things around us enough attention or even put them into historical context...
In short - there is so much biased garbage talked about these instruments! I can think of many a synth with a so say "stronger" reputation than this with nothing like the character the Polymoog has!
The extremely sad fact of the matter is that the Polymoog was a little too complex a beast for many a keyboard tech to handle and since it seems to have developed a poor reputation, and is subsequently undervalued, rather too many examples have come to grief having suffered many decades of neglect. Furthermore, it never sounded like a Polyphonic Minimoog which clearly upset many - but it was never supposed to - it was designed from day one to complement the model D, not displace it.
Every time I read another of these beasts being turned into a coffee table or parted out it truly makes my heart sink! I've seen some really sorry examples of late which is very sad.
I have spent hours retrofitting a much cooler running switched mode PSU in place of the original Faratron PSU and fixing a plethora of issues but here's the thing...
As a design engineer I can fully understand many of Dave Luce's design decisions and quite frankly, although there are some weak spots, the design is surprisingly logical and well thought out for something of this complexity. Many slate the fact that there are so many pcbs and too many connectors but quite frankly the instrument would have been enormous and totally unserviceable on tour pretty much any other way. Dave very sensibly used non-polarised film caps throughout (except the PSU which wasn't a Moog design anyway), made access to the lower pcbs through hinged upper boards, placed protection components on the pcbs to prevent serious damage from PSU failures (I wish ARP had done the same with the Omni!), arranged the harness so that any connector could be disconnected without damage for aiding fault diagnosis etc etc.
What is easy to forget is that when such a complex instrument is being developed there simply isn't the time or budget to reiterate a design before release hence the "huge" list of field updates (ECNs) which many try to use in evidence of a poor design is merely indication of the complexity of the instrument and the fact that they tried to continuously improve it with time. Many also slate its unusual PLL synchronised two rank divide down oscillator architecture, but quite frankly its clever and a nice refreshing change to be using a polyphonic synth with such a unique signal path. Some slate the Polymoog as an overgrown organ - this is a truly ignorant opinion. The only two "organs" I know of with full polyphonic dynamics control like the Polymoog's are arguably the worlds first string synths - namely the 1938 Novachord and the 1972 Eminent 310 (both of which I own and both of which are far far more complex than conventional organs and way ahead of their time!). To have implemented such polyphony using voltage control would have resulted in a calibration and stability nightmare - with this in light it is truly amazing that the insanely complex CS-80 is so stable but definitely the exception and a testament to some of the finest analog design coming out of Japan at the time. Using free running oscillators would not have permitted the clever sync option which is really very effective - at the slide of control you can polyphonically morph from piano to guitar to harp - something which is simply impossible with the older 12 top oscillator and single rank divide downs.
I've been playing testing #3211 for several days now and I have to say it's rapidly growing on me. It is a very very different beast to my model D but that is not to say it isn't a worthy instrument in the studio - it's just different. A few things hit home... like so many analog synths, it somewhat underwhelms on first play until you get inside it and gain a real empathy for what makes it sing. It is terribly subtle too and beckons to be played with its delightful weighted velocity sensitive P&R key action - the slightest tweak on any of the controls and it can make or break a sound. It's unusual too - I mean how many synths have you used that permit the use of a multimode formant resonator, a transistor ladder and direct sound to be mixed on the fly? Then there is the sound - it can be full of life with bags of character - there is a ton of movement in the dual rank architecture and LFOs and a load of internal distortion which can be used to good artistic effect but you have to work at it and I think this is where the preset versions of this instrument really make less sense. Some say it sounds thin - this is very bizarre, I'd say it sounds extremely warm - maybe too warm. Not capable of focussed model D like bass but still quite capable of making the windows move - especially with the resonator in action!
In short - this is not an instrument for those looking for instant gratification - you have to slowly eek sounds out and yes, it would make for a powerful source of new sample material in my sound design, and yes, I'd love one for myself - so maybe one day now I've satisfied my curiosity first hand.