Polymoog Resonator (Polymoogerfooger)

[EricK]

Voltor,
See, it turned out to be a good poly. Have faith in EvilBay every now and again.

Eric

Oh and MC,
Who really uses coasters? Ive placed coasters in the studio and someone still wants to come in and put a wet water ring on the lid to my Rhodes. All of those flashbacks of my fathers
"Dat dat dat dat dat.....thats expensive......delicate."
Comes flying back into my life like a represed memory.

[Voltor07]

...it's fine in high-pass and band-pass modes, but in low-pass mode it's doing a good impersonation of a fuzz box!

That can be useful, though, right?

[drogoff]

Happy New Year all!

As I recently posted, I picked up an excellent condition Polymoog Keyboard (early model = synthesizer) yesterday. It's a B+ cosmetically and probably better than 90% functional. All keys, buttons, lights, outputs work. A few weird things, but shouldn't be too hard to fix. I'm starting with the one key that's out of alignment (just the plastic guide is missing) and re-capping the power supply.

It should be fun. I haven't owned (or even played) a Polymoog in over 20 years. It's nice working on something small and light, at least compared to a CS80.

FYI, I'm documenting with lots of pictures as I go. I've put them on flick here:
http://flickr.com/photos/22421713@N04/s ... 2031580163

Enjoy & feel free to send tips and suggestions. No, I don't want to make it into a coffee table, but I would be interested in knowing the diameter/thread pitch of the leg sockets so I can fabricate new legs.

David

[Voltor07]

Beautiful pics! It's been kept up quite well, at any rate. Unless you cleaned the guts before the photo shoot. I am amazed at how large the boards are relative to the number of components on them. Was that to keep everything from overheating? Lots of IC's as well.

Looks to be pretty tech friendly, though the complexity of tracing all those wires would drive someone mad. Good luck with the repairs!

[EricK]

Now on the size of everything relative to the componants....at least on the Modules, they are probably based on old millitary radios.

The 921A module that I have takes up WAAAAAYYYYY to much space for what it is. I think thats why the dotcom modules have pcb's parallel to the panels, whereas the Moog modules are perpendicular.

But considering that the poly was a dave luce design, no telling.

Im really not one qualified to get into all of that stuff anyway, but I do know that the modules pcb's could have probably been condensed down had the technology allowed.

Eric

[Voltor07]

So...ummm...any news about this resonator box thing? Has it been sold? I've tried looking for it on E-bay about a month after this thread was posted, and nothing came up.

[Christopher J. Boylan]

I had a Polymoog long ago. It had belonged to David Sanchez. It was modified several ways by Doug Slocum. For one thing, some the LEDs were replaced with green and amber ones so that you could tell if each section was on or off while on a dark stage. That and some other mods - like routing the sample and hold to the keyboard so that each key pressed triggered a different frequency... that was sort of neat. Hmmm... can I do that on a Voyager? Sample and hold stepped once for each key press?

Anyway, for anyone that has seen or played one of these beasts, for a tech, it was pure HELL in a box. And if I'm not mistaken, Bob Moog absolutely HATED the thing, and it might have been partially responsible for driving him away from the first Moog Music company.

One interesting note:
There was one problem with the unit that was never fixed by anyone (to my knowledge), which was when you put all 4 gain controls all the way full, it would resonate all frequencies at once. Rick Wakeman, I guess believed at the time that if you got a lemon, make lemonade. He used that very sound at the end of the song, "An Arriving UFO" on the Tormato album. It's a VERY distinctive sound.

[latigid on]

That and some other mods - like routing the sample and hold to the keyboard so that each key pressed triggered a different frequency... that was sort of neat. Hmmm... can I do that on a Voyager? Sample and hold stepped once for each key press?

VX-351 KB gate out to CP-251 S&H trigger. Route the CV back into the Voyager.

Or, you could set the internal LFO rate REALLY slow and set LFO sync to KB. Mod Buss to filter/pitch etc.

[EricK]

I think Kevin ran that guy off.

[Voltor07]

There was one problem with the unit that was never fixed by anyone (to my knowledge), which was when you put all 4 gain controls all the way full, it would resonate all frequencies at once. Rick Wakeman, I guess believed at the time that if you got a lemon, make lemonade. He used that very sound at the end of the song, "An Arriving UFO" on the Tormato album. It's a VERY distinctive sound.

I can relate to that. I discovered a sound in my 103 phaser that I am sure was never intended to be heard, that I absolutely love! It can be heard when the ring mod's carrier out goes to the 103's audio in, drive is turned above 3/4, and resonance is cranked.

[Voltor07]

I think Kevin ran that guy off.

Oh...how sad. I was so looking to purchase that unit, too.

[Elhardt]

If you want to bid on my Polymoog Resonator, go to the Moog thread below for details:

http://www.moogmusic.com/forum/viewtopi ... 5621#55621

Thanks for looking.

-Ken Elhardt

[gtivr6fan]

So voltor, how is it?

[Voltor07]

So voltor, how is it?

Can't afford it now, unfortunately.

[MC]

Nice YT demo, Ken.

The Resonator is probably the single useful processor on the Polymoog.

*dusts off his old Polymoog, pumps Kurzweil choirs through resonator*