Korg Poly-800

Advantages: Cheap and cheerful with a nice filter
Disadvantages: Can sound a bit thin, Internal battery is probably dead by now

...tricky one, i've owned a Korg Poly-800 for years but i've never actually used it on any tunes as i simply cannot get my head around the programming. The Poly 800 features two digital oscillators with an an analogue filter for added warmth. You can choose between square and sawtooth waves for each oscillator and detune them against each other. The odd feature of these oscillators is that you can turn on or off a series of four harmonics of the base ...
...i find that the overall sound is a bit thin and cheap but the square wave can produce a nice hollow sound. Where the programming gets tricky is with the three envelopes (one for each oscillator and a filter envelope) which feature 'break point' and 'slope' parameters as well as the usual ADSR. I have never been able to work out what these are for as i have no manual. Combine this with the fact that all programming is done via a two digit display ... Read review

Advantages: Sounds great. Very simple menu interface. Very cheap.
Disadvantages: No midi thru.

This was my first midi synthesizer. It has a great warm sound produced by digitally controlled analog oscillators. It can add a great edge to your music. I like to hook up a midi cable to another keyboard that plays a pattern through this one. It syncs up the joystick with the BPM of whatever pattern is playing. If your just using it to play leads, not hooked up to another device, you can hook up the midi in back to the midi out, and it doubles the ...
...had problems with the built in sequencer being triggered by other devices in my chain, so I just entered step recording mode, and either saved, or played one rest then saved (Can't remember) And that problem has been gone ever since. This was the cheapest of all the vintage midi synths I've bought ($110.00 with free shipping on Ebay) I've seen them as cheap as 90.00 and it really looks like something you could score for $5.00 at a garage sale. Looks ... Read review