My experience is that even somebody with a good analog synth programming backround might not "get it" right away. It takes some experimenting, really nothing more than understanding what's "below" the front panel, just to break the Polaris out of it's generic shell. Once that's happenned, the Polaris can become an a pretty intimidating sounding instument.

Here's the point really. Compared to the Polaris, other analog machines seem a lot easier to get to that equivalent point. The point they are out of their cage, so to speak. [I think it has to do with the way the oscillators are set up on the Polaris.]

It's worth talking about this since, in some quarters, the Polaris is said to be "generic sounding". I have to assume the people involved have not gotten to the point where the Polaris has started to sing, or scream. Considering how easy it is to get at all the parameters, it's hard to understand how they havn't got there yet.

There's a small number of people in the world making a living programming synths professionally. One I know, makes programs for some really great analog instruments like the Matrix 12, Jupiter 8, Rhodes Chroma, Memory Moog, as well as the Polaris . According to him, the Polaris is one of the best sounding analog synths ever made.

Most people who have heard or played a well programmed Polaris find it amazingly fat and punchy, not to mention warm and unique. Compared to any number of analog synths out there worth owning, the Polaris seems to stand out in terms of fatness.

It's not easy to find an analog synth that's able to play 8 channel multitimbrel and has dynamic voice allocation. Voice allocation is essential to make best use of the channels.

I found it interesting something the part time user said. He said, "I found that many features were rendered useless once I tried to impliment them into several advanced type of MIDI settups".

My experience has been different. The Polaris can operate as 8 independant sythesizers with total control over any aspect of each of them. It's only a matter of whether the sytem has enough control to do that or not. So in my experience, it's the controlling system, not the Polaris where difficulties arrise. What few problems that did come up were trivial compared to the things that the Poaris was actually able to do over MIDI.

All the MIDI configuration controls, however, are either poorly labeled or not labeled at all. There are plenty of crucial functions which are virtually inaccessible without heavy use of the manual.

I believe the polyphony is 6 note, 6 voice multitimbral. The keyboard action is pleasing light semi-weighted. It's velocity sensitive, no after pressure.

No effects. There is a memory extension for the onboard sequencer which I never bothered to learn about.

The unit has one (count them!) one output, which makes it hard if not impossible to use in multitimbral mode, because one would typically want to use different effects on different patches.

Where this keyboard really shines, is the MIDI CC implementation. All sliders transmit and receive control change messages, and in that regards this unit is on par with most modern synths (and it's 15 yrs old!). All the filter and envelope manipulations can be done in real time and sequenced. You can't reassign CC numbers but it rarely causes problems.

And of course, it has wooden sides without which no synthesizer can be considered true analog.

Sounds: Versatile is the keyword here. I managed to get very fuzzy pads out of it which resemble Oberheim. It appears to be capable of producing some very convincing classic bass. PWM modulation is very helpful. With the ability to route the LFO to most relevant parameters, sci-fi effects are easy to get. It can also sound clean and warm, very ARPish. The filter is great!

This keyboard is a great value and tons of fun to play.

(1) While it exhibits many features, I found its overall sound quality interesting, but at the same time, generic.

(2) With all features present to interact with even the most advaced of MIDI setups, I found many features were rendered useless once I tried to implement them into several advanced type of MIDI setups (of course not mine). I will say that it did what few features it promised to do, but there are too long of what situations resulted from what every MIDI expert I knew tried.

In all fairness, I will give it 2. Seems pretty spartan, but it has few too good things to work with in compared to what idiosyncrasies it exhibits. Accoring to several experienced MIDI and electronic technicians, my unit was devoid of any technical problems (as I had witnessed myself), but once I felt that I could use more money and space and less equipment to deal with, the polaris was the first to go. While i do miss a few of its unique sounds, I don't miss the whole synthesizer itself.