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Vintage synths & drum machines
Vintage Synthesizers

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Vintage analog polysynths

An analog polysynth gives every note its own voice circuit, with its own oscillators, filter and amplifier. Yamaha's CS-80 offered eight voices in 1977, and Sequential showed the Prophet-5 in January 1978. The Prophet was the first polyphonic synth with fully programmable memory, using a microprocessor to recall sounds instantly. Cheaper designs followed. Korg's 1981 Polysix saved money with one oscillator per voice and made up for it with a built-in chorus and ensemble, and Roland's Juno-60 used digitally controlled oscillators for stable tuning. The big ones are serious machines, too. The Memorymoog runs three oscillators on each of its six voices, and the CS-80 weighs about 100 kg with its case. More voices means more to service, so ask for a video that plays each voice on its own and listen for the one that sounds different.

19 models