13 July 2008

Poly 800 Modding (Part 1)

My friend Hanz tipped me on a very interesting site about a DIY electronics kit do modify the Korg Poly 800. This mod is called HAWK-800 and it turns the Poly 800 into a more sophisticated machine. It seriously updates the midi functionality to start with. You can find a complete list of features on the website here:
http://patrioticduo.tripod.com/hawk800/id15.html. After reading this I decided to order mine. As you can see there is also another kit coming that will be based on this one. And a very nice thing is that the kit holds an EEProm so you can update it when new features come along. Very nice work I think!

The kit arrived last week. And as you can see it is quite complete. It even comes with the necessary blank wire and flat cable. The documentation for construction is on the website I mentioned before. It will be kind of a retro fit kit build in the P0ly 800 itself. The documentation is very precise about where and how to fit it in the Poly 800. But first I will have to build the PCB for this kit. It looks quite easy compared to the other projects I have going on. I guess it will take about one or two hours work at the most. I'll build this one soon and keep you updated on the progress like always.

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