i am clueless about where to start looking for this on the web. obviously i need some sort of “decoder”. do i need a microprocessor like the PIC? the decoding of the encoder is pretty trivial (in terms of logic)… maybe a bunch of AND gates would do it… any recommendations where to start?
okay guys sorry i found it - it’s called quadrature decoder and there’s plenty on the web. funny, the first one i found refers to midibox 
hi;
since your busy anyway; check out this mod on how to bring up pots/knobs for the cutoff and resonance of the (analog) VCF of this machine.
http://synthmod.net/korg/moog_slayer/
i have a susuki sx-500 wich is a copy (kinda) of the korg (poly/EX)800 machines, so the mod was slightly different for me.
it’s a nice mod because with this you can make the filter self oscillate.
also; all the parameters of the poly-800 can be controlled with midi cc’s so you could make a nice midicontroller for it aswell 
cheers
i know about the moogslayer mod and it’s the first thing i’ll do. then i’ll have a try with this encoder idea cause those buttons are pure pish.
about the midi controllers - i’ve done quite a lot of investigating and as far as i can tell there is almost nothing that can be controlled via midi cc. except “modulation”. maybe your clone is different. however - i recently found out that the mk2 version of poly-800 had the option of dumping and loading patches via sysex. still nothing could be changed in realtime.
but now when i think about it again… i remember an article about implanting an EX-800 eprom into poly-800 to achieve some sort of midi controllabilty with the sacrifice of non-functional keyboard… hmm what exactly do you know it’s possible via midi? if EX-800 really allows changing of ALL parameters then that’s just freaking awesome and i’ll be making a programmer box for sure!
hey kokoon
about the midi controllers - i’ve done quite a lot of investigating and as far as i can tell there is almost nothing that can be controlled via midi cc. except “modulation”. maybe your clone is different.
in the previous post i was going to say; “a lot of people don’t know this”
i’m almost sure that everything can be controlled by midi, but as i said this isnt a well known fact; i will try to lookup the midi-implementation chart so you can check it out.
cheers
hmm well good luck cause that’s what i’ve been doing for a week now 
still i think your clone is not exactly a “clone” but a more advanced synth. anyway - i’d be ecstatic if you found anything about poly-800 midi implementation.
hi;
still i think your clone is not exactly a “clone” but a more advanced synth. anyway - i’d be ecstatic if you found anything about poly-800 midi implementation.
well i’m sure it isn’t a more advanced synth, more like a cut down version of the poly 800 (no keys; it’s an expander unit); like the KORG EX-800 is.
i think it’s like this;
the KORG poly-800 and it’s little brother the EX-800 (without keys) have also been made by SIEL synthesizers (the DK-80 and the EX(pander)-80). The “EX” version has also been made by Suzuki; they call it the SX-500 (i’ve got this one)
I’m almost sure all these machines have the same electronics inside, with some minor differences.
so; let’s hope it’s true what i’m saying because then you can use this chart;
http://home.tiscali.nl/~smeyer/siel/ex80andsx500sheet_ver2.bmp
or check out the DK80 or EXPANDER 80 pages on this website;
http://home-1.worldonline.nl/~smeyer/siel/
good luck, marcel
thanks alot! i’ll check it out when i get it back (a friend has it now, we share it) but i really doubt. MAYBE the EX-800. but poly no way.
still i’ve came up with an idea - let’s say poly isn’t midi controllable - i could still build in encoders for each parameter and when each encoder is moved a signal is first sent to set the parameter number. i’d need a simple microprocessor for that and a few lines of code (map each encoder to it’s parameter number)… still, i’ll go first with the encoder instead of up/down buttons
also DK-80 has two filters and POLY-800 only has one (that’s right, ONE filter for all 8 voices…) also - DK-80 has 12 voices.
the expander though (what you have) is really similar to EX-800. but POLY-800 (mk1) even had no sysex for loading patches…
hello
i tried the modification to change the buttons by encoder and it seems to don’t work
does somebody ever try it ?
by the way i own a korg ex-800 a siel dk-80 and expander 80
the korg don’t receive midi exept volume and basic controllers but really not all…
the siel receive midi on all parameters
i made the test with syex librarian
one filter in my dk-80 is dead it’s a ssm2045 …i don’t see them in my korg ex-800
i also made the 3 button modification from slayer and it is a good one but only to edit live because you don’t have recall with midi of course
the sound of these 2 machines is really different and it’s almost the same architecture
can someone help me
thank you