Korg Poly 800 - loading factory patches?

[leonidspaul]

Is there any other way to load patches apart from using a cassette tape? Also, i read that you must keep the 6 batteies in the synth in order to avoid losing the internal patches, seems like an expensive synth to maintain if the batteries only last for 4 hours of playing time and costing 15 euro for a pack of 6. Is there any other way around this? Saw something about a firmware, has anyone used it? Thanks. Paul

[meatballfulton]

Yes, you need to load patches through the tape port. It need not be an actual tape machine, if you don't have the cassette there are WAV files of the factory patch set online you can play from your computer or iPod to load the patches (headphone out ---> P800). The P800 can be finicky about audio levels, though. You may have to try different levels before the transfer will work.

If you don't actually use the batteries to run the P800 a set of C cells will hold patch memory for many months if not years. There are simple mods to use a lithium battery to back up patches instead. My P800 already had a spot on the mother board for the battery, all but the earliest units do. Details are here.

[leonidspaul]

Thanks a lot for that, that clears up everything i needed to know, i was wondering about the headphone out of the laptop for loading but wasn't sure, it's my first time experiencing loading patches like that, and regarding the batteries, that's a relief, i run the korg with an adapter and when i turned it on the other day all the patches were gone, i was in a long process of moving but hey it's good to know all's not lost. Thanks again. Paul