"What the hell?" exclaimed a friend of mine after entering the room and seeing the big black P. (not penis).

Yeessssss... it's aliveeeee!!! It's a live being. The sound is not what it's supposed to be judging by the position of the knobs. First: the scope of the knobs differs amongst individual Polivoks units (meaning that your Polivoks may be slower or faster at the LFO than your friend's Polivoks). Second: if you listen carefully, you'll notice that the sound is constantly changing in a minimal, random fashion, even if you don't touch anything. Note that I'm talking here about the "real" Polivokses bought from the barns of smalltown Russian bums, not some mutants that have been overhauled and perfected in Western traders' labs.

Polivoks has the most crispy, harsh, overdriven, cruel, nasty and sharp filter human beings ever created. The synth sounds like a crazy alien bitch being raped and murdered (and apparently enjoying it). This is nothing you would expect from the American school, Japanese either. It has its own dignity and unique power, and it can do A LOT (patch-wise). If you ask me if the synth sounds original - hell yeah, most of the time like a hell guitar run thru a stomp box. But, fortunately, not all of the time, and should you wish to do so, you can push it in traditional and melodious directions.

But I guess we don't buy our Polivokses to get traditional and polite sound out of it. It's one of the 5 most distinctive and inimitable sounds in the synth-world. Maybe it's not that phat (as you would expect by the size), but hey, it's a POLIVOKS. The "Western world" (Germany, France, the US, etc.) calls it the "Russian Minimoog". Uhm... how should I put it... maybe like that: They have no fucking idea what they're talking about. I'd rather call the Polivoks the "Russian Odyssey". The rawness and crispiness of the tone, plus some specific modulation routings make it much more Oddy-ish than Minimoog-ish.

And yes, the quality of the unit depends on the serial number / date of production, but don't ask me about the order, because I don't know it:P This thing was made under socialism where everything was designed to be "affordable", which translated to everything being equally shit, and where - as my grandpa used to say - things were done along the idea of "kazdy chuj na swoj stroj", which roughly translates into "every bastard doing things his own way / every musician tuning his instrument according to his own tuning standard". Sorry for losing the rhyme.

PS. Why does the Polivoks has the same knobs as the RSF Kobol???

Co to u licha? - moj kolega po wejsciu do pokoju i ujrzeniu duzego czarnego P. (nie penisa).

Tak... to zyyyje! To zywa struktura. Jego dzwiek nie jest tym czego mozna spodziewac sie po rzuceniu okiem na galki. Jesli wsluchasz sie dokladniej, zauwazysz, ze dzwiek malutko ale bezustannie zmienia sie bez zadnej prawidlowosci. Nawet jesli niczego nie dotykasz (mowie tutaj o 'prawdziwych' Poliwoksach znalezionych w stodolach radzieckich emerytow-pijakow, a nie jakichs wypolerowanych mutantach po modyfikacjach z zachodnich firm handlujacych sprzetem).

Poliwoks ma najbardziej kruchy, szorstki, przesterowany, okrutny, podly, surowy filtr stworzony przez czlowieka. Syntezator wydaje dzwieki jak szalona dziwka, gwalcona i mordowana na innej planecie (i czerpiaca z tego przyjemnosc). To nie przypomina niczego, czego spodziewasz sie po szkole amerykanskiej czy japonskiej. Poliwoks ma swoja godnosc i swoj arsenal. I potrafi zdzialac DUzO. Jesli spytasz, czy syntezator brzmi oryginalnie, odpowiem; jak cholera - jakbys slyszal gitare puszczona przez fuzz. Na szczescie nie jest to dzwiek dany raz na zawsze i - jesli sobie zyczysz - mozesz popchnac Poliwoksa w kierunku bardziej tradycyjnym / melodyjnym.

Ale chyba nie po to kupuje sie Poliwoksa aby brzmial tradycyjnie. Jest to jeden z 5 najbardziej rozpoznawalnych i niepodrabialnych dzwiekow w domenie syntezatorow. Moze nie brzmi az tak 'grubo' (jakby sie mozna spodziewac po rozmiarze)... ale to jest POLIWOKS. Caly "zachodni" swiat nazywa go ruskim Minimoogiem. Ja bym go raczej nazwal ruskim Odyssey.

Tak, jakosc dzwieku zalezy od numeru seryjnego = daty produkcji, ale nie pytajcie mnie o klucz, bo go nie znam :P