How did all this began ? Did you have a dream as a young boy ? Did you make a bet with friends at the university ? How did you come to build an analog synth ?
Vladimir Kuzmin: Till the age of 10 I dreamt of becoming a painter but later I began to be interested in technic that lead me to radioelectronics. At the same time I studied to play piano and guitar and later both music and electronics knowledge helped me as a participant of a band at school and later at the university band.
After graduating the university I began to work at a factory where already was a bureau where some enthusiasts were engineering first electronic musical instruments and sound reinforcement equipment.
The synth is duophonic not polyphonic, so why the name Polivoks ?
VK: Name Polivoks mainly stands for multi timbres, in Russian it sounds in such meaning, although the real poliphony can be played with only two voices.
Did the modular synths existed in Russia before the Polivoks'era ?
VK: The main historic events about electronic musical instruments are well known now including attempts of Russian inventors and engineers beginning from Theremin. Among them are theremins, electric organs with various principles of generating sound including photooptic, string (or ribbon) bars, magnet reading heads, valve or transistor generation and so on. But I don't remember something similar to what we call now “modular” although every experimental sample of electronic keyboard ever recalls modular.
Was the polivoks inspired by a famous american or japanese synth ? Did you have contacts in the west with other engineers and developers ? Or are you in the tradition of Teremin ?
VK: What contacts? What are you talking about? The only thing what we could do at that time as an engineer was to read Russian and foreign patents and literature. And sometimes to see the real electronic organs and synths at the professional music bands. Remember that I lived in the Urals which are thousands miles away from Moscow, so it was very rare that once or twice a year our city visited a professional band, and it was not the fact that this band had modern keyboard. More frequently we heard LPs with the sounds of synths. Of coarse our first goal was to give non-professional musicians something with modern bank of sounds similar to what they hear on LPs and it was not so important wether they'd look like Moog, Roland, Korg's synths or not.
What kind of music did you listen to in the 70-80's ?
VK: The Monkees, The Beatles, Creadence CWR, Beach Boys and others but it was hard and very expensive to have the original LPs, but we tried to get them from the friends and to copy to the magnet band recorders.
How many persons worked on the Polivoks developement ? Who are they ?
VK: I as a leading engineer and circuit designer, exterior and graphics designer Olimpiada Kuzmina and Yuri Pheophilov as hardware engineer.
The design of Polivoks is unique and beautiful. Your wife Olympiada made it. What were her inspirations (UFO's ? tanks ? Other synths' design ? ...)
VK: Well, Olimpiada was (and is) as a diploma designer very skilled in various styles of design, so our main idea was to give to the amusing thing ,which was the synthesizer itself at that time, the same amusing design. All the American and japan synths of that time have inexpressive design, and we decided that our synth will, first, reflect its internal structure (the bulges with graphics on the front and back panels), second, will be made in military style to underline its sound secrecy (black forms and trucks, heavy, reliable) and, third, will be friendly to the customers (Cyrillic graphics, clear signal structure).
During the polivoks' conception, did you intend to find this unique sound ? Did you want the filter to sound so wild ? Was the sound your priority at the time ?
VK: Yes, the sound was on the first place. We simply wanted the musicians to have the same colors of sound that all American and japan synths have. But at that time I didn't know that for example the ordinary sawtooth signal can sound so different on the different analog synths and this depends on electronic circuits and components and their combinations. And of coarse I wanted the VCF to sound so sweety as on Minimoog. It seemed to me that VCF was the most complex module among all others. So I've spent hardly a year to develop the schematics of filter that was very different from others. And when I've found the decision I liked it very much from the first moment- it was very simple: itself it had a pair of ICs, 6 resistors and no capacitors at all. The only thing I didn't like that it was of the second order and that it sounded a little bit wildish.
How many polivoks were produced in the 80's ? Was it an expensive synth for the musicians ?
VK: The price was 920 roubles in the stores (near 15 hundreds dollars) so not every musician could buy it, may be only those who played in restaurants. But it was not expensive for cultural organizations to buy Polivoks. I don't know the end figure but the amount of Polivokses manufactured could have reach 20000-30000 pieces.
Formanta Production Line
Did the Polivoks become famous in Russia and ex-USSR ? Who were the famous Polivoks players ? Did the russian put the sound of this synth in particular effects or echo chambers ? Which one ?
VK: Its better to say not famous but well known and popular. I think that the factory had no facilities to satisfy the need of the market because the annual program was already sold in the very beginning of the year. The plant received many letters from the musicians from little towns and villages and from the lone musicians with the appeals to sell a synth.
How to use Polivoks was the deal of the musician so I cannot describe the precise gear setup, it could be various.
Why is there such differences in the sound between early Polivoks and those produced after 1985 ? Was it a problem of VCO's instability ?
VK: Well, VCO being correctly set and tuned at the factory has great stability not worth then others and even better. But the quality control at the factory was not good so in many cases they outputted working machines (they all sounded, all knobs worked, and oscillators were in tune for the inner temperature) but as the thermal stability circuitry tuning process was enough complex and took many time they often missed it.
I didn't compare the earlier and later versions of the synth because I didn't have them both at the same time. Also there were no dramatic changes in schematics except filter modification, in latest version it had some improvements directed to more sound smoothness. May be this is the reason.
Why is there no pitch and modulation wheels on the Polivoks ? Did you want to make the use of the synth close to the accordion ? (long tradition in Russia). Why are the keys so light to play with ? did you intend to build something radically different from the classical "Pratt and reed" keyboard ? (Minimoog, Odyssey, Pro-one...etc).
VK: At that time we had no good engineer decision of the wheel module so it was decided to make it later (37 knobs and switches enough for the beginning). Later we employ joystick for later synth like Maestro and VS34 and planned to incorporate it somehow into Polivoks.
Hmmm, you mean button accordion? Our factory manufactured electronic portable button accordion Topaz but it was more close to the electronic organ.
The keyboard of the Polivoks is designed with the full correspondence to the Russian standards which sets all the pressing force figures. This keyboard you can find on all our instruments of that time. Later we manufactured instruments with the better keys moving more smooth, more soundless and it looked better (Maestro, VS34, Arton IK51).
Someone said here and there that it was possible to play Polivoks in winter in the middle of the Taïga, is that true ?
VK: Why not, if it was warm enough in the bulding ?
Nowadays electronic products are made of bad plastic. Even the professional synths look fragile. Polivoks is build like a tank. Was it a priority for you: Solid as a rock and almost...waterproof ? What do you think about the synthesizers of 2005 ?
VK: I and Olimpiada are happy that the design of the Polivoks is so catchy nowadays! We have achieved our goal. All other synths look more like the apparatus than some funny things, and it seems to me they are very similar except their colours.
Do you use Vodka to clear the potentiometers' contacts in Polivoks ?
VK: No way! What is good for Russians is bad for pots.
Sound of Polivoks can be like lava in fusion and as crystal clear and cold as ice. Does it have to do do with the character of russian's women ?
VK: I'd compare its sound with brassy bad guy.
Is there a future for the Polivoks ? Do you think you will one day produce your synth again ?
VK: Maybe. I have enough innovative ideas as for mods of the Polivoks as for new products. But I'd like to know how many people will buy this all ?
Original script available from: http://www.polivoks.com/VladimirKuzmin.html
For many years Russian Federation has been an isolated economy. Ministry of Culture, for example, wouldn't allow import of foreign instruments and Soviet musicians at the time didn't have a musical instrument that would offer capabilities and sounds of the equipment available to the rest of the world. This had triggered creation of a completely new and unique instrument.
[Dargel] What was the reason behind building such a synthesizer?
