Thank you for the video. This is up amongst the best synth restoration/repair videos I have seen. The fact you covered every step with technical advice is welcomed. Many others cut out the actual repairing part and go from we need to replace part X, cut, I have replaced part X. I was wondering if you have been or are a teacher as it is a comprehensive learning video. All the best from Australia.
this is the next level knowledge i've been looking for.. very gracious of you to share ur expertise and demystify this process. i feel fully confident doing this on my own now! thank you for reaching out on reverb!
Wow - I'm so glad I found this. Thank you so much for sharing your expertise. I bought my HS-60 brand new in 1985 (central Alberta, Canada) and played in a band on and off for a few years. Got it out again a couple of months ago after several moves and years of storage and found some of the voices gone. I found your video and ordered chips from Syntaur in Texas. Got everything installed and checked - have to get myself an oscilloscope or find someone with one - but it works great. My grandchildren love it and I'm teaching them the basics. It keeps their interest when they can take a break and make some freaky sounds. We're trying to mimic some old Pink Floyd. Love it. I'll pay this good deed forward some day. Thanks again.
When working on older vintage gear, a good quality set of tools is very important and easy to take for granted. A decent set of jewelers screwdrivers, are essential for calibrating the tiny trim pots on many old synths. Also for the larger screws, a good pair of both flat head and phillips head screwdrivers that have tempered blade ends. Old screws can be very stubborn to unscrew, sometimes they may even be epoxied in. Temper steel screwdrivers won't get chewed up by a stubborn screw and will also help the screw head from getting torn up.
Am I glad I found your video! I'm working on my 106 now. I was prepared to recap the power and jack boards, but was leery of dealing with the double-sided module board. I don't have a solder vac, but I have plenty of wick and time! I now feel that I can do both the caps and the new chips. I see that AR offers a package deal that includes the 3 D5534A chips as well. Should I replace those as well while I'm at it? I am coming from the restoration aspect as opposed to just repair. Thanks so much for making your video so detailed; it really does help those of us who are tackling this for the first time.
Thank you! We try to approach all of our repair videos from a perspective of how one would teach a novice. It can be very intimidating opening up your beloved vintage synthesizer for the first time, let alone working on it. Per your question, the 5534a seems to fail far less often in my experience, but it does share the same resin coating that causes the failures with the 80017a. If you do decide to replace them, keep the originals and treat them with acetone to remove the coating. Helpful if you ever want to sell it or swap them back.
Yes a millivolt is a thousandth of a volt. 1 Millivolt is written as 0.001 V, so 15.01 volts is somewhere around 15 + 10 millivolts although you are not set to display a level of accuracy to know whether you are within spec. Other than that your video was excellent, great job. I am working on my Roland D-70 nightmare of the icky red glue destroying the keyboard and the display dying. Not fun!! Thanks for sharing your techniques and expertise!
Amazing video. I need to replace the speakers in mine but they won't seem to come out after removing the four screws from the front, is there another one that's hidden out of sight?
Great video wow. Man would love to know what you think of the acetone method. I did all 6 chips and background noise I had gotten used to had reduced to zero . Plus bad chip was good again
I've got an HS-60. This video is great. Not sure I have the voice chip problem yet. It does have other issues. I'd love info on replacing the battery on the motherboard. From what I understand it's not a simple pop out & replace.
Steven we'll get this into one of our videos here soon, I assure you. However, this video should give you all the tools you need to do that job. It's a much easier job as well. Basically, instead of removing the module board, simply remove the CPU board. The desoldering process is exactly the same, except much easier because there is only 2 pins to desolder for the battery. Just take a photo before you do it to make sure you put the new one in the right way. However, as I mentioned in this video, Roland was very good with labelling so you shouldn't have any problems. Syntaur.com will sell the exact battery you need with the pins in the exact right locations for your synth. The only other thing is you need to back up your patches beforehand (if you care about them). Alternatively, reloading the factory patches is quite easy via the cassette interface, you can just use your phone and a 1/4' to 3.5 mm cable. The factory patch banks for the JU-106 are readily available online in .wav format.
@@SacSynths_Jack_Z is my other yt account. Sorry for the confusion. Anyway, It is as easy as replacing the battery, it requires soldering and reloading your patches. There are many videos on this on YT, if you search for synth battery replacement.
Thank you for the video - I'll be using it for reference when I tackle my 106. Is there any reason why you didnt socket the chips? Im intending to do the acetone process (and if that works) socket the chips so if I need Analog Renaissance Chips down the line, its much less painful. Cheers again!
Was planning to socket them the day of the install, but be warned, the pins on the Analog Renaissance chips are quite large. Consequently, the sockets I had on hand would not accept the pins. Also, since we were installing the AR chips, there shouldn't be a need to pull them anytime soon. Thanks for checking out our channel!
Thank you that was a fantastic walk-through. Out of curiosity, is there enough room under the key bed to put the new voice chips into IC sockets since the VC's will be up higher? I tried looking very closely to see if you put the voice chips into sockets or if you'd soldered them directly to the board instead but its hard to see. Thanks!
@@VintageSynthesizerSolutions Thank you - I can confirm that it works. There is very little space left between the bottom of the key bed and the top of the VC, maybe a quarter of an inch, but its more than enough if you use the original VC's.
During calibration, VCF resonance, gain, frequency, and width give no readings on voice 6. Also getting wild reading for VCA gain. Can’t get 4v. After complete, voice 6 isn’t affected by frequency or resonance during the filter test. I tried different voice chips and all have the same result. Any idea what these issues could be?
Does anyone know why I would get a stuck note after doing all this? I'll play keys and it behaves fine other than voice 6 having the cutoff closed, but very low, i'll hear the last key played stuck.
No, the battery is either dead or not. If all six voices are working on every patch except one, the voices are working. Go to patch one and start editing all the parameters, like turning the waveforms on and off. How thoroughly have you tested this?
@@VintageSynthesizerSolutionsWell I tested as much as I know about instruments. I'm just experienced with soldering and desoldering. Attemping a repair on the standard juno 106 for my uncle who is a musician. Did the acetone epoxy removal on chips 2 and 6. The DCO region that produces brassy sounds seems to be affected. 2 and 6 voice chips work but sound slightly distorted in some patch numbers. Volume is normal on all chips unless DCO related effects are applied. Volume and distortion issues. Traces seem fine too. Used a good desoldering vaccum. Chips came off clean and went on clean on the voice chip end. I don't have a multimeter though so I'm not 100%. I'm stuck at that currently. Doing as much research as I can. I very much appreciate any diagnostic advice. It would be cool to fully revive one of these.
What's up fellas. I was able to remove the solder from the empty holes with the cheap vacuum pen that you see used here. You must use HEALTHY volumes of flux first, then use your braided copper and remove as much lead as possible first. THEN AND ONLY THEN will the cheap vacuum pen work. It's not strong enough to remove large volumes of solder from the holes. Best wishes.
My hs-60 seems to distort pretty fast 4/5 on vca slider. with the filter and chorus on. I have calibrated it to specs, even tried lowering the vca gain pots. i replaced the mute transistors, but still i feel like mine distorts before most peoples. obviously i can lower the vca and it's fine, but its frustrating. not sure if it's normal or something else. when i watch demos i don't see people distorting ever.
@@tonelab77 I sold it a while ago, first check it's not the external volume pedal pot .being stuck in a weird state, plug one in, and play with it. I think I ended up replacing the chips responsible for that.
Desoldering ICs is an art indeed. Glad you got it done with the heat gun! They can be a great option as long as you localize the heat application to the IC pins as much as possible.
Yes a millivolt is a thousandth of a volt. 1 Millivolt is written as 0.001 V, so 15.01 volts is somewhere around 15 + 10 millivolts although you are not set to display a level of accuracy to know whether you are within spec. Other than that your video was excellent, great job. I am working on my Roland D-70 nightmare of the icky red glue destroying the keyboard and the display dying. Not fun!! Thanks for sharing your techniques and expertise!
Excellent walkthrough. This should be very helpful for a lot of users. Good job!
Thank you Espen, we are BIG fans of your channel!
The Calibration Section of this Video is so helpful. Really Makes it doable!
Excellent video. 👏 Ordered some speakers for my HS60 through your link.
Thank you for the video. This is up amongst the best synth restoration/repair videos I have seen. The fact you covered every step with technical advice is welcomed. Many others cut out the actual repairing part and go from we need to replace part X, cut, I have replaced part X. I was wondering if you have been or are a teacher as it is a comprehensive learning video. All the best from Australia.
this is the next level knowledge i've been looking for.. very gracious of you to share ur expertise and demystify this process. i feel fully confident doing this on my own now! thank you for reaching out on reverb!
Wow - I'm so glad I found this. Thank you so much for sharing your expertise. I bought my HS-60 brand new in 1985 (central Alberta, Canada) and played in a band on and off for a few years. Got it out again a couple of months ago after several moves and years of storage and found some of the voices gone. I found your video and ordered chips from Syntaur in Texas. Got everything installed and checked - have to get myself an oscilloscope or find someone with one - but it works great. My grandchildren love it and I'm teaching them the basics. It keeps their interest when they can take a break and make some freaky sounds. We're trying to mimic some old Pink Floyd. Love it. I'll pay this good deed forward some day. Thanks again.
When working on older vintage gear, a good quality set of tools is very important and easy to take for granted. A decent set of jewelers screwdrivers, are essential for calibrating the tiny trim pots on many old synths. Also for the larger screws, a good pair of both flat head and phillips head screwdrivers that have tempered blade ends. Old screws can be very stubborn to unscrew, sometimes they may even be epoxied in. Temper steel screwdrivers won't get chewed up by a stubborn screw and will also help the screw head from getting torn up.
Very good point. Having the right tool for the job absolutely critical. Cheap tools will only last a couple jobs, or even potentially cause damage.
This is OUR a.s.m.r yoga 😎🔬
A nice detailed repair with a good amount of tips and tricks along the way. Excellent work.
*subscribed*!!
Also that demo track at the end is awesome!
Great video! Love the original music as well :).
I think you just helped save a lot of junos! a super clear explanation, well done!
Thanks, really useful video here
Such a great video! Love the passion and knowledge!
Great tutorial
Where are you located
I need my 106 looked at
Am I glad I found your video! I'm working on my 106 now. I was prepared to recap the power and jack boards, but was leery of dealing with the double-sided module board. I don't have a solder vac, but I have plenty of wick and time! I now feel that I can do both the caps and the new chips. I see that AR offers a package deal that includes the 3 D5534A chips as well. Should I replace those as well while I'm at it? I am coming from the restoration aspect as opposed to just repair. Thanks so much for making your video so detailed; it really does help those of us who are tackling this for the first time.
Thank you! We try to approach all of our repair videos from a perspective of how one would teach a novice. It can be very intimidating opening up your beloved vintage synthesizer for the first time, let alone working on it. Per your question, the 5534a seems to fail far less often in my experience, but it does share the same resin coating that causes the failures with the 80017a. If you do decide to replace them, keep the originals and treat them with acetone to remove the coating. Helpful if you ever want to sell it or swap them back.
Yes a millivolt is a thousandth of a volt. 1 Millivolt is written as 0.001 V, so 15.01 volts is somewhere around 15 + 10 millivolts although you are not set to display a level of accuracy to know whether you are within spec. Other than that your video was excellent, great job.
I am working on my Roland D-70 nightmare of the icky red glue destroying the keyboard and the display dying. Not fun!!
Thanks for sharing your techniques and expertise!
yeah, he is definitely not calibrating correctly starting from unit conversion to not using the correct dmm
Amazing video. I need to replace the speakers in mine but they won't seem to come out after removing the four screws from the front, is there another one that's hidden out of sight?
Great video wow. Man would love to know what you think of the acetone method. I did all 6 chips and background noise I had gotten used to had reduced to zero . Plus bad chip was good again
17:26 removing the voice chips from the board plate.
I've got an HS-60. This video is great. Not sure I have the voice chip problem yet. It does have other issues. I'd love info on replacing the battery on the motherboard. From what I understand it's not a simple pop out & replace.
Steven we'll get this into one of our videos here soon, I assure you. However, this video should give you all the tools you need to do that job. It's a much easier job as well. Basically, instead of removing the module board, simply remove the CPU board. The desoldering process is exactly the same, except much easier because there is only 2 pins to desolder for the battery. Just take a photo before you do it to make sure you put the new one in the right way. However, as I mentioned in this video, Roland was very good with labelling so you shouldn't have any problems. Syntaur.com will sell the exact battery you need with the pins in the exact right locations for your synth. The only other thing is you need to back up your patches beforehand (if you care about them). Alternatively, reloading the factory patches is quite easy via the cassette interface, you can just use your phone and a 1/4' to 3.5 mm cable. The factory patch banks for the JU-106 are readily available online in .wav format.
@@SacSynths_Jack_Z is my other yt account. Sorry for the confusion. Anyway, It is as easy as replacing the battery, it requires soldering and reloading your patches. There are many videos on this on YT, if you search for synth battery replacement.
Thank you for the video - I'll be using it for reference when I tackle my 106. Is there any reason why you didnt socket the chips? Im intending to do the acetone process (and if that works) socket the chips so if I need Analog Renaissance Chips down the line, its much less painful. Cheers again!
Was planning to socket them the day of the install, but be warned, the pins on the Analog Renaissance chips are quite large. Consequently, the sockets I had on hand would not accept the pins. Also, since we were installing the AR chips, there shouldn't be a need to pull them anytime soon. Thanks for checking out our channel!
Thank you very much this video is amazing . I wanted to ask please what soldering temperture would you reccomnd for this type of job ?
Thank you! I'd keep mine around 635 Fahrenheit on a job like this. A range of probably like 610-650 should be safe.
Got to know if one of those inexpensive oscilliscopes would work like the ones on Amazon for 50 bucks
I’d like to know too. I’ve been using one and it works up until the vcf resonance voltage portion. I’m not sure how to read 4.8v with it 😩
When you unplug it to begin working on it don't you also turn it on to drain power the capacitors might be holding? Just wondering
Thank you that was a fantastic walk-through. Out of curiosity, is there enough room under the key bed to put the new voice chips into IC sockets since the VC's will be up higher? I tried looking very closely to see if you put the voice chips into sockets or if you'd soldered them directly to the board instead but its hard to see. Thanks!
Yes this is possible unless you have very large risers
@@VintageSynthesizerSolutions Thank you - I can confirm that it works. There is very little space left between the bottom of the key bed and the top of the VC, maybe a quarter of an inch, but its more than enough if you use the original VC's.
During calibration, VCF resonance, gain, frequency, and width give no readings on voice 6. Also getting wild reading for VCA gain. Can’t get 4v. After complete, voice 6 isn’t affected by frequency or resonance during the filter test. I tried different voice chips and all have the same result. Any idea what these issues could be?
Does anyone know why I would get a stuck note after doing all this? I'll play keys and it behaves fine other than voice 6 having the cutoff closed, but very low, i'll hear the last key played stuck.
One of the VR tops popped off, do you think this will be a problem?
Definitely, especially if it was adjusted in the process of being popped off. What vr was it?
@@VintageSynthesizerSolutions vr-29. I just replaced it with a more recent variable resistor!
Chip 1 and 6 are mute only in Patch number 1. All 6 voices work under other patch numbers. Could that be a battery related issue?
No, the battery is either dead or not. If all six voices are working on every patch except one, the voices are working. Go to patch one and start editing all the parameters, like turning the waveforms on and off. How thoroughly have you tested this?
@@VintageSynthesizerSolutionsWell I tested as much as I know about instruments. I'm just experienced with soldering and desoldering. Attemping a repair on the standard juno 106 for my uncle who is a musician. Did the acetone epoxy removal on chips 2 and 6. The DCO region that produces brassy sounds seems to be affected. 2 and 6 voice chips work but sound slightly distorted in some patch numbers. Volume is normal on all chips unless DCO related effects are applied. Volume and distortion issues. Traces seem fine too. Used a good desoldering vaccum. Chips came off clean and went on clean on the voice chip end. I don't have a multimeter though so I'm not 100%. I'm stuck at that currently. Doing as much research as I can. I very much appreciate any diagnostic advice. It would be cool to fully revive one of these.
What's up fellas. I was able to remove the solder from the empty holes with the cheap vacuum pen that you see used here. You must use HEALTHY volumes of flux first, then use your braided copper and remove as much lead as possible first. THEN AND ONLY THEN will the cheap vacuum pen work. It's not strong enough to remove large volumes of solder from the holes. Best wishes.
My hs-60 seems to distort pretty fast 4/5 on vca slider. with the filter and chorus on. I have calibrated it to specs, even tried lowering the vca gain pots. i replaced the mute transistors, but still i feel like mine distorts before most peoples. obviously i can lower the vca and it's fine, but its frustrating. not sure if it's normal or something else. when i watch demos i don't see people distorting ever.
Check your MN3009 chorus chips
@@VintageSynthesizerSolutions nah it was something else.
@@emodro Care to share what that was?
@@tonelab77 I sold it a while ago, first check it's not the external volume pedal pot .being stuck in a weird state, plug one in, and play with it. I think I ended up replacing the chips responsible for that.
To remove the chip I was forced to use a heat gun to heat up all the pins at one time.
Desoldering ICs is an art indeed. Glad you got it done with the heat gun! They can be a great option as long as you localize the heat application to the IC pins as much as possible.
4.98V is 20mV to 5V and is not within spec
Damn, I’m 17 and I gotta solder???
0,01v equals 10 mv, not 1 mv
Yes a millivolt is a thousandth of a volt. 1 Millivolt is written as 0.001 V, so 15.01 volts is somewhere around 15 + 10 millivolts although you are not set to display a level of accuracy to know whether you are within spec. Other than that your video was excellent, great job.
I am working on my Roland D-70 nightmare of the icky red glue destroying the keyboard and the display dying. Not fun!!
Thanks for sharing your techniques and expertise!