Jim Atwood in Japan

In addition to photography I’m a huge fan of music and playing the keyboards. Recently at a local “Hard Off” second-hand shop ( Yeah that’s the name alright..grin ) in Nagano-city, I picked up a used Roland Juno 106 Vintage Synthesizer for $50 bucks. I took it home, started it up, and found out 10 minutes later that I had to repair a few voice chips that had gone bad. In total I had to remove 4 bad Voice Chips, thus the Roland 106 became effectively a Juno 102 Synthesizer. Everything else worked great and was in relatively good condition after some cleaning.

After doing extensive research on the Internet, I discovered what appeared to be a reputable clone maker of Juno 106 Voice chips named Analogue Renaissance. I practically found a 100% success rate with these chips provided one could solder well. So I shelled out $400 bucks for the complete set of 6 Voice Chips and 3 Filter Chips. The gentleman was nice, but I realized due to his “anti-question” policy that if I had any problem with the chips, I was in for a nightmare of a time with communication. I knew I would be totally on my own, I took a gamble.

Knowing I had shelled out a rather large some of money for these chips I elected to hire an ex Roland Tech who had quite a bit of experience with soldering and who knew about Roland keyboards. We decided to solder two voice chips and a Filter chip to start. The Voice Chips were #1 and #2, while the Filter Chip was the one in between. The Ex Roland Tech fired it up after completion and reported back that the Chips ( or something ) completely failed. No sound from the new chips at all.

Crap! I asked if there was anything I could do and he said he would look into further testing of the chips themselves and the board. I have yet to hear back from him so the verdict is still out on whether my chips were bad or whether a mistake was made or perhaps there was an additional problem. However, until I can find out 100%, I must say that the Chips could be every bit of the problem. I highly recommend anyone interested in these chips to start out buying just one chip and give it a test run.

The old chips had the snap, crackle, and pop noise and when removed the synth fell silent as expected. This tells me that the main board was working and that the chips were failing. Thus the new replacement chips from Analogue Renaissance should have worked. Now if I had soldered these chips myself, then I probably would have been every bit to blame, but with an expert at soldering these chips, it really makes me unsure about the quality of chips I received.

So, it looks like I’ll be taking a loss on the chips and junking the Juno 106. I’ll probably give away the chips to someone who needs them as I would feel bad about selling them knowing they “could” be bad. I’m currently looking into a way to test the remaining chips before any further installation is done to determine if they’re working. In fact, I asked about installing IC Sockets and that might be what I’ll do next before I junk the 106 and give away the Analogue Renaissance chips. If they work with the sockets then indeed the Soldering was either bad or the heat killed the chip, or whatever. Not sure.

By no means am I suggesting not to buy or trust these chips. As I mentioned earlier, 100% of my readings on the Internet all suggested they worked perfectly. For all I know, I am the only one whose chips did not work. From my experience, these chips are still a gamble simply because I cannot explain at this time why they didn’t work. Until I do, I have to remain skeptical. However, if I were you, I would definitely buy one chip, install it and flip the switch. If it works then buy the set. I absolutely do not recommend the full $400 package until you know they will work in your Juno 106. You might just have another deeper issue.

I gambled and lost $400 bucks. Don’t make the same mistake!!

Juno 106 Total Expeditures:

Used Juno 106 Synthesizer – $50.00
Analogue Renaissance Voice Chips – $400.00
Soldering Technician – $100.00
Tools, Cleaning Products, and other – $50.00

Total: $600

Thus I have paid a total of $600 bucks and still not a full working Juno 106 Synthesizer.

Recommendation – Buy a refurbished Juno 106 on Ebay from somebody who has SUCCESSFULLY fixed everything. I see them on there for between $500 to $700 dollars. At least you get a working Synth instead of a lot of wasted time and effort.