I just bought a Juno 106 woohoo.

[Mushy Mushy]

Can anybody confirm the acetone trick works?

I have one that has the dreaded voice issue (as expected). Rumour has it you dip the chips in acetone and they're good to go again

[bluedad]

There's a guy on Ebay who specializes in doing the acetone repair. apparently it does work but you have to be careful if you do it yourself, it's more than just dipping the chips in acetone.
Have you watched the videos on youtube?

[Mushy Mushy]

There's a guy on Ebay who specializes in doing the acetone repair. apparently it does work but you have to be careful if you do it yourself, it's more than just dipping the chips in acetone.

Yeah have seen him and have him on my watchlist. He's my backup plan.

Have you watched the videos on youtube?

No I havent. Going there now

[Nig]

Can anybody confirm the acetone trick works?

I have one that has the dreaded voice issue (as expected). Rumour has it you dip the chips in acetone and they're good to go again

I bought a Juno 106 a few months ago and noticed a few days later that voice 5 was not sounding right, the sub osc is perfect but the 2 square and saw osc just sound a bit wimpy, like there's a HPF on it.

When I opened it up I could see that the voices were all original but all had the acetone treatment (some black specks left on the chips from the original coating). Don't know what did or didn't work before hand. Very recently voice 1 was acting up but seems ok again for now.

Don't know if I'll retry the acetone trick myself as it may not have been done right the first time or just buy all new chips, that's a little pricey though but when you buy 5 of the clones you get the 6th free.

[Mushy Mushy]

but when you buy 5 of the clones you get the 6th free.

clones? How similar are they?
Surely some nerd out there has done some kind of test

[mztk]

I picked up an Emu ESQ-1 for $2 at a fundraiser sale a couple of weeks ago. It has something wrong with a bank of 8 keys, the volume and data faders need to be replaced, and the battery needs to be replaced. I found the faders on-line for a couple of bucks each. I doubt I'll have any problems getting a replacement battery. The thing that worries me, is the 8 keys that aren't working. I love the SQ8L vst, so I suspect that I'll like this ESQ-1 once I get it repaired.

Granted, it's no Juno, but at least this digital hybrid has true analog filters, which isn't too bad. Congrats on your Juno though!



--Sean

[codec_spurt]

Not my latest, but my best - the Ensoniq SD-1 only 21-note polyphony but that's ok. It has polyphonic aftertouch and there aren't too many keyboards built even today that have that. The action is crisp not spongey like a Roland - it makes a superb master controller with transposition done at the flick of a switch.


It can sound like a Fairlight, a Roland, a Yamaha, even a Kurzweil in a push.

But I love that SQ8L vst, shame it's doesn't seem to be developed any more.



As for the Juno - Meh... A big lumbering keyboard with three sounds - fat, but not that fat, and squelchy, but not that squelchy bass, a pad that is full of middle and no highs or lows, and then that strange blip/bleep sound that you could get out of a Jen SX1000. Obviously I am not a fan. Now I know that loads of people have got great sounds out of this synth. I put it down to me being a crap sound designer/programmer.

I'm happy for you though. It certainly has a lot more knobs/sliders than my Ensoniq. Certainly credited on more hit records.

Hope you have a lot of fun with it!

Btw, an SD-1 and a 106 side by side would just be bliss...


Enjoy!

[audiojunkie]

I just did some checking, and a minimum bench fee would be $65, and they would call me if the cost to repair the ESQ-1 were to cost over $100.

A new battery would be about $13. The volume and data faders would be about $2 each.

I also learned the following from an ESQ-1 fan site's FAQ:

ISSUE-

Every eighth key doesn't sound. (or) I have a group of eight keys that don't work.

The keyboard keys are scanned by an encoder circuit by way of a matrix. The keys are in groups of eight. If you loose a wire or circuit board trace, you will have the symptoms in question. You could also have a bad keyboard encoder chip, a bad solder joint in the ribbon cable connecting the keyboard assembly to the main board, or a loose ribbon cable.


The question I have for everyone, is would it be worth $100 to repair the keyboard?

--Sean

[ghettosynth]

I just did some checking, and a minimum bench fee would be $65, and they would call me if the cost to repair the ESQ-1 were to cost over $100.

A new battery would be about $13. The volume and data faders would be about $2 each.

I also learned the following from an ESQ-1 fan site's FAQ:

ISSUE-

Every eighth key doesn't sound. (or) I have a group of eight keys that don't work.

The keyboard keys are scanned by an encoder circuit by way of a matrix. The keys are in groups of eight. If you loose a wire or circuit board trace, you will have the symptoms in question. You could also have a bad keyboard encoder chip, a bad solder joint in the ribbon cable connecting the keyboard assembly to the main board, or a loose ribbon cable.


The question I have for everyone, is would it be worth $100 to repair the keyboard?

--Sean

Sean,

I have purchased at least three ESQ-1s for under $100, but, have seen them as high as $250. If you don't really care about using it as a keyboard, then if it's just a broken ribbon cable, you can just operate it as is over midi. The ones with the plastic case bits are not that sturdy, consequently, I wouldn't be surprised if you have a broken ribbon cable or cracked/broken pc-board.

Personally, I would try to see if it's a mechanical problem like the ribbon or a cracked pcb. If it's the encoder chip, I wouldn't repair it, but, then, I'm not clamoring for an ESQ-1.

You're kind of in that window where the repair costs are going to be close to the value and that's no guarantee that it will have a long life. A quick glance at ebay closed auctions suggests that the value hasn't changed much.

Hope this helps.

[ghettosynth]

Can anybody confirm the acetone trick works?

I have one that has the dreaded voice issue (as expected). Rumour has it you dip the chips in acetone and they're good to go again

It does work, but it's more than just dipping them in acetone, as has been mentioned. Keep in mind that what the actual fix is doing is curing a heat problem. It means that you have to take the coating fully off of the chips, sometimes it's easy, sometimes it's not so easy. IIRC, the modules are not socketed on the 106, they certainly aren't on the MKS-30. If you don't know what you're doing, it's easy to destroy them trying to remove them.

Then, even if you get the chips out safely, and acetone them safely removing the coating, and get them back in safely, they are not guaranteed to just start working. It depends on whether the VCA is damaged, or just a little too hot with that winter coat on.

[Peter - IK Multimedia]

Closest I've got to the blissful combo mentioned would be my 106 (original owner and no voice chip issues, I have no clue how I got that lucky) and VFX-SD which I believe go really well together. Neither are perfect and I've had my share of regret about both from time to time but overall I find I really like these two misfits. I think it was the VFX-SD that got me hooked on aftertouch.

[audiojunkie]

I just did some checking, and a minimum bench fee would be $65, and they would call me if the cost to repair the ESQ-1 were to cost over $100.

A new battery would be about $13. The volume and data faders would be about $2 each.

I also learned the following from an ESQ-1 fan site's FAQ:

ISSUE-

Every eighth key doesn't sound. (or) I have a group of eight keys that don't work.

The keyboard keys are scanned by an encoder circuit by way of a matrix. The keys are in groups of eight. If you loose a wire or circuit board trace, you will have the symptoms in question. You could also have a bad keyboard encoder chip, a bad solder joint in the ribbon cable connecting the keyboard assembly to the main board, or a loose ribbon cable.


The question I have for everyone, is would it be worth $100 to repair the keyboard?

--Sean

Sean,

I have purchased at least three ESQ-1s for under $100, but, have seen them as high as $250. If you don't really care about using it as a keyboard, then if it's just a broken ribbon cable, you can just operate it as is over midi. The ones with the plastic case bits are not that sturdy, consequently, I wouldn't be surprised if you have a broken ribbon cable or cracked/broken pc-board.

Personally, I would try to see if it's a mechanical problem like the ribbon or a cracked pcb. If it's the encoder chip, I wouldn't repair it, but, then, I'm not clamoring for an ESQ-1.

You're kind of in that window where the repair costs are going to be close to the value and that's no guarantee that it will have a long life. A quick glance at ebay closed auctions suggests that the value hasn't changed much.

Hope this helps.

Yeah, that's kind of how I see things too. Having the SQ8L VSTi may negate a need for it. For me, it seems to be more an interesting part of history rather than an item that I would actually use. I have a Roland JV-1010 that I like a lot, but seldom use because it is not "immediate" enough. In fact, I've moved from laptop to iPad, so that I can have even more portability and immediacy. I'm kind of swinging back and forth between technologies right now, for these very reasons. So, it may not actually be worth it for me to repair it.

--Sean

[bluedad]

not to mention the hassles of midi and audio cables strewn all over the place..

[audiojunkie]

not to mention the hassles of midi and audio cables strewn all over the place..

Agreed!

--Sean

[deastman]

Can anybody confirm the acetone trick works?

I have one that has the dreaded voice issue (as expected). Rumour has it you dip the chips in acetone and they're good to go again

I have a friend who repairs synths and sells parts for them. He does sell replacement voice chips:

http://www.synthparts.com

He's revived quite a few old voice chips with the acetone trick. I had him work on my Juno-106, which had two bad chips. He was able to revive one of them, but the other one was totally dead and had to be replaced. So yeah, its a bit hit or miss.