Roland Juno-106. The first I deliberately owned.

Date is best bet.

I was single, had a bit of cash to burn, and really badly wanted a Juno-106 for its quick programming and sweet tone. So I browsed the "Buy&Sell" and found one for 300 bucks ... right around what I expected to pay. Unfortunately it meant a long drive through treacherous snow to a a location I forget, about an hour north of Barrie, Ontario.

The little Sprint Convertible held the road pretty good. I was glad to be rid of the stupid Mustang.

I arrived at a mansion in the middle of the country. The snow was as bad as I had ever driven in. I was greeted by a guy in his mid-20's who had a very nicely equipped synth studio in a big, warm open room. He showed me his two Juno 106 synths - one of which was in great shape, and the other had what I would soon learn to be the common "dead voice" issue. After all that driving, the guy told me that if I wanted a Juno for 300 bucks he would only be willing to sell me the one in need of repair. He assured me that it's a common problem with that model, and a routine repair by Roland would be a cakewalk.

I got the synth home and, a few days later, played it to find that after it warmed up it had not one, but two dead voices. Back in those days the "Music Machines" site was an invaluable resource (it still is I guess), and from it I learned how to power up the 106 in service mode, and determine which voices are actually not working. It was voices 3 and 6. Unfortunately at that time I was too dumb to realize that the 80017A VCF/VCA IC was generally the root of the problem, and I instead figured it was the two-voice "wave generator" ICs, each of which controls a pair of voices. So, at around $70 each, I ordered a pair of Wave Generator ICs from Roland.

Within a few weeks I got up the courage to disassemble the keyboard, locate the IC's I presumed to be defective, and attempt to desolder. I say "attempt" because I gave up before I destroyed the circuit board.
(more to come...)