I found this locally from a really cool guy near town this week. Ended up heading up during a blizzard and was stopped on the interstate due to multiple wrecks…ended up getting led off the interstate by turning around and going the wrong way to the nearest on-ramp…I thought the synth was gone as the seller said there were other interested parties…but the next day it was available and I went to pick it up.

The synth overall was in wonderful shape; there were only two real issues with it:
1) The rate slider was broken off; thus missing the slider cap too.
2) The Bender plate/mechanism is pretty loose.
3) The sheet music holder is missing
4) There is a screened on logo of the keyboard store in Omaha front/center of the unit (I would never have bought this new with that on it!)

So, I pulled out the schematic from the internet and saw that all but the HPF sliders are 50K so I found one (with a Juno slider cap!) and have it on order. I should have this early next week and will pull this apart and fix that slider and tighten the Bender plate! I’m going to not worry about the other two issues.

The HS stood for Home Series and Roland had several in this line during the mid-80s. The thought I think was to give these to aspiring musicians and people taking piano lessons at home or school. To make it more “home” friendly they stripped the colors of the Juno-106 and added speakers–which sound very nice in my opinion!

Even though there is only one DCO per voice; this 6 voice machine has classic, wonderful sounds.  You can stack all 6 DCOs at once which has a really thick and aggressive sound!  You can also add one of the two Chorus features which also thickens the sound…the Chorus functions are really sweet!  I have owned several Juno-106s in the past; but for whatever reason I got rid of them (trades, etc) and lately I have been wanting back that “classic” Roland sound back in my studio! That occurred this week!  I also got a hefty anvil case with this synth, although its a pretty tight fit…

Both kids like it as well!  I look forward to plugging it into the genoQs Octopus sequencer and having some fun!  I’ve also picked up the Roland JX-3P lately so I think I’ll have a dueling Roland session with the Octopus soon!

RESTORATION UPDATE:  4/27/2013

I purchased a 50k slider on eBay that had a slider cap (unfortunately white) and finally got around to taking the HS-60 apart and replacing that slider.  Pulling off the 5 screws per side in the plastic siding, and then the 2 screws per PCB (main PCB and MIDI) on the back, and finally the 6 or 7 screws from the panel PCB.

These speakers get REALLY loud; I usually have the volume at 3 or 4.  The inside of the synthesizer was VERY clean!

The boards and assembly are really professional in the HS-60.  The panel in on a taught hinge which made it really easy to work on.

The LFO rate slider is all the way on the left.  This 50k slider was super quick to replace once I got to it.  I had to take off the Panel PCB, MIDI Jack PCB and Jack PCB.  Overall, this took about 45 minutes to complete.