I recently got myself a Roland J-6 after a long period of being on the fence. On one side I was attracted by the low cost access to a HW synth with the Juno-60 sound, plus the ability to experiment with chords. On the other hand I was put off by the lack of access to the Juno-60 engine so that I could make my own presets and the simplicity of the device with a single octave keyboard. The thought of me making awesome new sounds based on Juno-60 felt like the right thing for me to do.
After two weeks I must admit, that the fact that I canāt sit and fiddle with the sound engine has forced me accept the great sounds that the machine does have, and actually start to create music. And because it is a HW device and not a DAW, there are few distractions to keep me from being creativeā¦
So I guess what I am trying to say is, that keeping things simple really makes it easier for me as a beginner to start working on making music instead of sounds, which was what I wanted to do in the first place. And why am I writing this? Well, I guess this small revelation might be relevant to other new synthesists out there.
Enjoy life and enjoy music.