It has been many years that I last bought a synthesizer. I did sometimes look around for something interesting but never really decided to buy anything. This time however I found a small synthesizer with pretty descent specs and not to expensive. I watched hours of video's of various synths and grooveboxes and the Roland seemed the best for me.
The Roland JD-XI is a crossover synthesizer. It is a analog and digital synth in one. Only a 4 track sequencer but it has a sequencer, and my first one. The sounds are pretty good and there are quite a lot of knobs to twist to tweak the sounds. It is only around 60cm's wide so I can have it on the lap.
The music that can be made with it is said to be ranging from the 70's to right around now. I have been learning how to use it this week and have been able to create a whole set of music patterns. There is no song mode so you need to press buttons while recording anything longer than the longest pattern length.
I bought a number of daws and instrument module's for the ipad but never been able to get hooked on it. Somehow I can not seem to find it fun enough. With the JD-XI I find it a lot more fun so far. Twisting knobs to get the right sound and entering notes using a piano style keyboard is a lot easier than pressing a screen.
Here are a number of Medleys I made already. They are game music(remix) inspired.
If this synth gets me back into composing then I might be tempted into buying a more proffesional synth. There is a lot of interesting gear out there.