So I guess there lies the answer. We’re just used to it.

And if someone recognizes a copyrighted sample they’ll have a harder time suing us.

First, it’s light-weight, while still being solid construction. the keys feel very nice, not weighted at all but still with some tactile response that is both intuitive and not a strain on the muscles. Then there are all the surface controls, You’ve got knobs for cutoff, resonance, mix (between the two base samples that make an instrument). On top of that you’ve got the D-Beam ™ which you can assign to anything (granted, this thing’s mostly a gimmick, but whatever, it’s one more control option). There’s also split-keyboard capability and phrasing (hit one key and it makes a chord, fully programmable for each key, etc).

The sounds on the keyboard start off not particularly interesting, but the mere fact that you can combine two sounds to make your own instrument, combining that with EQ and other effects for each sound, you can create some interesting things with a little bit of sit-down programming (comes with librarian/editor software).

Also programmable are the instrument-category buttons. You can set the keyboard to “gig mode” and have a dozen favorite instruments at the ready.

So, that’s just the Juno-D model, the runt of the litter. The price is low, the contruction is Gig-worthy, and you can make expressive stuff with it - not too bad.

Long verbiage spewed, I’m agreeing that they could have come up with another name for these new toys rather than stain the almighty JUNO.

Also, there’s the whole meta-game of finding which songs on your iPod are the most fun to play.

A really fun thing to do is actually compose songs so that they make interesting patterns in Phase. Start with some minimal beats and sweeps and see what you get.