Affordable Vintage Synth with Arpeggiator?

[irpool]

Hi! I'm looking for an affordable vintage synthesizer keyboard with an arpeggiator to use in an art installation. The aesthetic is a concern, something fairly "clean," preferably no later than '90s but newer could be fine pending look and price. Looking to easily make Hi NRG / electro-disco sound. This doesn't need to be a super versatile machine but easy programming is a plus! Looking to keep the price no more than $300. Thanks for your ideas!

[desmond]

The trouble is, "vintage" and "affordable" these days are more or less mutually exclusive. Unless you have a different definition of what "affordable" means than I do...

Oh - I see affordable means $300. Vintage - not a chance... (You'd be looking at ten times that)
Maybe something digital from the 90s? I mean you could barely get a DX100 for $300 these days...

[madtheory]

Ya for that price, no way are you getting vintage. Consider the Novation KS. It is kind of a sleeper, it is an excellent VA with not 1 but 4 arpeggiators, you'd definitely knock up a hi-nrg track in no time drums and all. Doesn't look vintage, but to a non-synth person it looks very complicated and cool.

[irpool]

I found a Kawai Spectra for $150. Not many features and most patches are non-functioning but the arpeggiator function and tones work fine. Problem solved!

[madtheory]

Oh cool! The world's most forgotten synth. Probably doesn't really qualify as a synth, more of a home keyboard with 4 part layering and no auto-accompaniment. Did not know it had an arp, that's a nice feature.

[Z]

You might be lucky to find a Korg DW-8000 for under $300, though their prices are rising lately. Pretty much everything 80s is rising.

The Roland U-20 is a digital "ROMpler" with lots of decent "bread-and-butter" sounds and has an arpeggiator. Can't really edit the sounds much besides AMP attack and release. Can find these for around $150, just be careful for the dreaded "red goo syndrome" on the keyboard (Roland used some crappy epoxy to hold the key weights and over time the epoxy melts, the weights fall off and the epoxy get into the keybed.

Plenty of modern (mostly monophonic) synths with arpeggiators for under $500 and several in the $300 and under range.