If you are just doing this ay home, Error, particularly how attached to the vintage gear you as you have gotten, you might also want to consider one other tool... For recording, anyway

Many modern DAW's can do 'Beat Correction' on audio files. You can play the different parts in un-synced, then the DAW slices them up on each note, and then time corrects them just like you were hitting 'Quantize' on a MIDI sequencer, along with some time-stretching to make sure there are no gaps at the slices. Ableton Live is an exceptional tool for this, and it allows you to trigger these pre-recorded clips live and interactively.

Maybe I'm reading you wrong, but it sounds like, from the 80's gear, you are into synth pop, that kind of thing? Maybe if you give us more of a clue what kind of music you are trying to make, we can narrow down your choices of which arranger best suits you, too...