Woah!

I have no idea where to start. I looked on Vintage Synth but there is SO MUCH information. I like the synth finder but to find the correct synth I need to select up to five parameters and I'm not certain exactly what I want because I don't know what they are.

For example,

a. analog, digital, sampler What?

b. features: modern, old school - I presume this is knobs and whistles and what-not

c. sound types: synth/pads/bass, acoustic reproduction, drums percussion

This leads to another question. Is percussion usually used through a stand-alone program/hardware?

analog - knobs, sliders, basically anything you can tweak in real time
digital - a reproduced sound from a digital signal. usually can't tweak the sounds in real time with these synths unless you get a virtual analog. which is basically the combo of digital and analog
sampler - upload samples and stuff on the synth
i can't really describe old school or modern. seems that most likely all old school is minus midi...and modern is more digital and midi.
i'm not exactly sure what you mean about stand alone...do mean...drum machines or synths that are only drum machines. i find that drum machines are better than actual synths with drums built in. but whatever. you might like it better.

and basically you just explained to yourself what "c." was....synth = synthesized sounds (i.e saw, wave, pulse), pads = drums. or percussion instruments, sometimes also very very mellow sounds derive from the pads. (like when you hum really low in a bathroom..hehe) bass = self explanatory (usually ranges from funk to SUPER FUNK), acoustic reproduction = just acoustic instruments put into synthesis, drums percussion = already discussed.

and that's all i can give right now.

Buy some stuff,and learn to play it. Unfortunately, buying stuff leads to buying more stuff.......