Slo-Mo Encore

[Nick Ring <nick@simons-rock.edu>]

        Maybe some of you can help me shed a light.

        Yesterday a friend gave me a Slo-Mo Encore as a birthday present.
Seems he picked it up at a tag sale.  it claims to be a "digital slow
motion processor" made by Ridge Runner (or so the logo suggests).

        I've played with it for a little while today and it's pretty cool.
I was wondering if any of you had any knowledge of or experience with
these.  

        Basically, it seems to be a riff-a-matic type of thing, designed
for learning songs by playing along or to transcribe them.  It can
digitally slow down the speed without altering the pitch, but in the
process gives off some serious digital distortion (which I like).  I've
already recorded some drum loops through this thing to particularly
interesting effect.  It records 8-bit sound at 15.6khz.

        It's base memory is 1meg, expandable to 8.  In base form, as I
have, it gives just over a minute of sampling time.  Expanded fully
provides 503 seconds!

        You can then change the speed w/o changing pitch by 1/2 through
1/6 which does some very bizarre things to the loop.  I haven't yet tried
it w/ actual pre-recorded songs yet.  You can set it to alter pitch,
however, and it has a dial to do so.  

        It's mono in/out by rca jacks and as a 1/4 instrument plug w/
volume so you can play along (but not record on the instro jack).

        You can't use it as a delay, but even before recording the signal
through it already sounds digitally distorted to a degree, though this
increases noticeably after recording.

        I can work with its limitations, but one thing I haven't figured
yet is there's always a glitch at the end of a loop.  I've tried editing
by blocks, but it's always there.  I believe you can edit the "frames" it
uses as blocks down to a smaller size and thereby make the space smaller
(as far as I can guess), but as to elimiate it all together?

                                                -nick