Ableton Live vs. hardware looper

[Blair Willis <blairwillis@liquidvision.us>]

I'm new to the list and new to looping (please don't hit delete yet!).  
A basic question, I think, for the experienced users out there:

Can I get the live looping capability I'm hoping for using Ableton Live 
3.0 and a midi foot controller, such as is available on the numerous 
hardware loopers such as the Boomerang, Electrix, Echoplex, etc.?  If 
not, is there any software solution for Mac OS X that will do what I'm 
imagining?

At minimum, I need foot control and instant loop start/playback.  I'm 
hoping for midi sync with a sequencer (software and/or hardware based). 
  Ideally, I'd also like these features:
        - multiple track loop input/output/undo where I can lay down 
several 
loops and then remove/replace individual tracks.
        -support for at least 2 simultaneous users, preferrably w/ 
separate 
foot controllers that can each be set to manipulate separate tracks on 
the same loop
        -support for audiounit instruments and effects
        -I'd like it to be freeware. (ha)

I've been playing around with a demo of Ableton Live and just can't 
figure out if it has the capabilities I need. Maybe someone with a 
better understanding of Live can offer some advice?  If figured out how 
to record input at a basic level, but I can't figure out how to get a 
loop to overdub.  It mentions that "resampling" is not possible with 
the demo version, is that the feature I need to do what I want?  I 
don't want to drop a few hundred on this software and find out it's not 
what I need.

O.K., so maybe that's not so "basic" a question as I thought.  Thanks 
though for reading and thanks in advance for your input.

Blair

--
blairwillis@liquidvision.us