The Big Choice

[jessethom@canada.com]

What's up everyone?!

I could really use the advice of some knowledgable,
experienced loopers.

I'm new to looping, and I'm trying to decide what pedal
to buy based on my intended purpose, which from what I
can tell from reading hundreds of reviews (man my eyes
are sore) is a purpose that is not that typical.

So here is the information I think someone would need
to help me out with my choice of pedal:

1) It would be for live use (as opposed to studio)
2) Using a small mixer, I'm basically going to be
performing as a one-man-band, building my songs up from
the ground by way of looping (drums first, then bass,
then piano etc.....about 4-5 total layers on the loop
when I'm done constructing it). Then I pick up an
acoustic guitar and play/sing along to my loop, then
move on to the next song etc.
3) My songs consist of relatively short loops (ie:
similar to hip hop), so I would sample a couple of bars
of drums (20 seconds tops), then add the "riffs"
overtop.

I've basically narrowed it down to either the Echoplex,
or the Boomerang, which are quite different in price,
as you're all fully aware.  If the Boomerang can
satisfy my needs, please let me know.
However there are two issues surrounding the Boomerang
that I've seen in user reivews that I'd love to have
confirmed or denied:

1) People complain that as you stack layers, the layers
at the bottom of the stack become quieter to compensate
for the new layers.  In my case, the bottom layer would
be the drums which I definetely do not want
diminishing, since it's the foundation.  Is there truth
to this or are people just not setting their decay to
"no decay"?  Also, I'm only stacking 4-5 instruments,
so could it be that these people are talking about loss
of initial layers when they've added their 20th layer
or something?

2) People compain about the sound quality.  It's for
live shows, so I'm not too concerned about EQ problems,
but is there going to be a general "muddyness"
happening if I'm layering thick instruments like the
drums, bass, and piano together?

As far as I can tell, the biggest plus for getting the
Echoplex for live shows is that there is an "undo"
function, and it seems easier to get your timing right
by playing to a click track or something.  For the
money I save with the Boomerang, I figure I can just
practice really hard until I'm consistent enough to not
need these functions.

Can someone PLEASE let me know which of these pedals is
better for this one-man-band silliness (Or, if I've got
it all wrong and there's another pedal that's better) ?

I've been very giving to people in general for the past
couple of weeks so that you'll all pick up on my good
karma, forgive me for the excessively-long email, and
offer me any advice you might have....my livlihood
pretty much depends on it!

Thanks so much for your time guys.

Try and look at Christmas in a new way this year,
-Jesse