Playing with looping pedals

I posted a new video from Ethermusic 2005 to YouTube tonight of Pamelia Kurstin demonstrating looping pedals by playing Canon in D. Forgive her intonation :)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dg8BLvkzdr0

That's so cool! (but I expect we could find nicer recordings of her doing it)

heh heh... Yeah, Pachelbel's Canon was fun to play the first couple of hundred times (I have had to play it on the organ toooooo many times.)

I stumbled across this routine dealing with Pachelbel's Canon in D...

http://youtube.com/watch?v=JdxkVQy7QLM

I just watched it while nodding my head :)

I want to get a Boss RC20 XL. Right now I use my Zoom delay for looping but the Boss has a lot more features.

Last month I acquired a Boss RC50 loop station. The RC50 has so many features that learning to use it is like learning to use a new instrument.

Looping demands an additional set of skills as a performer and composer.

One of the complications with a theremin is that one must operate foot pedals while playing. Since I stand while playing, the foot presses have to be worked out so as not to interfere with Theremin playing.

My work with the loop station has been private, experimental work just to learn the features of the RC50 and to develop my "toolkit" of sounds and effects that I will, in turn, utilize in new compositions for the Theremin and RC50.

The reason I acquired the loop station is that I want to incorporate some numbers that are 100% realtime in addition to the work that I do with my own pre-recorded tracks.

[i]You really should hear the Pachelbel with real cannons. I would haul cannons to gigs except that I haven't been able to find any holsters that are big enough.[/i]

How does the RC50 compare to the RC 20XL?

How about the Electro Harmonix 2880 - looks to be more flexible than even the RC50 maybe. I like the sliders for each track. Looks more intuitive than the loopstations

http://www.ehx.com/ehx2/Default.asp?f=%2FCatalog%2F01_New_Products%2F09_2880&q=f&x=1&y=1

here's a looping pedal roundup article
http://www.guitarplayer.com/story.asp?sectioncode=6&storycode=14246

I have been thinking about looping pedals for a while and mentally found it difficult sorting out when I'd want to loop and when I'd want a long delay.
For the moment my taste has turned to a long delay - the boss gigadelay dd20 gived 23seconds - there is a sound-on-sound ability too ion one of its functions. I quite like the organic nature of slowly decaying delays as opposed to the once-there-it-always-comes-back-until-you-stop-it looping. Like riding a wave. Looping seems more orderly and organised discipline plus with these new machines like the EHx 2880 one can remove/replace any overdubbed loops easily.

I have found too there is fun in having 2 long feedback delays in a row - setting up a chord on a 4sec delay, and once satisfied, feeding that delay into the long 23sec 2nd delay.

I;m not ruling out looping - I can see times in a solo delay jam when I would like to capture a sound and trigger it at odd intervals. Perhaps I;d not be into overlaying one loop on another, nor do I fancy having pre-prepared loops for on-stage.

Still thinking looping thru as you can see by this ramble

This guy is looping with a RC-20XL - if that's any help.

http://www.myspace.com/alexanderthomasmusic

(I notice he's also the chap who booked Pamelia for Bristol.)

EDIT

for once, i removed my comment before it could get me in to trouble.