naiive asks about Boss RC-20

["W. L. Altman" <waltman@mta.ca>]

You folks seem pretty high-end, so I'm going to sound pretty dopey. 
But I want desperately to find an effect that will give me a very 
long delay with a long ( adjustable) decay time.

With my dream tool I could:
- Set a long delay time (10 seconds for the piece I'm working out 
now, but in the future the longer the better).
- set the number of repeats of each layer - the idea being that 
material will pass in and out of the texture for a pre-determined 
duration.
- set the decay rate or curve.  So (for example) I could have my 
analog signal continually overdubbing, repeating every 10 seconds, 
repeating 10 times and I could set the loops to either keep a 
consistent volume through the 10 reps and then drop out, leaving 
later material still repeating  - OR i could set a certain decay 
curve so that the earlier material fades to zero while new material 
is always predominant.

Oh and this is all real-time.  No bringing saved loops to the gig.

Anyway, I've played with a Jamman with extra 32" memory and although 
it doesn't have all the features I am keeping my eye out for one.

The features of the BOSS RC-20 seem interesting at the price to me. 
Fiddling with dials during performance is not necesarilly a problem 
since this is for a vocalist seated in front of the toys.
So for those with experience with the RC-20:  Can I loop indefinate # 
of loops up to the 5:30 limit?  If it plays  only ten loops, are 
these played real-time, simultaneously, and can I record the 10th 
loop while the previous 9 are playing?  Do any of these questions 
make sense?

For the piece I'm working on, I could make ten reps work since i have 
other effects going on.  Tempo, quantizing, etc are of not a concern. 
I will not use this as a practicing tool.  Also I imagine that with a 
looper as opposed to an echo-style delay unit, I won't get ANY decay, 
but for me that's better than having a decay that I can't finely 
adjust.

OK.  So if anyone has advice on the BOSS, or wants to suggest a 
similarly (or lower - ) priced alternative for my proposed purposes, 
I'd be greatly grateful!

Best.. W.L.
--