Digitech Time Machine replacement questions

[Seth Elgart <selgart@earthlink.net>]

Dear Loopers,

I'm new to the list, but not new to loopers. I had an 
Electro-Harmonix 16 second delay way back many years ago, but lost it 
to a flood in my guitarist's basement (I play synthesizers mostly, by 
the way, but I like to loop with a guitar, a slide and an e-bow). I 
replaced the EH with a Digitech Time Machine 7.6 (and I have a 1.9 as 
well). Those are still both working fine and now that I got them back 
from my guitarist's closet (same guitarist, but now it's 15 or 20 
years later) I'm having great fun with them again.

However, there are lots of new devices out there that have much 
longer delays and that are much smaller. I'd love to get a small 
stomp box that I can throw in a backpack, something you just can't do 
with the Digitech rack mount delays.

There's one problem however. The Digitech had an infinite repeat 
button, which to me is simply a must-have, but I can't seem to find 
the right combination of repeats and fades in a pedal. I was looking 
at the Boss DD-20 in a store the other day, but it didn't look like 
you could step on a pedal and have the loops repeat indefinitely. I 
also looked at the Boss RC-20 Loop Station. With the Loop Station, 
you can have it repeat forever, but you can't then step on the pedal 
and have the loops fade out like you could on a digital delay. I'm 
considering the new EH box, but I really like the DD-20's delay 
time/beat count display, something the EH doesn't have. Basically, 
the DD-20 looks like it's perfect, except that it can't hold the loop 
forever. The Line6 might do what I want, but from the reviews it's 
not 100% clear. It seems that you can choose from infinite repeat or 
fade out repeat, but that you have to "reboot" to choose which type 
you have (I'm basing this on the review on the Loopers Delight site). 
One completely awesome thing about the Line6 is that when you're 
looping, you have a pre-loop delay as well as the looping, meaning 
you don't have to have another delay if you want to avoid "dry" 
looping.

Is there a box out there that does all the things I want? (Or, am I 
wrong about the DD-20 not being having a "hold" setting?) I've been 
reading reviews and archives for days, but I haven't been able to 
find a clearcut answer to what I'm looking for.


Thanks,

Seth


http://web.mac.com/selgart   (no looping, mostly synth stuff)