re:new digitech jamman stereo

[William Walker <billwalker@baymoon.com>]

Actually a little bird told me that they are releasing two new looping  
products, the first being  a single pedal looper the size of a boss  
RC-2, called the JamMan Solo that will have the following features,
35 minutes of internal storage
possible 16 hours of material on SD card,( you know, for those really  
really really long gigs.)
44.1kHz 16 bit CD quality
Auto quantization (for those who can't find the one ;-)???)
USB connectivity with jam-manager software
built in metronome with 9 rhythm patterns
This may show up at the end of March
    Then comes the Jam Man Stereo , which has the same features  and  
amount of storage as its little sibling but adds, stereo operation, a  
four foot-switch foot print about the size of the current JamMan, and,  
drum role please.............Reverse!!!!!
The rep I talked to said that maybe multiply would be added as a  
feature.
My first question is why the great fascination with storage???  
Honestly I can see that some people might really put this feature to  
use in a very structured backing tracks format but for me, I'd rather  
have more features like track speed, and multiply and replace that can  
change the character of the loop. Even a DL-4 with its measly 14  
seconds has both track speed,play once, and reverse, as well as a  
secondary delay with the ability to change  delay parameters and loop  
volume with an expression pedal.  The M-13 and M-9 are like the Dl-4  
only with an entire compliment of effects thrown in for further sound  
manipulation. It just seems that the two major players at the moment  
in dedicated hardware loopers, Roland and Digitech, have both taken a  
pretty conservative approach to developing feature sets, and seem  
intent on  trying to win an on board memory battle rather than create  
cool and adventurous capabilities like the benchmark hardware loopers  
the EDP,the original Jamman, the Repeater, and more recently the  
Looperlative.  And so now the Jamman Stereo has the "highly sought  
after Reverse playback feature"   Woo Hoo!!!  break out the party  
hats.  Is it just me? I'm not very impressed. I must say i have tried  
to give feedback to these companies and every new rep I meet I tell  
then to log on to Loopers Delight if they want to find out what  
intelligent people are doing with  with looping in the real world ,  
but  many of these companies are more in a bubble than one would hope.
OH well, now there will be a looper as small as a tube screamer that  
will record a 16 hour jam band marathon, progress boys and girls  
progress.
Bill