Last time I saw him, Keaggy's live setup was roughly something like this:

Guitar w/ Sunrise, LR Baggs, and an internal mic (AT?)

Three signals are blended through a Korg rackmount line mixer, if I recall. There was another rack unit there that was for reverb, I think. Maybe an old Peavey unit. The mic goes dry to FOH through some type of splitter.

Blended signal went through his pedal chain which was comprised of a Dimension D, Route 66, Boss Octave OC2, Line 6 DL4, couple other things, tuner, and into the Lexicon JamMan. There was a beat up foot controller for the JamMan.

Everything then goes into a DI and to to FOH. His engineer blends the DI and the mic signals according to the program.

I've got his Philly Live DVD at home. I think it was the same setup. Contemporaneous performances, anyways.

I run a similar setup with the Digitech Jamman, but I use a few A/B switches to make things complicated, and use an Ernie Ball stereo volume/pan pedal to blend the Sunrise and mic signals. Can't do anything worthwhile with it, but it works.

I'll chime in again about the rc-50.
Last night I stayed up late and recorded some guitar stuff on the rc-50, putting a rythym on pedal 1, then a verse on pedal 2, and then some improve playing on the 3 pedal. But what was great was that, after I listened back to what i had recorded, i decided I liked it enough to "properly" record the tracks. So I assigned the 3 tracks to go out of 3 different outputs on the back of the unit, ran those through my board, into compressors, and then one into a amp and mic'd the amp. It was like engineering my own session without having to play, all the material was already in the sampler. Then i just turned knobs , e'q', panned, and played with some settings until the three guitar parts sounded nice together.
This unit is the only one i know of with different outputs, which I think is wonderful.
Also, if you want to just store and trigger sounds and mini samples of parts you like, it's got 99 banks with 3 pedals for each bank....so that's
essesntially 297 different sounds you could store and trigger with your feet!
Steelyfan

So here's the deal. I have some clips: some sound effects, some short instrumental pieces, some clips from movie dialogue, and some pre-recorded vocal bits.

They do not need to be sequenced, synced, played in time to anything, etc. They're just extra ambiance for a live show, so that it matches closer to our recorded versions of original songs.

I'd like something that makes it easy too play maybe 4-8 clips per song (each are any where from 10-30secs), and be able to trigger them with a foot pedal.

Originally I looked at an Akai MPC500 Sampler, because of all the separate buttons (I think 16, if I remember correctly), but I really don't need all the sequencing/drum machine features. Just the ability to play back some simple pre-recorded samples.

Plus the Akai would have to be triggered with fingers. I'm a bass player, and it'd be much easier to do the triggering with my feet (I'm using other pedals anyway).

So I was considering the Jamman or the RC50. Which do you think would be better for this purpose? I'd likely just run it straight into the PA.

I might use it for some looping of my bass as well, if the need arises, but that'd be during different songs/sets, and I might by a separate unit for that once I get used to playing with it.

Any thoughts folks?

Though not a pedal, my favorite looper I've used is a Electrix Repeater.


Vintage Synth Explorer - Electrix Repeater

Any thoughts on my previous question?

If you have a laptop, Ableton Live with a Behringer Foot Controller would be my best suggestion.
BEHRINGER: FCB1010

This way you'll have total control and things will be way less limiting, but having a laptop on stage isn't for everyone.

+1 Akai Headrush E2

YouTube - KT Tunstall "Black Horse & The Cherry Tree" on Jools

I'm looking for a pedal that lets me not just build on top of loops, but that lets me switch between and A part and B part (verse to chorus, for example). I'll be running in guitar + pedals, a drum pad, and hopefully a bass if I could find a way to line it through the pedal and out to a bass amp.

I'm considering the RC-50. Merce Death uses it very well to get some Don Caballero-like sounds:

YouTube - Merce Death GIG for SHIFT

Ableton would be another option. I don't mind having a laptop onstage.

Third, I'm interested in the Echoplex Digital Pro. This guy does a good job with it:

YouTube - Live Looping Improvisation with Echoplex Digital Pro

Any input as to which of these three, or any others, would be best?

I've been living with this stuff for sometime and it REALLY depends on what you need a looper for, what you're going to be happy with. I'd divide them like this:
1. 23 second ambient loopers: if you don't need to get full verse-chorus stuff down, if you don't care about saving it these are plentiful and mostly cheap. The Akai Headrush is probably the cheapest, but I've had fun and some cool results from the Zvex Lofi Loop Junky and the Line 6 stuff. Heck, even the venerable Eventide H3000 line will do 8 seconds stock (with some pretty neat sonic mangling included). The original Jamman is, unfortunately, in this category: it sounds great but you can't save sounds and the total time, even upgraded, is short. The Lexicon is gone, the Akai is cheap and fun so it stays, the Lofi went on the way (although I miss it), and the 23 seconds built into the M9/M13 is fun.

2. Evanescent Loopers: these are ones that'll do longer, so you could use them for a chorus/verse thing, but don't save loops after they're turned off. They're great for live performance, add a member to the band kind of thing, but not for bringing along your file of sounds/canned performances. The Boomerang fits this category, as does the Maestro/Gibson Echoplex unit, I believe. Both sound really good, but the Boomerang is easier to use (no menus, just stomp on switches). An old tape recorder can also be used in this way, as can the original Echoplex and Space Echo machines in "Sound on Sound" mode.

3. Durable loopers: these are the ones that'll save your sounds long term, and then it comes down to features. To my feet, the Boss ones are most intuitive. I could run an RE-20XL or RE-50 without reading the manual, the Digitech and Line 6 units I found less easy. I sold my boomerang and bought the RE50 (got a good deal on a used one). I like the drum function with the RE50, but if you want a backing band, the Digitech and Line6 do it better. I don't use all the panning and outputs on the RE50, but it's nice to know they're there. For sound quality, the RE50 is fine: even running some pretty cool guitars/effects (for example 65 Jaguar thru Foxrox Zim into RE50 into London Power Studio with Valverb in the effects loop into older Naylor SD50s.

Obviously, YMMV a lot...

Definitely don't want a 23-second looper. I have a Line 6 DL4 already and it just ain't cutting it.

Again, I need something for solo live shows. Will be adding layers of bass, drums, and weird sounds over guitar lines sounding something between Radiohead, Sigur Ros, and Boards of Canada. But I don't just want to build up on a riff; I need to go into different parts without shutting down the sound completely.

RC-50 and Ableton seem the best two options. Further thoughts?

Yeah, avoid the RC-50. The firmware update doesn't resolve the first beat dropout playback issue for me, despite having it in sound priority mode. This is going back to the shop and I'm getting my money back...