[LAU] composing live w/ loops

Hi everyone, I have a good friend who is a rapper, and he wants to get together and do some collaboration and make some jams. I'd like to get everyone's take on how they would do this with Linux. My thought process is this: Find a few drum loops that are tasty prior to the session, and start those playing. Then, maybe record a bassline (synth), some comping (my hardware keyboard), etc. Having the ability to turn these loops on/off to build a track would be nice. My problem is I can't think of the right combination of applications to do this. My synths are dssi...what app could handle the looping portion? Does Ardour support loops yet? Maybe some funky combination of sooperlooper and something else? I don't mind doing some planning/setup prior to the session, but I need to be able to get to things rather quickly so I don't hold my rapper up waiting on me to figure out how to work things. :) Any and all ideas are welcome, as I have never used Linux in a live jam situation before. (FYI, I've read Dave Phillips' great articles on working with loops in Linux, but I need something that lends itself to live composition.) -- Josh Lawrence http://www.hardbop200.com