Loop pedal advice needed
 

Okay, my band used to have two guitarists, but our bass player quit and our singer/rhythm guitarist took over on bass.

We have certain songs that sound a lot better with two guitars, so I've been looking into getting a looper pedal. The cheapest one I can find is Boss' RC-2, but it follows the same signal path as your guitar-meaning that if you use amp distortion (like I do), the loop will distort. I would imagine the same thing goes if you use effects. The songs I'm planning on using this on involve playing heavily chorused and moderately overdriven leads overtop of nearly-bone-dry clean parts, so this could be an issue.

Does anyone know of any workarounds or better pedals that don't cost an arm and a leg?

I'm confused. How can a pedal not follow the same path as the guitar signal? No matter what pedal you use your signal is going to end up in your amp, innit? Unless you're using two amps... which is what I would recommend doing. You can save your loops on the RC2, plug it into an amp that you're not using and play over it through your normal amp. The RC2 doesn't require any input to work.
But anyhow, I　own an RC2 and don't have any complaints. I think it's the best value you'll find.

You need two amps. And you're not clear about whether you're distortion is pedal driven or you are overdriving the amp. That what make a huge difference w/ what you could get away with on one amp. With dirty signals though, you don't want to try and blend them on one amp.... so, two amps is the way to go.

If you want to play the other parts real-time and build on top of them while the original signal loops, you can run your guitar through a A/B switcher.... switch between the signal to looper/amp and the alternate amp.

I'd recommend nothing other than the Electro Harmonic 2880. I've had and played them all and this one is the titty's. The Boss RC-2 is your best bet for value. You could probably pick one up cheap off eBay.

I'm also confused... do you use any built-in-effects on you ramp including switching from clean to drive channels? if this is the case you have no choice or control of what your looper is sending. At first I was thinking of putting your Looper first in the effects chain, but that is more limiting than putting it last which is preferred. I agree about using a 2 amp setup, one amp is for you primary guitar and effects, the other amp is to handle those loops. Probably not a good idea to use both inputs if you amp has it, because this can effect the whole sound of everything and can mess with the impedence of one channel versus the other (i've tried this...)

I have a Line 6 DL-4 which i've come to really appreciate as I don't really do long loops RC2 is better for strictly doing loops... the DL-4 is a Delay Modeler with looping capabability (14 seconds w/ or w/o delay).

Well, on the one song I was thinking of using this on, I use a slightly distorted tone that turns all the way distorted via a volume pedal. The other involves using a warbly chorus effect from the mult-effects unit I use. So no channel switching on the amp would be involved.

I'm actually thinking of going with either the Boss RC-20XL or the DigiTech Jamman, because those two have two pedals, one to rec/play, and one to stop. With the Boss RC-2, you need to press it twice to stop the loop.