Live solution for tape saturation sound (NOT DELAY)

[GoblinJack]

Hey all, I'm a live keys and synth player for a proggy/fusion-jazz band, and I have a great warm and meaty tube amp with a rotator from MotionSound. In terms of tone, I am almost where I want to be, using new technology to give a more practical spin on old sounds.
One thing I would love to play around with is tape-style effects, and I don't necessarily mean tape delay (as cool as that is), what I hope to find or create is a way to give a saturated, smoothly detuning effect to anything coming out of my yamaha MOTIF or moog synth, IN REAL TIME.

SO, is what I'm after just the elusive holy grail of live sound? (seems like it could be.) Also, I'm sure there is software for this, but, alas, for real-time stage stuff, I wouldn't trust my Dell XPS for shit. Ugh. Any hardware ideas? If I went crazy and bought a reel-to-reel, would it be able to do real-time stuff, and not just echo?

Thanks everyone, in advance!

[shamann]

The reel-to-reel wouldn't do you any good. Maybe something like the Fatso?

http://www.empiricallabs.com/fatmenu.html

[GoblinJack]

Perfect! I'll start researching. Any other ideas?