Syncing ableton with external devices..

hey guys

me and my friend are mixin live, obviously with ableton. We have 3-4 midi controllers, but thats about it.

Now, I'm worried about the fact, that only using 1 computer is not reliable, in case it crashes, our performance is fucked up. Totally.

So, we have decided to add an external peace of hardware/software.

after doing some research, I already know what I'm aiming for :

> either get a drummachine (such as Korg Electribe ESX-1 or Akai mpc 500/1000) for programming the drums patterns, and leave the rest to the clips in ableton

> use a second laptop with maschine (looks like a beautiful peace of software/hardware (best of both worlds).

Now, I know, that ableton does sync well via midi with drummachies. I've seen some djs who use it with this, and everything is seamless in sync (of course, there is some midi clock offset adjustment in the beginning, but it works)

But about the maschine, I have no idea..

I'll either have to use the maschine on the second laptop as a standalone app, or a vst in ableton. Whatever works best.

Anybody an idea of how well the sync will be between them ? Coz on that relies pretty much my decision on either getting a Maschine, or an Electribe..

Would be enormously thankful!

uhm, anybody ?