Electronic Artists that “perform” instead of “play” their tracks live?
Electronic music is the oddball when it comes to live performances. Some producers stand behind a set of CDJs, while others do something with traktor/serato. But then there are the artists that really perform their songs live, mostly with Ableton, using clips and loops. Deadmau5 is the only artist that I know of that does this. Can you think of anyone else that “performs” their songs instead of playing them? 
Thanks.
Once upon a time, and still every now and again, Sasha.
There was a blog post on this a while ago…
But i found this: Artists | Ableton
I’m not sure how many of them use it live, but i’m guessing quite a few.
check out octave one live. Proper fucking live performance. And not a gimick or overly extravagant light show in sight. Just proper electronic music, played live.
I’m just going to go ahead and say I think a lot of ableton live clip launching performances are overrated and I would usually rather see a skilled DJ set. Example- I think deadmau5 live is pretty borring and come to think of it I haven’t really seen an ableton set I was really impressed with. Felix Cartel was decent on ableton but he was DJing with it. I’ve noticed a lot of people I’ve seen on ableton seem more disconnected from the crowd and lack the stage presence of people who have significant DJ experience.
There are some people on ableton who really utilize it I would really like to see but I haven’t had the chance.
I know where your coming from. I’m in the process of dabbling with DJing with Ableton. If you make it too technical, you will fuck up, or be completely disconnected from the crowd. If your mixing on CDJs or w/e, someone else could easily take your place. Its a balancing act.
guti, richie hawtin (plastikman), guy gerber, theres ALOT of artists
check out top 20 live acts for 2011
No one mentions Daft Punk?
That’s a really nice groove, and I love the way they just seem to be rocking out with the music rather than having the silly old Jesus pose-style “hey everybody look at me” stage prescence that is oh so common with electronic acts. But I wouldn’t call that light show modest 
I think it really depends on the style of music you play. If you play a lot of minimal loop-based music where you like to have custom fx then it is definitely a cool idea to mess around with ableton and see what you can come up with.
But to be honest, if you’re a top 40’s/Hip Hop DJ even if you have your own tracks, it will always be two turntables and a mixer. When you make your own tracks for personal use - you set them up at DJ tools contained within one track. So you might have an acapella, an instrumental break to loop/transition and come into the new song, and then the main song, which you then can set cue points at and jump around depending on what you want to do. If you listen to DJ Flipside from Jump Smokers, it’s exactly what he does. He usually has an an acapella to scratch with followed by the instrumental/intro into the main song. I think it’s way more fun to do it this way, especially since you can cue point jump all over the place in any modern DJ software. It takes just as much work since you have to custom edit your tracks but you get just as much freedom and the feel of using two Turntables and a mixer as opposed to ableton, which is just…bleh… not my style.
Yeah fair enough about the lights. But all analogue gear and mad beats is super rad.
I disagree, no resident DJ or opener is going to replace seeing the producer you are paying to see play their own tracks. It’s a lot more about seeing the artist and the energy they create just by being there on stage, and I usually see more energy from artists when they are DJing and working a crowd.
As for a live stuff goes The prodigy and Lcd sound system but this is prob the best for live performance
Cue fader fox @ 1.33 
I’ve actually noticed this myself personally for the first time recently, as I went back to toying with my old over the top “Live” setup instead of standard DJing while my DB4 is away. I’ve found that I really have to focus more on my gear and what I’m doing rather than the music itself, and the result is a very static, unemotional performance.
saw a guy here locally using a BCR2000 and ableton doing disco/house in looped fashion…
cool in theory, but looks like WAY too much work, lots of “email checking” screen staring, and the tracks built on the fly will never approach the complexity and polish of a properly produced track with all the fx and builds and breakdowns built up…
also a lot of it was pretty rough sounding, clipping, etc. id prefer to hear an artist playing their own tracks/remixes/edits and just enjoy a dj set.
making things complicated just for the sake of complexity is musical masturbation.
My thoughts exactly.
You could take a look at Paul Kalkbrenner, AFAIK he also does everything with Ableton.
Also check his album named Berlin Calling, it’s awesome!
Not just Paul but his Brother Fritz Kalkbrenner performs also on Ableton Live and theire performances were always very intense. I think it depends on the gerne you are playing.