Elektron Musical Instruments

This is an interesting thread to me, because I'm thinking about 
putting together a live act, more towards industrial / experimental, 
but what is your opinion with this? Where can a group draw the line 
between prefab and live and still be okay? Does it depend on the 
kind of music?

I'm not even sure where I stand. I saw Juno Reactor, with a lot of 
prerecorded material, but then there was the whole tribal core 
pounding out the beats on drum kits and African percussion. It 
made for a good live set, even if much of the music came from 
disc. On the other side, I saw Nitzer Ebb once do a horrible set, 
with just three guys standing around doing as little as possible, 
occasionally pushing "the big red button" to start the next song. 

But what can you do? If you tried to play everything live, some of 
the music just wouldn't come out right. Trying to recreate a 
sequence that's a repetition of sixteenth notes quantized exactly to 
the beat might be difficult. Sometimes you need that machinelike 
quality only a sequencer can give. Same with drum machines. Live 
drummers kick ass, but it's a totally different feel. 

I guess personally I like that hybridization of man and machine, 
that balance between preset and improv that makes music come 
alive. But then again it comes down to the kind of music involved...