One of the most effective shows I"ve seen with a laptop artist was when I did my cd release party with the fabulous beatboxer/live looper Kid Beyond.

He used Ableton's live but controlled it entirely from midi footpedals. He told me that it was his goal to never touch the computer on stage........I think he did once in the whole set.

Impressively, he did an entire vocal rendition of one of Portiseheads songs replete with all the sound effects, instruments and arrangement from the record..........It just blew the crowd away....one of the best live/laptop aide things I've ever seen.

It's so funny to me that a crowd of people will be bothered by someone pushing buttons on a laptop live but will have a completely different response if the same person is using their feet to make the same entries of data to the computer.

I learned this when I would program for hours in my sampler only to have audiences completley ignore all the sound design work I had done while a friend of mine who only used old fashion stock programs on a synth with a wind synthesizer. He would be besieged by people after every show: "What is that instrument.........does it make it's own sounds?"

It made such an impression that I went out and bought a WX5 to
trigger my Repeater loops melodically live. Sure enough........LOL..........I"m besieged by people afterwards who ask, "What is that instrument.......does it make it's own sounds?"

and, apropos of mentioning Ableton's LIVE,

I'm excited because I was just asked to be an endorsee of that German company...... I can't wait to get a copy to start learning how to use my midi footpedals with it.