My Live setup consists of:
MPC 2000 with the 8 out expansion...
Nord Modular Keyboard
Studio Quad FX

MPC 2000:
this is the heart of my setup, you can sequence 64 tracks either on the internal sampler or 32 channels of external midi (It has 2 midi ins 2 midi outs), reads standard midi files so you can knock up some riffs in logic, save to a floppy then load back up in the mpc.. I personally have got into playing stuff in, you can play stuff in either off the 16 drum pads or off an external keyboard.. The sampler side of the mpc is cool, but more suited to Drums hits and loops.. You can't spread a sample across the keyboard, each pad is set to a different midi note... it does have a basic 12db/oct filter, with a very basic envelope, I find it a bit restrictive, if I really want to filter a sample, I reroute it thru the audio ins of the modular, and then I can have any filter I want, plus vocoders, ring mod, Bit Crunching etc....
Basically I use this for all my drums except the kik, plus whatever vocal samples and the odd loop I use sometimes.. I'm not really a big one for loops.... I got mine second hand for £550 with a Zip drive +16mb ram... you rarely need more ram than this, but any extra is a bonus of course...

Nord Modular Keyboard:
4 Synths in one and a whole lot more, I use 2 of the "Slots" as they're known for synth sounds, one for external processing, and the 4th for my kick drums.. I find you get punchier Kicks synthesised out of the modular, and more bassey kiks too.. when Kiks are sampled (or anything for that matter) there is a defined top and bottom end i.e. most recording or audio gear will not reproduce anything below 20hz or above 15khz.. the modular has no such restriction, which on the downside can mean blown up rigs if you're not carefull... The synth itself is based on the same engine as the Nord lead 2 and 3, in fact, there is a factory preset inside the synth that is called "Nord lead 3" which is the nord 3 inside the modular... you can edit the sounds and create new sounds in the same way that you would using Reaktor or the new moog modular plug in, on the computer via your midi interface, but the advantage is, with this you can take the hardware away and you have all the sounds inside.... you can also assign the 16 front panel knobs to any parameter on a patch, and there is a "Panel split" mode which allows you to have access to 6 parameters on the first 2 slots and 3 on the second 2... As I said before I use slot 3 as an audio processing patch, I can reroute any sound from the desk thru the bus outs, so I can filter, vocode or bitcrunch any sound that goes thru the desk.. I can't speak highly enough of this synth, it's my favorite bit of kit, and has a price tag to match... originally priced at about £1500, you can probably get one second hand these days for about £650/700...

Studio Quad FX.

Cool 4 channel fx unit, loads of cool effects, some quality reverbs (Not as good as a lexicon,but good enough)....

I normally get the venue/promotors to provide a 16 channel 4 bus mixer and audio leads if I'm having to get a flight with this lot... I can fit it in a large suitcase, and it weighs in at about 19/20kg...

I must say I've got a lot more into playing live in the past year, but sometimes it's a real drag having to pack your shit up after you've played before you can even have a beer, plus you got the risk of drink spillage of your precious kit... Last week I had to spend an hour with my modular in bits and a bottle of switch cleaner to hand after someone had spilled their beer over it...

at the end of the day it's worth it, there's no feeling on earth like hearing your kit thundering over a quality rig, and whilst sometimes I think about trading it in for a laptop and a copy of ableton live, i don't think it's quite the same as having some cool looking boxes with flashing lights and a spaghetti of leads going everywhere...... and really fat bass!