synthesis (drums and sounds) together with being able to respond to a crowd and take your music in any direction you feel like is live even if you have some of your synths automated. With what i would say is true live it can be changed on the fly at any given moment in your set. Being able to change the body of any sound, individual drums, effects, structure, rerouting signals to different sends, changing patches of vsts, drumming in live drums from pads, to completely control the dynamic of your track and set - rather than banging in some wavs and sticking some effects over them. Sure, it takes time to do.. sure, its gets complicated.. thats the beauty. Once you have a stucture for a live set with lots of tracks in it, you can take the same ableton self contained live set anywhere and bang out a completely different live set every time!

and watching someone do this can be VERY VERY entertaining.

Has anyone seen that video of exile showing off his skills? very very impressive (admittedly not with ableton but you get the picture)

ableton allows you to automate everything so you can picvk and choose what you want to control!

hands on is best!