I guarantee you almost none of the commercial dance acts are even 50% live, the prodigy, arguably the biggest live electronic act, is basically a multitrack from ableton, with live vocals, usually over the top of existing studio vocal, drums over the top of existing beats, occasional guitar and bass, again on top of the existing sound.

The problem is for these big acts, if it doesnt sound as good, its not worth making it more ‘live’, they need consistancy every time they play its gonna thump, and if they can get away it, then they will. end of story.

As an electronic music producer myself I take a keen interest in how other people work in the field. I know a certain dance music duo (SMD) quite well and they have toured the world playing their own live sets, working with as few prepared elements (ie pre-recorded loops) as possible. They run their synths, drum machines, sequencers etc live, or as live as feasible, with Ableton keeping it all together for them, so your claim that all such artists just basically play recordings of their tunes at live gigs – although it may happen in some cases – is simply wrong. I’ve also seen The Chemical Brothers play several times, playing differing versions of tunes each time, and clearly playing them live.
It’s a shame that people don’t see a dance act doing much on stage and therefore assume they aren’t actually doing much, when they can in fact be very focused and intense, and working damn hard to keep everything from falling apart. The challenge presented by taking what is essentially studio music out on stage has seen many artists pull out some creative solutions (Daft Punk wrote their own rule book and then tore it up to make their thing work live) and we shouldn’t be taking that away from them by saying they just play the tunes off a HDD or whatever.
Next time you see Justice play go and unplug a synth and see if it makes any difference to the sound.

Ipod speakers?Honestly?

Also, ” YRZ3R0″ – do you actually have any idea how Ableton live works at all? They would undoubtedly have bounced the live edits of tracks down beforehand. I.E each song is only one track, with all effects pre-applied.

I’d bet good money that yes, they did spend a huge amount of time on the album. But the band themselves have said time and again that it’s all ITB.This lark bout locking themselves in a basement is baseless bollocks.
Don’t get me wrong, I bloody love the album! But seriously, try and actually find out if what you’re saying is true before you go off all ranting and shit.