From my 'concert' at the SIMS Online Music Festival (live-stream from my bedroom).

Using Ableton and ClyphX Pro scripts, I can create live performances like this without needing any pre-recorded music. Instead of using backing-tracks, I tell the software exactly when to record clips from certain microphones, and when to play those clips back. The clips might also get reversed, chopped up, delayed, quantized, side-chained, or anything else imaginable. While I'm playing, I don't need to worry about starting or stopping loops– it happens automatically in the background.