Live PA

Generally, live PA artists and performers use a central sequencer which triggers and controls sound generating devices like synthesizers, drum machines, and digital samplers.

By arranging, muting, and cueing pre-composed basic musical data (notes, loops, patterns, and sequences), the live PA artist has the freedom to manipulate major elements of the performance and alter a song's progression in real-time.

In the 1980s, a live PA artist would need a van full of synthesizer keyboards, drum machines, and large cases of rackmounted effects units.

[4] On one end, a laptop-based performer has the option of simply playing a polished, premade audio file that she or he prepared in the recording and editing studio.

This gives a laptop-based performing artist the ability to sequence and trigger software synthesizers, external MIDI-controlled instruments, and internally stored sampled audio clips and loops.

Using this criterion, an artist who mimics or mimes the playing of instruments whilst simply having a prerecorded CD or digital audio track sound over the PA system or broadcast, might not be considered particularly "live" by most people.

On the far opposite end of the spectrum, some artists choose to take only an idea or motif (e.g. a bassline, rhythm pattern, or chord progression), realize it from scratch with electronic instruments on-the-spot, and then build upon it, modify it, and continue in this way for the entire performance.