Sequencing for live industrial performance

In a two piece industrial band atm (think Deli Girls, Death Grips, Girl Pusher, etc) and we're trying to finalise our setup mainly in the interest of live perfromance.

I'm pretty inexperienced when it comes to what are the best sequencer and I'm wondering is there any affordable hardware sequencer I can use for a HR-16 and Electribes (synth and sampler) that needs very little hands on button pressing. I play guitar and the other member plays a microkorg and sings so something that can facilitate like instrumental changes and isnt just looping that we can preprogram a bit and don't need to stand beside and manually turn knobs and press buttons at all times.

Is there any good affordable unit for this or should I just bite the bullet and use a laptop for live gigs?

any help is greatly appreciated cheers lads

in short? novation circuit or circuit monostation...

in long:

the heart of my live rig is a monostation sequencing its internal synth (a stripped down BS2) as well as a neutron semimodular and clocking an sq1, all the lfos and arpeggiators on my mopho x4, neutron and pittsburgh modular microvolt as well as sending tempo to a delay strapped across my personal submixer's aux send and return. It works really well. With this rig i have all my analog bases covered and I just turn on and get patching/composing and perform the minute the rest of the band shows up. No hassle now that its all set up... and the set up didn't event ake very long. Even moving peices in and out the past few weeks it just keeps on working. Last night I added in an oldemu proteus to try out for digital sounds and it integrated right in. Iw as able to play one of its engines freehand and then use another as a spare oscilator for my semimodular setup sharing the midi channel I have one of the circuit's sequencer's sending on. Shabang, the neutron has 3 oscillators like an ARP 2600.

So the main sequencer, defaulted to the internal synth, can play I think 16 step sequnces ina row and for each one you can record knob moves and save them etc or create preset sounds and use different ones for different patterns. Any sequencer will loop around eventually. Its what they do. Some will have more patterns available, sure, but the ease of use and price point make novation's products stand out to me. You also get an 8 step B sequencer that can sequence the itnernal synth duophonically or drive another peice of gear via midi and it has a 3rd 'modulation' sequencer that can be assigned to the itnernal synth's parameters via a little matrix or to the CV out to control something on another analog synth.... the regular circuit is even more powerful being polyphonic and having I think 4 sequencer tracks but its just a VA synth engine under the hood, a stripped down mininova (which scools the microkorg at tis own game). Doesn't sound as good as the analogy goodness of the monostation evne though its way more flexible. I'm really fussy though. I have a nice synth collection. YMMV and its not like you need to use the synth engine, you can setup your midi channels and just sequence other gear with circuit. And the original circuit is cheaper than the monostation. Considerably cheaper used.

I am very biased towards novation products. I think they're real bang for buck and I'm also really friendly with the company. They're great people to deal with. Modern step sequencers are way more powerful than old ones and they're way easier to use and change on the fly than sequencers like the HR16's sibling the mmt-8. The circuit step sequencers are great, affordable and have enough power for most live situations. Anything more complex costs more and is harder to program.

I did the industrial thing many years ago and what we learned at the time was that backing tracks on adat (yes adat, I said it was a long time ago) were more reliable than a laptop and even more reliable than squencers and gear, but modern equipment is really getting there. I haven't had a single issue with my live rig and the clocking is rock solid between pieces of gear (and some of my gear is cv/gate and 'volca clock' and some of it is midi or both and I get my clook timing from the drummer who plays an electronic kit and uses a squarp pyramid to keep time and manipulate his main beat so he can play over himself and that gadget sends me my master clock through the monostation)... but I still wouldn't trust a laptop live not even running lynux. Not even a powerbook.... don't do it unless you like being embarrassed on stage by a computer. I know people take their laptops out now running ableton, but I still don't believe its rock solid.... and it doesn't look as cool as a bunch of gear with lights blinking.