I own a DT, DN an OT and I am at the beginning of the process of producing some techno but I have the following dilemma: I feel it’s unrealistic to prepare all banks, patterns (and parts and scenes) then mute/unmute them and trigger the next steps in the right order during the whole performance: I can only memorize few actions that creates a decent song and having a cheat paper in front on me while performing feels dumb. On the other hand, if I create an arrangement on the Octatrack and just hit play it feels lazy and takes away the possibility to react to the environment and crowd on the fly, make some parts last longer and other parts shorter.
I would love to hear your experience and how you handle this.
There is nothing wrong with writing a set list with notes on it.
Personally I write patterns and just go with the flow when playing live. I never use more than 2 machines. Always OT and one other thing.
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keeping it simple can help - as in not necessarily having to use all yer boxes for the set. 1 or 2 boxes is more manageable for semi improvised sets I find.
if you keep for example your kick always on track 1 / having a certain order to which tracks are generally what then jamming with your patterns / muting unmuting on thr fly is totally doable. that’s the way I work and I find it to lead to very fluid and instinctive compositions.
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I‘m in a similar boat, a nice middleground is to have two parallel versions of your tracks, one low energy, one high energy. Ideally they‘re arranged in such a manner that you can switch between high/low and current/next whenever it fits the mood.
Not quite easy though, there‘s many parameters to remember in order to have smooth transitions, but I feel like you gain a lot of flexibility in responding to the atmosphere.
Although I don‘t have it for every track in my set, just some select few. Also I don‘t feel like there‘s anything wrong with having your own preconceived tracks and tweaking your way through them, as long as you‘re having fun yourself.
I got a live set up and running and had a mixture of things that were quite “on the rails” planned out with notes and patterns that were literally just one pattern, and I was just dubbing parts in and out and applying effects to make an “arrangement”…
I have to say it’s loads more fun for me to be doing the latter than it is to try and exactly recreate an arrangement you made and feeling the pressure to do it “right”, so in the future I’m planning to let go of the idea of “performing” songs and instead just use the sounds and patterns for a more improv thing, and make that work as well as I can.
Sometimes that will sound good, sometimes i’ll probably mess up a bit… but that is the point of “live”, right?
It’s not as if i’m U2 and people are going to throw things if I don’t play the hits. (if you are, play the hits!)
Also, I think the more you play like that the better you get at it, and I think it opens the possibility of writing music really quickly once you are able to make a single pattern and jam out an entire arrangement super fast.
Working out what you want to do with “live” is part of the process though, I don’t think there’s a right answer, and the audience will not know either way really, at least until they come to see you three times… 
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Lots of repeats and rehearsals of your set will give you Elektron muscle memory… Like others “classic” instruments…No secrets…
Ah, and repeat again, practice, practice,practice! 
Edit: In any case, it helped me… When I know ‘how’ I want the track, When I know how to do it after lots of practice, then I can start going out of my path, and return to it when needed…
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Nothing dumb about it. I do that plus i ve let go of the idea to strictly recreate composed tracks live. I now prepare and practice my material in a more fluid, improvisational way. Meaning that I have a set of sound layers to compose/arrange live. More fun and more energy in the moment.
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Use the arranger to order some patterns and then leave the arranger mode when you want to dwell on a pattern. Then return to arranger mode when you want to progress through the arrangement.
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I would not discount the notes approach - I’ve saw people I respect do it and it humbled me. Reminded me that how ever much I may vainly think of the “art” aspect to music making there is still quite a bit of “work” when it comes to presenting it to others.
The other bit of advice I’d give is sit down and record yourself playing for an hour. Do not stop for anything - pretend you are live and cannot stop no matter what train wrecks occur. When I do this I learn a lot about what I’ve wrote and how to use those bits and pieces. The solution may become clearer then.
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Is this a cool thing? Have you seen any classical music being performed. Nobodies laughing at their sheet music being on display. Musicians use prompts all the time. From track lists to teleprompts (Stipes from rem)