I thought others might find this excellent tutorial useful :

Having got hold of a Behringer FCB1010 with a view to controlling and building live loops, I did searches for help and found a series tutorials by this Ableton enthusiast, Christopher Willits.

This one goes through the process of setting up Live with the FCB1010 but the other tutorialson the site, especially the What You Talkin' Bout, Willits? ones, are worth checking out too.

Enjoy. 

Yes me too. I often get things started in the Session view, which I find is great for getting ideas down quickly and to keep them fresh, and then refine in the Arrangement view. 

Have yet to get the foot controller up and running for a bit of looping and jamming but am aiming to be able to improvise and rearrange 'on the fly' (might have to use hands as well, which will be interesting).

I would be interested to hear if anyone else has used controllers (hand, foot or other) in this way with Live, how they connected them, what worked and what didn't etc...

I often use Ableton live almost the same way he does on the tutorial. At first I was trying with a FCB1010 but as a keyboard player, I found it difficult to choose the loop with my foot. So I changed for something I'm now fond of, but that needed some configuration.

Basically I choose the next loop to be recorded by hand (I have 6 loop tracks corresponding to 6 buttons on my keyboard). But choosing it does not trigger recording in my config. To start and stop recording, I just press the soft pedal I have on my keyboard.

This way I can quickly prepare for the loop I'll record (typically just after finishing recording one loop, I choose where I'll record the second), and the I can just play and press the pedal when I like what I'm playing and want it looped.