SOFIAIRLINES

Boarding into a timeless flight

SOFI AIRLINES is Spicy Sofi's most ambitious live project. Built from real and upcycled aircraft cockpit components, it transforms Boeing 737 overhead panels, Airbus A320 throttle controls, flight switches and cockpit hardware into a playable live electronic music system.

The cockpit is connected to Ableton Live through custom Python software, MIDI, OSC and electronics. In performance, aviation hardware becomes musical control: switches trigger sounds, throttles shape intensity, cockpit gestures become live transitions — and the show unfolds like a flight, from boarding to landing.

Aircraft parts, reverse-engineered

Nothing here is a prop. Genuine cockpit panels are opened, mapped and rewired, their switches and encoders read by bespoke electronics and translated into MIDI and OSC. The avionic grey is never repainted — the character comes from decades of real use.

• Boeing 737 overhead panel — scene & instrument launch
• Airbus A320 throttle quadrant — intensity & FX
• Cockpit switches & annunciators — track arming, state feedback
• Sidestick — melodic control across two axes
• VHF radio head — effects, monitoring, cabin announcements

Python, Ableton Live & custom electronics

A custom MIDI bridge written in Python debounces every switch, echoes scene state back to the panel's lights, and keeps latency around 4 ms so the instrument feels immediate. The panel is not a controller pretending to be an aircraft — it is an aircraft part, told what to do in code. More on the engineering →

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