Cabotronium is an audiovisual system based on old analog devices integrated with new digital technologies.
The Core of the System
Cabotronium I and II are two old analog mixing boards, manufactured during the early 80's by the italian factory Cabotron, whose internal circuitry has been modified in order to create several feedback signals between inputs and outputs across all the mixing boards. Every combination produce an unique sound that can be modulated using the controls on the machines. What was usually used to modify volume and equalisation of different audio sources can now be "played" like a real electronic instrument, capable of producing a full palette of different timbres on its own, without any external signal fed into it.
Every feedback generated inside the machines is always different so the performers operating must react to this unpredictability improvising on what the machines are producing in real-time.
Spilling New Life into Dead Machines
The purpose of the project was to recycle obsolete technologies and to transform them into something new and fresh that can be used in totally different ways.
During the process of making the two Cabotroniums, the normal error produced by the mixing boards, that is the feedback, was put into a new perspective in order to became to most important sound material of the system.
Errors are no more to be avoided and eliminated but put to the front and used as a great musical resource.
Advanced System
The sounds generated by the Cabotronium are analyzed and transformed into MIDI data, used to control a set of synthesizers and a drum machine creating a full ensemble led by the Cabotroniums.
The visual part is built in the same way, generating basic geometric shapes that are modified and distorted by the signal of the two Cabotroniums.
In this way old and new technologies can communicate and operate togheter to produce an integrated and coherent audio-visual output.
It's important to emphasize that the computer is used exclusively for signal analysis and translation of it into a common language that allows the Cabotroium to communicate with the machines; no sound is computer generated.