🍉Playtron — deep dive
Per-pin mapping, custom scales, performance routing, and a conductive material guide.
Parent page: Playtron — complete guide. Start there if you have not set up the device.
⚠️ Handle only the parts shown in the main Playtron guide. Touching solder joints, exposed chips, or the underside of the PCB can damage the device permanently — even when the device is unplugged.
This page is for makers and musicians who already have Playtron playing and want more control over the device.
Custom scales and per-pin mapping
Open settings.playtronica.com/#/playtron in Brave or Chrome. Each of the 16 alligator pins can be mapped to:
- A specific MIDI note (0–127).
- A specific MIDI channel (1–16). Useful for routing pins to different instruments in a DAW.
- A specific velocity profile — fixed value or derived from contact area.
Common presets ship in the web tool: major, minor, pentatonic, and octatonic. Custom mappings are stored on the device. You do not need to set them again on another computer.
What materials work best
Conductivity matters more than mass. Reliable choices:
- Wet fruit — citrus, grapes, watermelon, banana stem. Strong signal.
- Living plants — succulents, monstera leaves, soft branches.
- Water — a glass of water is a strong key, especially with a metal clip near the surface.
- Aluminium foil — predictable, very conductive. Useful for installations.
- Skin — a friend's hand, a forearm, or a foot all work.
- Damp paper or cloth — wet a strip, clip it, draw on it.
Materials to avoid: dry wood, dry plastic, dry stones, paint, and painted ceramics. They look conductive but do not work.
Three ways to ground Playtron
The ground pin is the most-misunderstood part of Playtron. Three patterns that work:
- You are the ground. Place bare skin on the gold ground pin. Your body completes the circuit. This is the most reliable method for solo play.
- The room is the ground. Clip a ground cable to a metal radiator, a metal sink, or your laptop's metal body. Useful for performances where you cannot touch the device directly.
- The audience is the ground. At workshops, the audience holds the ground while one person touches the object. The circuit completes through the audience.
Methods that do not work: ground clipped to dry rubber, dry wood, or painted metal.
Route Playtron in a DAW
Playtron is a class-compliant MIDI device. In any DAW, select Playtron as a MIDI input. To split pins across different instruments:
- In settings.playtronica.com/#/playtron, set each pin to a different MIDI channel.
- In the DAW, filter each track by the corresponding MIDI channel.
See the DAW setup pages:
Care for the alligator pins
Wet objects oxidise the metal over weeks of sessions. After each session, wipe the pins dry.
- Light corrosion — clean with a dry cotton swab.
- Heavy corrosion — gently rub with 1000-grit sandpaper.
See the Playtron FAQ for replacement guidance.
Still want more?
If your use case is not covered here, email support@playtronica.com with the subject Playtron deep-dive suggestion. We will add it.
Ask the community
🤝 Other Playtronica users have probably hit this before. The Playtronica Friends Facebook group has 4,400 members and is the fastest source of creative and technical help. Search the group's history first (use the magnifying glass at the top — try
playtron mobile no sound,all leds lit,touchme biotron no sound,koala sampler midi, or whatever fits your problem). If your question is not already answered, post a new one with a[Device]prefix in the title. See the community page for what to ask there and what to email instead.
Still stuck
Email support@playtronica.com. We aim for 24 hours, but a reply may take up to 3 business days.