🍉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 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.
Grounding patterns for stage and installations
Grounding is the most-misunderstood part of Playtron. The rule never changes: the ground contact has to touch the player's skin. Only the form changes.
- You are the ground. Bare skin on the pointed corner of the device. The most reliable method for solo play.
- The hidden ground. Clip the ground cable to a metal ring, a metal wristband, a belt buckle, or the edge of your clothing where it touches skin. Your hands stay free and the cable is invisible from the audience. This is the stage pattern.
- A ground surface. Clip the ground cable to aluminium foil, a metal plate, or copper tape on the plinth. The visitor rests a hand on it or stands on it barefoot. This is the installation pattern when nobody can hold a cable.
- A held object. One object on ground, the rest on the pins. The player takes the ground object in one hand and plays with the other.
- 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 a radiator, a pipe, or a laptop body — none of those put the player in the circuit, and the laptop is already on the same ground through the USB cable. Ground clipped to dry rubber, dry wood, painted metal, or anodised aluminium does not work either.
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.