🔌Your first 5 minutes

Pick your device below. The instructions below take five minutes or less.

If you do not know which device you have, see Which Playtronica do I have?.

👐 TouchMe

How it works: the two gold pads sense the conductivity of your skin. Bare skin in contact with both pads completes a circuit. The larger the skin contact area, the louder and brighter the sound.

1. Open synth.playtronica.com in Brave or Chrome. Safari and Firefox do not support Web MIDI.
2. Plug TouchMe into your computer with the USB cable from the box. The LED on the device should light up.
3. When the browser asks for MIDI permission, click Allow. You only see this prompt once.
4. Touch both gold pads with bare fingers. You should hear a note.
5. Try two people. Each person holds one pad. Touch the other person on bare skin. The circuit completes through both bodies.

🍉 Playtron

How it works: Playtron senses the conductivity of any object you clip an alligator wire to. You complete the circuit by holding the gold ground pin and touching the clipped object.

1. Plug Playtron into your computer with the USB cable from the box. The LED should light up.
2. Open synth.playtronica.com in Brave or Chrome. Click Allow on the MIDI permission popup.
3. Clip one alligator wire to an object — a banana, a glass of water, aluminium foil, a plant.
4. Hold the gold ground pin with one hand. Bare skin only.
5. Touch the clipped object with your other hand. You should hear a note.

⚠️ Without grounding, Playtron will not play. This is the most common reason Playtron appears not to work. See Grounding — how and why for four ways to ground.

🌿 Biotron

How it works: Biotron measures the bio-electrical signals inside a living plant. The plant generates the music. Your job is to set up the circuit and wait for calibration.

1. Clip both leaf-pads to a houseplant. Use different leaves or different points on the same branch. The pads must not touch each other.
2. Plug Biotron into your computer with a USB cable.
3. Move away from the plant and wait 30 seconds. The device calibrates during this time. You will hear two short calibration tones. The LED will pulse slowly.
4. Open synth.playtronica.com in Brave or Chrome. Click Allow on the MIDI permission popup.
5. Listen. The plant is now playing. You can also touch a leaf, change the room lighting, or move your hand near the plant — each changes the signal.

🌀 Orbita

Orbita is a self-playing step sequencer. It does not sense touch or conductivity. It needs a sound source — a synth, a DAW, or another MIDI device — to make audible sound. See Orbita — rotating MIDI sequencer for setup.

⚖️ Scales

Scales is a weight-to-MIDI device. Place objects on the plate to produce notes. Heavier objects produce higher notes. See Scales — the weight-to-MIDI instrument for setup.

If you do not hear a note

See No sound or MIDI not detected, or open the troubleshooting hub for an interactive walkthrough.

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.