This is for a middle school science class. Seems like a fun way to explain electricity to kids by completing circuits with your body. I wouldn't expect it to have much value beyond RUclips videos like "Playing Strawberry Fields on REAL Strawberries!!" Although if I understand how it works, you could actually just connect any of those notes to something conductive. Fruit isn't a necessity.
Does it really teach anything about "science" or circuits and wiring? Are those egg plants in parallel or series? How many volts do I need to power a strawberry? What's the Amp draw of a Banana? And why should you care how many amps your appliances use?
Thanks for your comment! You have captured one of the main use cases of our devices. Originally, it was created for teaching kids music in a fun and simple way. But now a big part of our users are performers and artists who create very beautiful sound and visual installations!
Honestly, I've seen way, way better demonstrations using a chain of people to cause a lightbulb to glow. If the loop breaks, the light goes out. If you add more people, the bulb gets dimmer. If you have multiple bulbs, you can even demonstrate how series and parallel works, especially the impact it has on overall resistance (indicated by the bulbs getting brighter or dimmer).
It's actually got really useful applications for people who can't play instruments traditionally. My partner uses it in teaching disabled people music.
I think this is more about the concept of electrical continuity than actually learning music. It's probably just simple fun for young children. When i think about the ridiculous (and simple) circuits i built when i was 12, this gadget probably compares! The benefit for me with starting simple was that the circuits i made allowed me to be curious without being overwhelmed. I changed component values, changed components and generally just stuffed around until i learned something. I suppose it taught me to teach myself.
@@emilyharpist The intended tinker'y nature of it definitely makes sense but I could see how it feels gimmicky it's all experimentation no application through praxis. Though it's def musical, could see this in live setting being useful if each connection is mappable because then you could just use it as a cheaper alternative to a samplepad for a drummer or some quirky bit where you start eating fruit and cheese together to create music like in rattattaoile. Def less instrument and more tool though.
I think the cool thing is that, technically you don't need fruit, If you wanted to make your own instrument you could just solder wires directly to the board and then make any type of instrument you want as long as it's conductive. I can see this as a maker item to get a easy midi interface into your custom instrument more then just an item you buy to play music with fruit.
This. When using longer cables and all you can rig up interesting things like humans for performances. Also: When using a wire Ring as grounding (as mentioned in the video) the playing gets a bit more free. But playtron would indeed be more amazing if it had more control capabilities over midi like Touch me has.
Just catching up here. There was a device called an OTOTO, which was this, but you didn't need ground at all. Really nice, and used much for interactive art, since you could just poke a thing and it would react or activate a projection. And you could wire it all up with copper tape, so you could have patterns on the floor or triggers throughout a wall or clothes
This is great for performance art. Slice the eggplant into thin slices, put on a slice of tomato, a slice of cheese and some garlic, put it into the oven, take it out when the cheese is nice and melted or a bit crusty, dont burn your self on the hot tomato though.
practical usage idea: using it with, like, scrap metal and conductive strikers to have metallic percussion that also triggers notes or samples it'd be for a relatively specific circumstance, but it could be interesting
Ouch, tough but very honest review - if it was doing anything interesting like moderating any kind of signal based on attaching it to different kinds of objects it might at least increase the novelty of it for a little bit of time.... but overall... yeah, just seems like a wasteful gimmick. The world of holiday buyers salutes your service to identify things that are bad! :)
If your harp strings are metal, you could hook 16 of them to the board and tuck a ground wire in your sock so you can trigger midi notes (or any MIDI controller effect) when you touch the wired strings. (Hook the clip at the very bottom of each string so it doesn't dampen the natural vibration of the string).
While the veggie gimmick is definitely not particularly helpful - I can see using it to make an environmental space into a musical/performance one. Attaching the MIDI to samples or sequencers can mean you aren't limited by the standard keyboard as a musical interface. Not sure I would care about it, but I could see how it is helpful. The idea that since it's all on cables, you can space the notes however you want.
YES I was thinking performance art too, but yeah that whole ground aspect makes things complicated, and they don't show that in the Playtron advertisements. like if you wanted to get creative with it you can use longer cables and attach it to your toe or something but still, it's limiting 🤔
@@emilyharpist yea, you'd have to find someway to like turn it into a mat, or maybe a belt pack or something. Definitely not friendly for much use right out of the box! It does remind me of LOOK MUM NO COMPUTER who made a device with the same concept where he turned his concert into full audience participation by having people link hands and then high-five to close the circuit (like touching the fruit here) and it would trigger the note. He also made a couple copper rods you could bang together to be a MIDI controller like this. They were pretty cool!
Honestly I kinda like this thing. It would be more effective to hook the ground to an ankle strap and possibly make your own instrument. It might be interesting to use the ankle strap and attach each wire to a different string on your harp. just saying, that would be awesome to see a video of lol
Love the honesty! I think it might be cool if you hooked the clips to the rims of a drum kit. You could use the rims as triggers for notes/chords live during breakdowns/interludes. That's the only remotely practical application I can think of, though!
@@emilyharpist At first I wanted to dismiss this but there's actually a really smart work around this actually comes with, you have to touch the rim and the ground to make it happen so this could actually be a really neat way to trigger things. I mean an SPDSX does a better job because you have to stop drumming for a sec to touch the parts but still kinda neat. If I didn't live halfway across the world I would offer my help with the playtron testing :)
You can solder wires to a cheap harp toy etc etc. The ground can touch any part of you to complete the circuit. I mean, alligator clips can get.... interesting.
Perfect review! I don’t want to see someone, that has already “mastered” the product. You knew, right away, that you will never need this. Emily, you are awesome.
I wish there was something that could detect flavor or smell and translate it to some sort of audio effect, that might be cool but I've always felt these "turn anything into" midi controllers to be fairly gimmicky, I think this is more obvious as musicians, where we know the fruits or plants have absolutely no correlation to the audio being produced Tantacruel has a great video about the problems with "sonification of data" I think as musicians we're aware that you could just touch the alligator clips and get the same results, you could just touch the pads you clip onto and get the same results the fruit/veggies are just a dog and pony show also there's not much room for experimentation, it doesn't matter what fruit or vegetable you hook up to, it could be glasses of water or aluminium foil but the sounds will be exactly the same when there's channels making literal wind instruments out of fruits and veggies, gimmicks like this seem silly
Rainger FX has the Minibar overdrive uses the conductivy of a liquid to determine the distortion and the opacity for the tone. Is also gimmicky but what you put inside truly affects the sound. And of course, there's Instruo Scion that uses electro dermal activity (a la mushrooms playing synths).
@@PebloNemo Yeah I've seen the ranger one, it's neat, but again, could probably just be replaced with 2 knobs, the liquid isn't necessarily doing anything special. I guess you could do like oil and died water and the motion might make some unique textures. The instruo module is neat too, but isn't really responding to actual biomolekular information, more specifically, the shape of molecules ins't super important, though it's neat in that its taking some level of actual data from the source contact still neater than "fruit make note" but I think often this type of stuff is more of a window dressing than anything particularly special to the sound
I agree, and I am fairly ignorant of gimmicky MIDI controllers, but I can see some use with more reasonable touch points to have a fully flexible MIDI controller to possibly breakout of the keyboard/grid view of the standard MIDI controllers. There might be some value there. But it does seem sadly limiting. I wonder if it even has velocity control. LOOK MUM NO COMPUTER has a couple pieces about using this concept, basically, to turn a concert into full audience participation where you could have people high five to make synth stabs and things like that, or had copper rods you could bang together as the MIDI controller. That was pretty cool
@@PebloNemo literally what I was gonna talk about. It’d be cool if they made something like mushroom thing but for people if that would work. Maybe it could sense when you move your muscles and react to that.
Haha! A few years ago I got something like this called Makey Makey! It too was saying you can make a banana piano but it had other uses like a life size video game controller or trigger a camera when your cat sits on a mat :)
I was waiting for someone to mention the Makey Makey. It also requires a ground connection, but there are plenty of development boards out there that do capacitive touch so you only need to *touch* the thing, no ground wire needed. Calibrating for capacitance can be a bit tricky (though I've done it for museum and tradeshow exhibits) but when it works properly it's really nice. There are one or two products out there, but they are marketed more towards electronics nerds and educators, and not towards serious (traditional) musicians.
@@emilyharpist And before Makey Makey there was 8Tunnel2, IFTAF, Michel Waisvisz's Cracklebox... So nothing new under the sun. Just artists not getting credited nor paid when companies repackage their work into commercial products. Shameful.
I bought Playtronic Touchme recently and from messing around with it as far as I understand it is less for musicians and more for interactive audio-visual projects. Like for example you make some kind of row of "buttons" and you connect playtronic board as an input in TouchDesigner that generates some kind on shape based on the "buttons" you press
I thought of a use. Learning music scales. You can hook it up to something like a piece of paper with a piano layout on it like a stylophone and label it. You can have a ton of these and swap between them if you want to practice a different scale. It can sometimes be hard to see the scale clearly otherwise for learners.
You should revisit this... ...now, work with me here. Ground it to yourself somewhere, necklace, nose ring, clip it onto your ear, whatever, just permanently ground it to yourself. Okay, ground problem solved--now hook up the notes to key strings on the harp(maybe use the tuning pegs), and set it with a long attack, full release and a long decay with a medium sustain. Now, as you play the harp, certain strings will swell up additional notes. Use it like a pad and have fun with it, or maybe use it as a percussion instrument placed on key strings(do you drone a harp?) and ignore all that ADSR stuff I said. You're thinking way too straightforward about this whole thing. I mean, it's visually cool to play a bowl of fruit, but from a purely utilitarian viewpoint this could be a very useful tool for layering sounds in a live production.
Let me show you my vision with this: You have an elaborately abstract table. It has copper plates in the shape of deformed “piano keys” laid out on it. Underneath it, you have these nodes connected to each plate. Hidden away is the ground connecting to another plate to make the connection. Under the table, you can connect your array of pedals in a unique configuration and you play through them with this makeshift music machine. I can see someone like Marilyn Manson having some tim burton-styled display of madness with such a machine.
omg yes. I'm so tired of those ads and lots of friends forwarding me those via IG and I'm like "omg stop it already ". I was sure it was going to be gimmicky. Thank you for the honest review - it's amazing :D
I found a workaround 🤩 If you want to use both hands, you need to extend a ground cable(connect two of them) and attach it to your body (ex, near the belly). That's how you can play with both hands 🤗
@@emilyharpist oh then that's ok. I'm an electrician so I'm sensitive to these things. Actually we say "electricity knows no color". Rock on and thanks for the reply!
Think of this: Someone finds a way to make it wireless USB (using some batteries probably) and puting it inside a guitar. The guitar will have some kind of bronze or metal plates/buttons that will be connected to the Playtronica. The 6 strings could be used also I suppose. On the one side of the guitar, there will be a connetor for the ground. After touching both ground and the "buttons", the sounds will be produced. Here you are! a cheap HYDRA! (By the way, check this Guitar by Steve Vai)
I definitely agree that it's pretty gimmicky, but I am curious if you could connect it to guitar (or harp) strings somehow to augment the instrument while playing
‘ You have to hold a turnip while you are touching the strawberries.’ I wasn’t ready for that. At all. Also Distrokid is awesome. I need to make some music to make the most of this year’s membership.
Lmaooo I was so flustered I didn’t realize it wasn’t a turnip!!! Distrokid is so great honestly - pretty good that it inspires people to make music that way hahaha!
I like album by Lauri Ainala and Kalle Hamm called Immigtant Garden. "All the pieces on the Immigrant Garden audio CD are based on audio material recorded directly form plants. The recording method used was developed by Jagadish Bose in India in the '20s-'30s and Ivan Gunar in the Soviet Union in the '60s-'70s, who explored techniques of measuring the electrophysiology of plants."
When my daughter was in preschool I made a banana piano for her to play on her birthday using a Raspberry Pi and an Adafruit Touch HAT. It uses capacitive touch (via a MPR121 sensor) so all you have to do is connect the alligator clips to both the board and fruit... And you don't have to hold the ground or anything like that. That said, I did have to install the Pi's operating system, and then program it to play the notes I wanted with the samples (I think I used some from the Scratch library), but that really wasn't that hard since Adafruit's tutorial was pretty helpful.
oh that's amazing!!!! I bet she LOVED that! ❤️ ❤️ ❤️ right now I'm studying how to program an Arduino Uno, but Raspberry Pi is next!! I love Adafruit, but I'm still a bit overwhelmed by all their inventions!!
I am a fan of y'all keepin' it real. You are right this would be good in an Exploratorium, probably not with fruit, but other random metallic objects instead.
Hey Emily Hopkins! I can't believe now you're Debbie Downer! You could play with two hands and the ground item touching your foot! If you played music and did yoga at the same time it would negate the need for a longer cord! Merry Xmas season to you! Ride ride ride!
I will play devil's advocate, here. You might be able to clip noise generator to the inputs on Playtronic for generative patches and other probabilistic approaches to creating music, you could use an expression pedal to widen or narrow the distribution and to change the center of the distribution. I would argue that there are lots of noise sources in your house if the signal is attenuated right. No need to buy some fancy uranium-powered random number generator when you can just plug into a fern and get roughly the same effect. Plus, the idea of watering your plants in order to change the "mood" of a generative patch actually sounds ridiculously appealing.
Definitely an interesting gimmick, with a limited application, but fun nevertheless. I think my introduction to it was on Andrew Huangs' channel, where he played PUSA's "Peaches" on, well, peaches.
Just coming here to saw thanks for your honesty in this video - I’m compiling my Christmas wish list and the ground issue was exactly what I wanted to underatand (and turns out, what I worried I was misunderstanding was actually the case, that you can to find some unwieldy way to hold the ground while jamming)
Will it allow you to "zero" moderate resistances? I think it would be fun to connect the leads to something like blades of grass in the wind, but the built in "common connection" of actual ground could render that into an over complicated drone patch.
I saw Elizabete Balčus play an entire gig on a tray of fruit and vegetables (plus assorted laptops) a few years ago, though she walked a fine line between performance art and music. Not sure if she was playing a commercial product or something homegrown though - she didn't seem to be holding a radish (or anything else) to make the music happen!
so i guess its safe to say this was the last playtron demo. bet they were super-pumped for this little review. lol its obvious youre honest. why not try holding the eggplant between your knees-....hear me out... and the use both hands to play. plus anything organic should work. meaning yo could take it to a park and play anything around you almost, as long as it had some conductivity to it. and you shouldnt need to specifically use alligator clips. just some long wires or a typical guitar cable or whatever and then clip to the ends. theres just so much that doesnt seem apparent at first. i might check one out myself after this video. awesome video though. love that you two are honest. makes the videos and your opinions both more trustworthy as someone who plays music and likes crazy sounds
You could wear a metal bracelet or watch band attached to the ground wired vegetable through another alligator cable so you could make it longer and be capable of playing it with both hands, you can use a bracelet for each hand wired each to the L or R ground and not worry about it getting disconnected
Yes, for the typical musician, this product is a little bit of a gimmick. But for the person looking to demonstrate principles of electronics and the DIY crowd, it serves a purpose. You need to use your imagination. One thing that is quite common for a demonstration in electronics is to take a piece of paper and draw heavy, thick lines of varying distances using a regular pencil. Using a digital multimeter, you can measure the resistances of these lines by placing leads at opposite ends of the lines. Without looking up the specifics on this device, I can see how it would be used to show how different objects have different resistances or conductivities. Try squishing two of the strawberries and see how that changes how the instrument plays. Or set two contacts to the same note and use two different objects. You are not limited to fruits and vegetables. Trays of water with different soluble substances would be great for demonstration. Most people who buy this type of product already have some idea in mind about what they might do with it. They are also likely part of the DIY crowd so making a custom lead to connect the ground object to their foot. I could see this being a good tool for an interactive demonstration with you and a crowd that comes and goes as it pleases. You could sample your harp on the spot using an app and play it with this device. In the end, I do not think the real target market is professional musicians as an everyday tool.
I think that you guys missed a real opportunity to talk about how this could be used. The gimmicky aspect is basing it on fruit or food or whatever. That's dumb. Really imagine it as being connected to something functional and practical like copper tape, cut and layered across your harp in different and convenient locations so that you can use it to control midi live or even CV in a modular unit in a way that is customized to you and your instrument.
Farmer's markets. You're the next blockbuster act for the Greater Lakes Turnip Festival. I'm tired of Ole' Digger McKillian and his rubber duckies always winning.
I hate how I still can't find a single negative review of this thing. the lowest rating on the Playtronica website is 4 stars. I guarantee that they delete all the reviews less than 4 stars
Well that review won't be on their website! I think there are ways round the connectivity issue with an antistatic strap fed through a sleeve to the wrist to be less obtrusive.
Idk if they changed this after your video but in the items description it says you have to touch the ground item 🤷🏼♂️ I’m thinking maybe the leg of the table and touch exposed leg skin to that maybe. I’ve got one coming and I’m going to try some ground “eliminating options. Great video!
The only way this would make sense, is if it would be an actual synth that uses the differences and fluctuations of the signals generated by different materials to synthesise sounds. That way you would have limitless potential of finding new sounds just by attaching the cables to different things. But if I understand it correctly, this is basically a very simple midi controller, which makes it gimmicky at best, but still mostly useless.
Can you put steel strings on your Harp? You could plug the alligators on 16 low steel strings, put the ground on your foot and use the Playtron to double your Harp bass with a MIDI sound. I'm not sure how much the plugs would screw the vibration of the strings tho
We used to use this at the children's museum I worked at to teach kids about circuits! Definitely not cool if they've started marketing it as a proper instrument, when we originally learned about it as an educational tool.
As an (retired) electronics tech: This IS a gimmick. The minerally water in the fruit and vegetables conduct electricity. You also conduct electricity because of the salty/minerally water in your body. You are simply completing the circuit between the output chip and ground. You don't even need the fruit, just touch the ground pad on the circuit board with one finger and any of the small pads to any of the chips where you connect the alligator clips. You could do this with one hand or both - touch the ground pads with your thumbs and play the board like a keyboard with your fingers. The ICs are putting out triggers, not sound waveforms.
I'm assuming you could put ground under your foot in order to have two hands free. I saw stuff like this previously in my career when maker spaces first started to pop up. It's useful for teaching kids about conductivity or to make interactive art pieces. Some similar board didn't send midi but regular keyboard inputs and that would be useful together with a raspberry pi and some script for visual stuff. As far as music goes is feels like a gimmick. Edit: So you obviously figured out the foot solution too :)
YES I'm learning how to use and program an Arduino now, and I feel like this would be a fun project / cool way to use that!! but for $113 the Playtron just isn't worth it. the ads made it look so cool 🥺
I feel the same about those videos where someone uses a special pedal with alligator clips to play guitar through a mushroom or some other conductive object. Its not really the object shaping the tone, the pedal will output similar results no matter what you attach.
Just a primordial idea, but there's gotta be a way this could integrate with Gallagher's comedy routine. He could still smash the watermelon with a mallet, but now it'll play an ambient cord if he's holding a radish while he does it.
Alsways been a favorite channel but now knowing Russ’s stance on cat boys, I may have to rethink the time I spend here. Such a shame!
But he identifies as a Mom.
LMAOOO Russ is out here offending Cat Boys™️ everywhere 😂❤️
This was literally my thought. I'm nearly six minutes in, and now I'm doubting my choices.
yeah absolutely unsubbed
"but chumley you aren't subbed now"
and who's fault is that, hmm?????????
just realized my username on this hellsite isn't chumley, disregard
Hahaha. When Russ is like “maybe you could teach kids about sharps and flats” and you’re just like “or just use a piano”. - steve
@@Reprodestruxionoops I ate all the b flats
- Steve
Wow it's 60 Cycle Hum, I didn't know you followed this channel. Your Zuwei review was the best product review I saw all year
@@stopmikeandjim3196 Emily Hopkins and 60 Cycle Hum both out here giving us quality music content. :)
lmaooo I love Russ for trying to find a good way to use this 😂👏❤️
This is for a middle school science class. Seems like a fun way to explain electricity to kids by completing circuits with your body. I wouldn't expect it to have much value beyond RUclips videos like "Playing Strawberry Fields on REAL Strawberries!!" Although if I understand how it works, you could actually just connect any of those notes to something conductive. Fruit isn't a necessity.
Does it really teach anything about "science" or circuits and wiring? Are those egg plants in parallel or series? How many volts do I need to power a strawberry? What's the Amp draw of a Banana? And why should you care how many amps your appliances use?
I think a big problem for me is that it’s not marketed that way!!! I definitely could see it being a single lesson about closed loops
Thanks for your comment! You have captured one of the main use cases of our devices. Originally, it was created for teaching kids music in a fun and simple way. But now a big part of our users are performers and artists who create very beautiful sound and visual installations!
Honestly, I've seen way, way better demonstrations using a chain of people to cause a lightbulb to glow. If the loop breaks, the light goes out. If you add more people, the bulb gets dimmer. If you have multiple bulbs, you can even demonstrate how series and parallel works, especially the impact it has on overall resistance (indicated by the bulbs getting brighter or dimmer).
It's actually got really useful applications for people who can't play instruments traditionally.
My partner uses it in teaching disabled people music.
This is truly heartbreaking to watch electronic fruits and veggies disappoint you in such a manner :'(
:(
I think this is more about the concept of electrical continuity than actually learning music. It's probably just simple fun for young children. When i think about the ridiculous (and simple) circuits i built when i was 12, this gadget probably compares! The benefit for me with starting simple was that the circuits i made allowed me to be curious without being overwhelmed. I changed component values, changed components and generally just stuffed around until i learned something. I suppose it taught me to teach myself.
You’re so right!!!! It wasn’t about music all along!!! 😂
@@emilyharpist The intended tinker'y nature of it definitely makes sense but I could see how it feels gimmicky it's all experimentation no application through praxis. Though it's def musical, could see this in live setting being useful if each connection is mappable because then you could just use it as a cheaper alternative to a samplepad for a drummer or some quirky bit where you start eating fruit and cheese together to create music like in rattattaoile. Def less instrument and more tool though.
I dunno man, I could see a radish based pedalboard in my future.
I look forward to seeing that. You could run a bass line by tapping radishes with your toes.
Tomato has a better tone.
@@BigSlimMoody.247 Vintage produce always sounds best, fresh just doesn't have the same soul.
@@joshstarkey8883 I can't afford vintage produce. I did have Tom Murphy relic some produce for me though. It's nice.
We can make this happen :)
I think the cool thing is that, technically you don't need fruit, If you wanted to make your own instrument you could just solder wires directly to the board and then make any type of instrument you want as long as it's conductive. I can see this as a maker item to get a easy midi interface into your custom instrument more then just an item you buy to play music with fruit.
exactly
This. When using longer cables and all you can rig up interesting things like humans for performances. Also: When using a wire Ring as grounding (as mentioned in the video) the playing gets a bit more free. But playtron would indeed be more amazing if it had more control capabilities over midi like Touch me has.
I don’t see what’s so gimmicky and impractical about having to buy fresh fruit every time you want to play music…lol
hahahah true!! I think you can also use silverware!!!
It may be silly, but that was the best rendition of 'Eggplant In C Major" I think I've ever heard.
LMAOOO coming soon to Bandcamp 😂❤️
I think it is inspirational. Anything that makes you want to create and play is good.
That’s fair!!!
Just catching up here. There was a device called an OTOTO, which was this, but you didn't need ground at all. Really nice, and used much for interactive art, since you could just poke a thing and it would react or activate a projection. And you could wire it all up with copper tape, so you could have patterns on the floor or triggers throughout a wall or clothes
This is great for performance art.
Slice the eggplant into thin slices, put on a slice of tomato, a slice of cheese and some garlic, put it into the oven, take it out when the cheese is nice and melted or a bit crusty, dont burn your self on the hot tomato though.
HAHAH honestly I would watch that 😂❤️
lmao. Are you describing making a sandwich!! That isn’t art! That’s a sandwhich! *Angry!
@@Chickenparmm Making a sandwich is one of the highest forms of art...
That is kind of interesting! You need to try 'beets' for rhythm
😂👏❤️
practical usage idea: using it with, like, scrap metal and conductive strikers to have metallic percussion that also triggers notes or samples
it'd be for a relatively specific circumstance, but it could be interesting
Ouch, tough but very honest review - if it was doing anything interesting like moderating any kind of signal based on attaching it to different kinds of objects it might at least increase the novelty of it for a little bit of time.... but overall... yeah, just seems like a wasteful gimmick.
The world of holiday buyers salutes your service to identify things that are bad! :)
agreed!! hahah I do what I can to help!! 😂❤️ I couldn't believe I wasn't able to find a SINGLE bad review of this thing
If your harp strings are metal, you could hook 16 of them to the board and tuck a ground wire in your sock so you can trigger midi notes (or any MIDI controller effect) when you touch the wired strings. (Hook the clip at the very bottom of each string so it doesn't dampen the natural vibration of the string).
While the veggie gimmick is definitely not particularly helpful - I can see using it to make an environmental space into a musical/performance one. Attaching the MIDI to samples or sequencers can mean you aren't limited by the standard keyboard as a musical interface. Not sure I would care about it, but I could see how it is helpful.
The idea that since it's all on cables, you can space the notes however you want.
I was thinking art installation, too, but would need to figure out how to ground all the reactive objects
YES I was thinking performance art too, but yeah that whole ground aspect makes things complicated, and they don't show that in the Playtron advertisements. like if you wanted to get creative with it you can use longer cables and attach it to your toe or something but still, it's limiting 🤔
@@emilyharpist yea, you'd have to find someway to like turn it into a mat, or maybe a belt pack or something. Definitely not friendly for much use right out of the box!
It does remind me of LOOK MUM NO COMPUTER who made a device with the same concept where he turned his concert into full audience participation by having people link hands and then high-five to close the circuit (like touching the fruit here) and it would trigger the note. He also made a couple copper rods you could bang together to be a MIDI controller like this. They were pretty cool!
@@emilyharpist What about grounding the floor and getting people to walk barefoot?
@@rickc2102 ground via the board and the interface it is connected to. Seriously can't believe they charge so much for such a featureless product.
a wrist strap for ESD is what you'd want to play that with both hands. they're like.... almost free.
Honestly I kinda like this thing. It would be more effective to hook the ground to an ankle strap and possibly make your own instrument. It might be interesting to use the ankle strap and attach each wire to a different string on your harp. just saying, that would be awesome to see a video of lol
The first strap on instrument. We are finally living the future. LOL
Love the honesty! I think it might be cool if you hooked the clips to the rims of a drum kit. You could use the rims as triggers for notes/chords live during breakdowns/interludes. That's the only remotely practical application I can think of, though!
oh that could be interesting!! I gotta find a drummer and report back lmao
@@emilyharpist At first I wanted to dismiss this but there's actually a really smart work around this actually comes with, you have to touch the rim and the ground to make it happen so this could actually be a really neat way to trigger things.
I mean an SPDSX does a better job because you have to stop drumming for a sec to touch the parts but still kinda neat.
If I didn't live halfway across the world I would offer my help with the playtron testing :)
You can solder wires to a cheap harp toy etc etc. The ground can touch any part of you to complete the circuit. I mean, alligator clips can get.... interesting.
You could attach the clips onto the strings of a guitar or something
honestly YES I didn't even think about reworking the board into another project. my soldering skills are ready for the challenge
"You have to hold the turnip while touching the strawberries"
lmaooo my brain was fried by all the disappointment at that point, forgot I was holding a radish 😂❤️
@@emilyharpist wow I guess I was also overwhelmed by the weirdness because I also didn't realize it wasn't a turnip
Perfect review! I don’t want to see someone, that has already “mastered” the product. You knew, right away, that you will never need this. Emily, you are awesome.
I found you can clip two alligator clips together and use your foot to control the ground. It also works with certain metals.
I wish there was something that could detect flavor or smell and translate it to some sort of audio effect, that might be cool
but I've always felt these "turn anything into" midi controllers to be fairly gimmicky, I think this is more obvious as musicians, where we know the fruits or plants have absolutely no correlation to the audio being produced
Tantacruel has a great video about the problems with "sonification of data"
I think as musicians we're aware that you could just touch the alligator clips and get the same results, you could just touch the pads you clip onto and get the same results
the fruit/veggies are just a dog and pony show
also there's not much room for experimentation, it doesn't matter what fruit or vegetable you hook up to, it could be glasses of water or aluminium foil but the sounds will be exactly the same
when there's channels making literal wind instruments out of fruits and veggies, gimmicks like this seem silly
Rainger FX has the Minibar overdrive uses the conductivy of a liquid to determine the distortion and the opacity for the tone. Is also gimmicky but what you put inside truly affects the sound. And of course, there's Instruo Scion that uses electro dermal activity (a la mushrooms playing synths).
@@PebloNemo Yeah I've seen the ranger one, it's neat, but again, could probably just be replaced with 2 knobs, the liquid isn't necessarily doing anything special. I guess you could do like oil and died water and the motion might make some unique textures. The instruo module is neat too, but isn't really responding to actual biomolekular information, more specifically, the shape of molecules ins't super important, though it's neat in that its taking some level of actual data from the source contact
still neater than "fruit make note" but I think often this type of stuff is more of a window dressing than anything particularly special to the sound
I agree, and I am fairly ignorant of gimmicky MIDI controllers, but I can see some use with more reasonable touch points to have a fully flexible MIDI controller to possibly breakout of the keyboard/grid view of the standard MIDI controllers. There might be some value there.
But it does seem sadly limiting. I wonder if it even has velocity control.
LOOK MUM NO COMPUTER has a couple pieces about using this concept, basically, to turn a concert into full audience participation where you could have people high five to make synth stabs and things like that, or had copper rods you could bang together as the MIDI controller. That was pretty cool
agreed. I still do want to try that Rainger Minibar though... 😅
and lmaoooo "fruit make note" thank you for making me laugh today 😂❤️
@@PebloNemo literally what I was gonna talk about. It’d be cool if they made something like mushroom thing but for people if that would work. Maybe it could sense when you move your muscles and react to that.
Haha! A few years ago I got something like this called Makey Makey! It too was saying you can make a banana piano but it had other uses like a life size video game controller or trigger a camera when your cat sits on a mat :)
hahah oh WOW I just looked it up; the Makey Makey looks WAY better than this!! I wish I had gotten that instead! 😂
I was waiting for someone to mention the Makey Makey. It also requires a ground connection, but there are plenty of development boards out there that do capacitive touch so you only need to *touch* the thing, no ground wire needed. Calibrating for capacitance can be a bit tricky (though I've done it for museum and tradeshow exhibits) but when it works properly it's really nice. There are one or two products out there, but they are marketed more towards electronics nerds and educators, and not towards serious (traditional) musicians.
@@emilyharpist And before Makey Makey there was 8Tunnel2, IFTAF, Michel Waisvisz's Cracklebox... So nothing new under the sun. Just artists not getting credited nor paid when companies repackage their work into commercial products. Shameful.
I bought Playtronic Touchme recently and from messing around with it as far as I understand it is less for musicians and more for interactive audio-visual projects. Like for example you make some kind of row of "buttons" and you connect playtronic board as an input in TouchDesigner that generates some kind on shape based on the "buttons" you press
That makes sense! I wish they marketed their product differently! As a musician, I definitely didn’t find it useful, but I’m sure others will!
I thought of a use. Learning music scales. You can hook it up to something like a piece of paper with a piano layout on it like a stylophone and label it. You can have a ton of these and swap between them if you want to practice a different scale. It can sometimes be hard to see the scale clearly otherwise for learners.
That board looks like if Wonder Woman's belt had a mustache
I think to get the best sound you need banana on ground, it's known for being a good tone fruit.
hahah I would say that I would try that next but I don't even want to set this thing up again!! 😂❤️
You should revisit this...
...now, work with me here.
Ground it to yourself somewhere, necklace, nose ring, clip it onto your ear, whatever, just permanently ground it to yourself.
Okay, ground problem solved--now hook up the notes to key strings on the harp(maybe use the tuning pegs), and set it with a long attack, full release and a long decay with a medium sustain. Now, as you play the harp, certain strings will swell up additional notes. Use it like a pad and have fun with it, or maybe use it as a percussion instrument placed on key strings(do you drone a harp?) and ignore all that ADSR stuff I said.
You're thinking way too straightforward about this whole thing. I mean, it's visually cool to play a bowl of fruit, but from a purely utilitarian viewpoint this could be a very useful tool for layering sounds in a live production.
Let me show you my vision with this:
You have an elaborately abstract table. It has copper plates in the shape of deformed “piano keys” laid out on it. Underneath it, you have these nodes connected to each plate. Hidden away is the ground connecting to another plate to make the connection.
Under the table, you can connect your array of pedals in a unique configuration and you play through them with this makeshift music machine. I can see someone like Marilyn Manson having some tim burton-styled display of madness with such a machine.
This would be SO COOL!!!
At best a novelty setup, but the ads for it leave out MANY details. Kind of an electronic adaptation of making sounds from the rims of glasses.
right?!? all the ads make it look so cool... I guess they fooled us 🥺
omg yes. I'm so tired of those ads and lots of friends forwarding me those via IG and I'm like "omg stop it already ". I was sure it was going to be gimmicky. Thank you for the honest review - it's amazing :D
@@wasaby123 Only thing worse is that other piece of shit that says mushrooms are making the music.
I found a workaround 🤩
If you want to use both hands, you need to extend a ground cable(connect two of them) and attach it to your body (ex, near the belly). That's how you can play with both hands 🤗
A lot of people have been suggesting that! I guess they should include that in the kit!
I almost was triggered when you used a red jumper for the radish. Thank you for changing it to green!
Lmaooo RUSS MADE ME
@@emilyharpist oh then that's ok. I'm an electrician so I'm sensitive to these things. Actually we say "electricity knows no color".
Rock on and thanks for the reply!
You can run the ground to your foot or arm or anything to free-up both hands
The clamps they include with it aren’t long enough! The point really is that it’s completely left out in the marketing
Think of this:
Someone finds a way to make it wireless USB (using some batteries probably) and puting it inside a guitar. The guitar will have some kind of bronze or metal plates/buttons that will be connected to the Playtronica. The 6 strings could be used also I suppose. On the one side of the guitar, there will be a connetor for the ground. After touching both ground and the "buttons", the sounds will be produced. Here you are! a cheap HYDRA! (By the way, check this Guitar by Steve Vai)
I definitely agree that it's pretty gimmicky, but I am curious if you could connect it to guitar (or harp) strings somehow to augment the instrument while playing
Just want to wish Emily, Russ & all the viewers a Wonderful Christmas🎄plus a Happy & Safe 2022
Merry Christmas!!!!!!
You don’t have to attach it to fruit and vegetables. I could see many possible used for this in custom instruments or interactive art pieces.
‘ You have to hold a turnip while you are touching the strawberries.’ I wasn’t ready for that. At all.
Also Distrokid is awesome. I need to make some music to make the most of this year’s membership.
Lmaooo I was so flustered I didn’t realize it wasn’t a turnip!!!
Distrokid is so great honestly - pretty good that it inspires people to make music that way hahaha!
@@emilyharpist 😂😂😂😂😂😂👌
I like album by Lauri Ainala and Kalle Hamm called Immigtant Garden.
"All the pieces on the Immigrant Garden audio CD are based on audio material recorded directly form plants. The recording method used was developed by Jagadish Bose in India in the '20s-'30s and Ivan Gunar in the Soviet Union in the '60s-'70s, who explored techniques of measuring the electrophysiology of plants."
5:34 Love the shirt!
Lmfao it’s definitely his favorite shirt
I need this shirt
When my daughter was in preschool I made a banana piano for her to play on her birthday using a Raspberry Pi and an Adafruit Touch HAT. It uses capacitive touch (via a MPR121 sensor) so all you have to do is connect the alligator clips to both the board and fruit... And you don't have to hold the ground or anything like that.
That said, I did have to install the Pi's operating system, and then program it to play the notes I wanted with the samples (I think I used some from the Scratch library), but that really wasn't that hard since Adafruit's tutorial was pretty helpful.
oh that's amazing!!!! I bet she LOVED that! ❤️ ❤️ ❤️ right now I'm studying how to program an Arduino Uno, but Raspberry Pi is next!! I love Adafruit, but I'm still a bit overwhelmed by all their inventions!!
you could turn a playtron into an diy electrum drumset or generic control midi trigger pads
🤔 we gotta try that!!
I am a fan of y'all keepin' it real. You are right this would be good in an Exploratorium, probably not with fruit, but other random metallic objects instead.
Thanks Alan!!!
I can't believe they made the eggplant emoji a real thing
Hey Emily Hopkins! I can't believe now you're Debbie Downer! You could play with two hands and the ground item touching your foot! If you played music and did yoga at the same time it would negate the need for a longer cord! Merry Xmas season to you! Ride ride ride!
HAHAH Merry Xmas season to you, Eric!!! 😂❤️❤️❤️
My boy Echo Lightwave Unspeakable been homebrewing hot dog synths for years, legit harsh DIY, he's like a Mustard Merzbow.
You think you're tuning in for a fun christmas special, then they hit you with that twist at the end. I laughed, I cried.
😂❤️ I gotta say, it was NOT easy tearing an eggplant in half with my bare hands
@@emilyharpist That was impressive!💜👿🍆
I will play devil's advocate, here. You might be able to clip noise generator to the inputs on Playtronic for generative patches and other probabilistic approaches to creating music, you could use an expression pedal to widen or narrow the distribution and to change the center of the distribution. I would argue that there are lots of noise sources in your house if the signal is attenuated right. No need to buy some fancy uranium-powered random number generator when you can just plug into a fern and get roughly the same effect. Plus, the idea of watering your plants in order to change the "mood" of a generative patch actually sounds ridiculously appealing.
Definitely an interesting gimmick, with a limited application, but fun nevertheless. I think my introduction to it was on Andrew Huangs' channel, where he played PUSA's "Peaches" on, well, peaches.
It’s for fun ! The strawberry’s are trying their best!
Just coming here to saw thanks for your honesty in this video - I’m compiling my Christmas wish list and the ground issue was exactly what I wanted to underatand (and turns out, what I worried I was misunderstanding was actually the case, that you can to find some unwieldy way to hold the ground while jamming)
youre so adorable 😭 the sound at 3:29 cracked me up for some reason lool
Will it allow you to "zero" moderate resistances? I think it would be fun to connect the leads to something like blades of grass in the wind, but the built in "common connection" of actual ground could render that into an over complicated drone patch.
I did just buy this for my kid! ❤️ bc her dad loves synths!
I hope they enjoy it!
I saw Elizabete Balčus play an entire gig on a tray of fruit and vegetables (plus assorted laptops) a few years ago, though she walked a fine line between performance art and music. Not sure if she was playing a commercial product or something homegrown though - she didn't seem to be holding a radish (or anything else) to make the music happen!
honestly I would LOVE to see that!! she probably used something more advanced than this!
always remember, fun is its own purpose
That reminds me of that video of a french guy doing EDM with sausages!
HAHAH WHAT!!! you need to drop a link (pun intended) 😂❤️
@@emilyharpist ruclips.net/video/SRcmGVWzlYI/видео.html Here you go
so i guess its safe to say this was the last playtron demo. bet they were super-pumped for this little review. lol its obvious youre honest. why not try holding the eggplant between your knees-....hear me out... and the use both hands to play. plus anything organic should work. meaning yo could take it to a park and play anything around you almost, as long as it had some conductivity to it. and you shouldnt need to specifically use alligator clips. just some long wires or a typical guitar cable or whatever and then clip to the ends. theres just so much that doesnt seem apparent at first. i might check one out myself after this video. awesome video though. love that you two are honest. makes the videos and your opinions both more trustworthy as someone who plays music and likes crazy sounds
You could wear a metal bracelet or watch band attached to the ground wired vegetable through another alligator cable so you could make it longer and be capable of playing it with both hands, you can use a bracelet for each hand wired each to the L or R ground and not worry about it getting disconnected
Thank you for confirming what I was thinking for the entire setup part of the video 🤣
hahah THAT'S WHAT I'M HERE FOR 😂❤️ honestly the ads made it look so cool... 🥺
Yes, for the typical musician, this product is a little bit of a gimmick. But for the person looking to demonstrate principles of electronics and the DIY crowd, it serves a purpose. You need to use your imagination. One thing that is quite common for a demonstration in electronics is to take a piece of paper and draw heavy, thick lines of varying distances using a regular pencil. Using a digital multimeter, you can measure the resistances of these lines by placing leads at opposite ends of the lines.
Without looking up the specifics on this device, I can see how it would be used to show how different objects have different resistances or conductivities. Try squishing two of the strawberries and see how that changes how the instrument plays. Or set two contacts to the same note and use two different objects. You are not limited to fruits and vegetables. Trays of water with different soluble substances would be great for demonstration.
Most people who buy this type of product already have some idea in mind about what they might do with it. They are also likely part of the DIY crowd so making a custom lead to connect the ground object to their foot.
I could see this being a good tool for an interactive demonstration with you and a crowd that comes and goes as it pleases. You could sample your harp on the spot using an app and play it with this device.
In the end, I do not think the real target market is professional musicians as an everyday tool.
Rainger FX used a similar concept with their Minibar pedal. It uses the translucency of liquids in that pedal.
You can probably do the same thing with an Arduino for less money.
nonsense! the playtron is sick
Probably!
I think that you guys missed a real opportunity to talk about how this could be used. The gimmicky aspect is basing it on fruit or food or whatever. That's dumb. Really imagine it as being connected to something functional and practical like copper tape, cut and layered across your harp in different and convenient locations so that you can use it to control midi live or even CV in a modular unit in a way that is customized to you and your instrument.
This reminds me a bit of showing a smartphone to my granddad: "But where are all the buttons?" 😅
Farmer's markets. You're the next blockbuster act for the Greater Lakes Turnip Festival. I'm tired of Ole' Digger McKillian and his rubber duckies always winning.
I love the honesty. This is social media ads in a nutshell. 👍
I hate how I still can't find a single negative review of this thing. the lowest rating on the Playtronica website is 4 stars. I guarantee that they delete all the reviews less than 4 stars
The absolute majesty of the eggplant really got me.
hahaha I tried to pick the best ones at the grocery store 😂❤️
The TouchMe makes more sense to me. I bet with liven up all party!
My oh my! That's quite an aubergine you have there...
There’s an ad where they’re hiding the ground with a plant 🍓
I SAW THAT!!! it made me so mad
Well that review won't be on their website! I think there are ways round the connectivity issue with an antistatic strap fed through a sleeve to the wrist to be less obtrusive.
Russ sure was trying to make lemonade outa those lemons.
🤣 he was really trying!!!
This is cool - all your doing is completing a circuit. Hook 4 alligator clips together and the radish can be "Trampled Under Foot" LoL.
😂❤️
all you have to do is put something heavy on the ground item its very simple so you dont have to hold it
That’s awesome! I’d love to see how you use it!
Emily: I recommend we all should get more insects in our diets.
😂
Idk if they changed this after your video but in the items description it says you have to touch the ground item 🤷🏼♂️ I’m thinking maybe the leg of the table and touch exposed leg skin to that maybe. I’ve got one coming and I’m going to try some ground “eliminating options. Great video!
"Can you believe they made the eggplant emoji into a real thing?" 🤣🤣
The only way this would make sense, is if it would be an actual synth that uses the differences and fluctuations of the signals generated by different materials to synthesise sounds. That way you would have limitless potential of finding new sounds just by attaching the cables to different things. But if I understand it correctly, this is basically a very simple midi controller, which makes it gimmicky at best, but still mostly useless.
Agreed!!! It’s definitely mostly useless hahaha
Can you put steel strings on your Harp? You could plug the alligators on 16 low steel strings, put the ground on your foot and use the Playtron to double your Harp bass with a MIDI sound. I'm not sure how much the plugs would screw the vibration of the strings tho
I love the evolution of this channel
😂 I love YOU!!!
We used to use this at the children's museum I worked at to teach kids about circuits! Definitely not cool if they've started marketing it as a proper instrument, when we originally learned about it as an educational tool.
Guido's obvious ideas part 2:
You should have played strawberry fields forever
HAHAH WHY DIDN'T I THINK OF THAT?!? 😂😂😂
@@emilyharpist you should hire me as a writer
As an (retired) electronics tech: This IS a gimmick. The minerally water in the fruit and vegetables conduct electricity. You also conduct electricity because of the salty/minerally water in your body. You are simply completing the circuit between the output chip and ground. You don't even need the fruit, just touch the ground pad on the circuit board with one finger and any of the small pads to any of the chips where you connect the alligator clips. You could do this with one hand or both - touch the ground pads with your thumbs and play the board like a keyboard with your fingers. The ICs are putting out triggers, not sound waveforms.
I dig that strawberry jam!
I'm assuming you could put ground under your foot in order to have two hands free. I saw stuff like this previously in my career when maker spaces first started to pop up. It's useful for teaching kids about conductivity or to make interactive art pieces. Some similar board didn't send midi but regular keyboard inputs and that would be useful together with a raspberry pi and some script for visual stuff. As far as music goes is feels like a gimmick.
Edit: So you obviously figured out the foot solution too :)
that's a lot easier than my solution: just put it in your mouth.
edit: just watched the rest of the video: they did that.
YES I'm learning how to use and program an Arduino now, and I feel like this would be a fun project / cool way to use that!! but for $113 the Playtron just isn't worth it. the ads made it look so cool 🥺
I'll take it!
RUclips Music is missing.. say that to distrokid :) You are incredibly hilarious with those strawberries.. that face of disappoint 😂😂😂
😂❤️
Its worth something because they are obviously having fun.
It was definitely a fun video to make!!
"abusing the clams for sexual stimulation is adviced against." - disclaimer on the box
😂😂😂
Call any vegetable
And the chances are good
Ooooh! The vegetable
Will respond to you
-- Frank Zappa
😂👏❤️
Sentemce that I never thoight I'd hear, "Are you suggesting, picking up a radish and then touching an eggplant is less confusing?" 😂
😂
0:49 looks like Wario’s mustache
The instruo scion is the eurorack version of this, makes some wacky stuff!
I feel the same about those videos where someone uses a special pedal with alligator clips to play guitar through a mushroom or some other conductive object. Its not really the object shaping the tone, the pedal will output similar results no matter what you attach.
Just a primordial idea, but there's gotta be a way this could integrate with Gallagher's comedy routine. He could still smash the watermelon with a mallet, but now it'll play an ambient cord if he's holding a radish while he does it.
😂❤️😂❤️😂❤️
7:21 "That is cool"
7:39 "This is dumb"
_The dichotomy of man_
Ever see those People who turn vegetables into music instruments? I.e. hollowing out a carrot to make a recorder, etc.?
Yes!!! I think that’s super cool!