Playtronica has introduced Biotron, a musical instrument that they say “transforms plants into sound”.
You connect Biotron to a computer, tablet, or smartphone, and then attach electrodes to a plant. As you interact with the plant, the Biotron will translate the plant’s electrical activity into MIDI signals.
Biotron Video Demo:
Here’s a video demo, via Musical Miscellany:
Features:
- Play using plants as your instrument
- Change the sound based on the plant’s natural responses
- Interact with nature to create music
- No musical skill needed
- Connect Biotron to your PC, phone, or tablet using the provided USB cable.
- Attach the electrodes to your plant. Ensure they are securely connected to the stems or leaves for optimal conductivity.
- Open Google Chrome and navigate to synth.playtronica.com, then choose any synth you like. Alternatively, use your preferred music software or hardware that accepts MIDI input.
- Interact with your plant by moving your hands near it, touching its leaves, or adjusting environmental factors like light and moisture to influence the sound.
- Experience the unique music generated by your plant’s natural electrical activity translated into MIDI signals
- Biotron MIDI-controller and packaging
- USB-C cable is sold separately to reduce waste in case you have one already
- Alligator clips and patches are also not included, make sure you add whichever you need
Pricing and Availability:
The Biotron is priced at $97.99 USD. Try promo code KFLHVR10 to save 10%. See the Playtronica site for availability.
Nice . Also try connecting the tails of your two pets together and then hook them to your modular with this . The cat will love it. Not a wow factor, but definitely a miauw factor.
Also try connecting it to your garden tiles, and let the weather make music together with you.
Fun, but probably wet too.
Intriguing. I’m looking forward to hearing how my dope crop sounds plugged into this.
lol me too 🙂
Is… is that two TURDS depicted on this badly-conceived hipster toy?
…and is this compstible with my Teenage Engineering MIDIfied vegan dog turds..?
That was also my first thought, I immediately thought THIS IS AWESOME. However i recoiled in shock at the $97.99 price tag. If it was $9799 I would have bought two (I have 13x Make Noise Maths). I may have pulled the trigger at $979.70. But at less than a hundred buckaroos it’s just not hip enough for this moustachioed gentleman.
I do like the turds though
no bluetooth? wtf?!?!?!?
I see it now… it’s meant to represent a living cell… so, the two things that look like dog poo will be organelles, then…?
yupper. i keep coming back to it. it’s a pretty cool design. the last few oddballs have been good ideas.
I’m sure you can use a dog turd as fertilizer for your plants. You may even manage to get your plants’ opinion on this particular fertilizer.
Or better yet, hook this up directly to dog turds.
Outstanding idea! I recently wired up a public lavatory with contact microphones for processing with the newly released Collide4 module. All was going well and I obtained some wonderful and inspiring timbral varieties, from deep guttural bass wobbles to sprays in the mould of Jackson Pollock. Unfortunately Miami Dade PD put a stop to my art project, in fact had it not been for my sizeable donation to MDPDs benevolent fund, I may we’ll be sitting in County Jail now. In order to avoid such legal misunderstandings in future, plugging into said turds directly is a truelly Inspired idea. Perhaps my contact microphones collection could pick up the buzz of fly’s etc circling the obscene mound?
So many possibilities
i would love t-shirt with that image on it.
In the olden days we would take a ARP 2600 and connect a cable to the mic input and attach that to a plant, unfortunately the Berlin School ate our lunch, so I got a sequencer instead.
I think that plant is just triggering software routines, because my plants were not well tempered.