Midi synths and teabags
I recently bought the Playtron and TouchMe, both made by Playtronica, to explore their possibilities for sound sculpture and sound installation work using music tech and conductive paint screenprints. Sounds like an Imogen Heap project doesn't it! Watch this space folks.
After solving some technical glitches I ran into by watching YouTube tutorials, I managed to get both controllers up and running and spent several hours combining them with every conceivable object in our flat to make music. Including the human body.
The premise for both is quite simple, both being midi controllers whose circuit loops are completed by contact with humans and or any other conductive object. The TouchMe offers lots of opportunity to explore connectivity and touch where as the Playtron allows you to build organic drum machines.
Both controllers come with free access to a range of synths as standard via the Playtron website: https://synth.playtronica.com/
This "online musical playground" was great to test proof of concept and set up, but the synths included are all pretty basic and didn't really offer me what I was looking for sound wise. They did however have some creative visual interfaces which I enjoyed experimenting with.
