Pocket Scion Bio-Feedback Instrument

Instruo Pocket Scion

Pocket Scion from Instruo is a portable, battery powered synthesizer that senses biometric feedback data from the surface of plants, fungi, or other lifeforms and uses these signals to generate musical notes and expressions. It can produce up to five-note polyphony, generating five individual voices that all act independently from each other. As energy moves through the surface of whatever organic surface the sensors are attached to, the Pocket Scion will map that data onto musical parameters. Notes will dance, twist, and undulate on their own as you tune into the heartbeat of the botanical world pulsing around you. The Pocket Scion contains four instruments for expressing these biofeedback signals in sound, each custom made to compliment the musings of the plant and fungal kingdoms.

In addition to sound generation, the Pocket Scion can transmit data for applying its biometric signals to other aspects of your sonic creations. Any of its five voices can be translated into MIDI data via TRS Type-A MIDI connection, or over USB. The included MIDI message types are note number, note-on messages, velocity, and MIDI CC. When the Pocket Scion is connected to a computer via USB, users can sync it to the included desktop app for deeper editing of the individual parameters. Edit the scale of each instrument, enable or disable ratcheting, change an individual voice's octave range, the octave offset, MIDI channel output, MIDI CC, and more. You can also simultaneously output OSC messages when connected to the desktop app—meaning you can easily turn the data captured from Pocket Scion into unique visualizations via software like Max/MSP, Unreal Engine, Touch Designer, Pure Data, and more. Whether you're foraging for mushroom melodies or cultivating cantatas in cacti, the Pocket Scion from Instruo is your personal window into the latent music of the natural world, anywhere you go.

Pocket Scion Features

• Portable Biometric Synthesizer
• Generates musical data via sensor clips or capacitive touch pad
• MIDI output via TRS-MIDI (Type-A) and USB
• Includes 4 custom instruments
• Outputs 5-note polyphony and velocity over MIDI / USB
• Included desktop app provides deeper parameter editing
• Outputs OSC data over USB
• Includes sensor cables