Instruo Modern Biology Pocket Scion Biofeedback Instrument

Pocket SCION is a handheld biofeedback instrument that turns the hidden rhythms of plants, people and other living systems into evolving soundscapes, MIDI data and OSC streams. Simple enough for complete beginners yet deep enough for experimental producers and installation artists, it lets you literally play with living signals in real time, wherever inspiration strikes.

Attach the included sensor clips or touch the capacitive pad and Pocket SCION listens to micro-fluctuations in conductivity. Its onboard sound engine transforms this data into four bespoke instruments created with ecologist and musician Tarun Nayar (Modern Biology), while simultaneously outputting MIDI and, via the desktop app, OSC data for advanced sound design, composition and visual work.

For musicians and non-musicians alike, Pocket SCION offers an immediate, tactile way to explore generative music. The standalone interface invites you to simply plug in, connect to a living source and start listening, with five-note polyphony and custom scales helping you shape the results into musical material you can record, sample or perform with.

For studio users, sound designers and artists working with interactive media, Pocket SCION becomes a compact data sonification hub. With TRS and USB MIDI, plus detailed OSC output of key statistical values, it slots neatly into DAWs, modular rigs and visual environments, enabling installations and performances that literally respond to the living world.

Modern Biology Instruments Onboard

Pocket SCION comes loaded with four exclusive instruments created in collaboration with Tarun Nayar: Secret Garden, Fungal Waves, Treebeard’s Koto and Soil Circuits. Each one is voiced to highlight different aspects of biofeedback data, from delicate, shimmering textures to more percussive or melodic responses. You can move effortlessly between them to find the right sonic character for each plant, environment or performance.

Instant, Portable Biofeedback Music

Designed as a self-contained, plug-and-play device, Pocket SCÍON makes biofeedback music accessible anywhere. Use the capacitive touch pad or sensor clips to start generating sound without needing a computer, DAW or prior musical training. Its compact, lightweight design means it can live in your bag, ready for spontaneous sessions in the studio, garden, forest or gallery.

MIDI Integration For Studios And Setups

Alongside its internal sound engine, Pocket SCION outputs MIDI over Type A TRS and USB. With single- or multi-channel voice allocation, you can drive external synths, samplers and virtual instruments, or capture bio-driven performances directly into your DAW. Customisable scales, octave ranges, offsets and MIDI channels let you tune the response to your workflow and keep everything harmonically coherent.

OSC For Data Sonification And Visuals

When used with the desktop application, Pocket SCION broadcasts detailed OSC messages that describe the behaviour of the internal biofeedback sensor. Values such as minimum, maximum, mean, spread, variance and deviation are sent in real time, making it a powerful tool for data sonification and visualisation in environments like Max/MSP, Pure Data, Touch Designer, Unreal Engine and more.

• Four Custom Modern Biology Instruments - Secret Garden, Fungal Waves, Treebeard’s Koto and Soil Circuits are tailored to reveal the musicality of biofeedback signals. Each instrument responds differently to changes in the data, giving you a broad palette of tones and behaviours for everything from meditative ambience to more animated, rhythmic textures.
• Capacitive Pad And Sensor Clips - Generate sound either by touching the onboard capacitive pad or by connecting the sensor clips to living material. This dual approach lets you explore both direct human interaction and more subtle plant or environmental responses, opening up a wide range of performance and installation possibilities.
• Five-Note Polyphony With Custom Scales - Pocket SCION can trigger up to five notes at once, allowing rich chords and layered patterns to emerge from the incoming data. With user-defined scales, octave ranges and offsets, you can constrain the output to musically useful territories, making it easier to integrate with existing compositions or live sets.
• MIDI And OSC For Deep Integration - TRS-MIDI, USB-MIDI and OSC over USB give you multiple ways to route Pocket SCION into your creative ecosystem. Use it as a generative MIDI controller for hardware and software instruments, or tap into its OSC stream to drive reactive visuals, lighting or complex data-driven patches in your preferred environment.

Hardware

• Portable biofeedback instrument
• Internal capacitive touch pad for sound generation
• Sensor clips for connection to living organisms
• Four onboard instruments: Secret Garden, Fungal Waves, Treebeard’s Koto, Soil Circuits
• Five-note polyphony
• Raw signal output
• Type A TRS-MIDI output
• USB-MIDI output
• Single- or multi-channel MIDI voice allocation

Software And Connectivity

• Open Sound Control (OSC) data over USB via desktop application
• Customisable scales and ratcheting of instruments
• Customisable octave range and offsets
• Customisable MIDI channel and CCs of voices
• OSC messages (in ms): /min (shortest pulse period)
• /max (longest pulse period)
• /mean (average period)
• /delta (max minus min spread)
• /variance (average squared deviation from /mean)
• /deviation (square-root of variance)

Included Items

• Pocket SCION 
• Sensor cables
• QR code card (links to online manual)
• A5 card from Tarun Nayar

Physical

• Net weight: 56.6 g
• Gross weight: 100 g