The synth world has always been about pushing boundaries, but Instruo’s Pocket Scion might be one of the most imaginative leaps yet. This portable, battery-powered synthesizer turns biofeedback from plants, fungi, and other living organisms into rich, evolving musical textures. By attaching its sensors to organic surfaces, the Pocket Scion listens to the subtle energy shifts happening in real time and maps them into musical data.
The results are notes that pulse, shimmer, and wander unpredictably — like the living heartbeat of the natural world translated into sound. And with five-note polyphony, those voices don’t just move as one — they dance independently, creating organic, interwoven harmonies.
The Pocket Scion ships with four built-in instruments designed to compliment these bio-signals, each offering its own sonic fingerprint. Beyond its internal sound engine, the synth is a powerful controller: every one of its five voices can transmit MIDI note data, velocity, CC messages, and more over TRS Type-A MIDI or USB. That means you can plug it straight into your DAW, hardware synths, or drum machines and let your houseplant drive the jam session.
For deeper control, connecting via USB unlocks a dedicated desktop editor. From there, you can dive in and customize scales, tweak octave ranges, adjust MIDI channel outputs, and enable creative features like ratcheting. And it doesn’t stop at sound—Pocket Scion also outputs OSC messages, so you can visualize biofeedback data in real time with Max/MSP, Touch Designer, Unreal Engine, Pure Data, or similar tools.
Whether you’re cultivating cactus cantatas, mapping mushroom grooves, or letting your ficus take the lead on stage, the Instruo Pocket Scion blurs the line between life, nature, and music in a way no instrument has before. Get it here for $149.99.
