The Pocket SCÍON is a little hand held instrument that listens to the tiny electrical signals occuring all around us and turns them into sound. It’s portable, affordable, battery powered and small enough to fit in your pocket. With it’s stand-alone, plug-and-play interface, experienced or adventurous users can use the MIDI and OSC output capabilities to intergrate Pocket SCÍON into their studios, installations, and audio-visual projects.

For Everyone

Connect the Pocket SCÍON onto a leaf, then simply plug in your headphones and listen as the four built-in instruments create constantly evolving soundscapes that react and respond to the tiny electrical changes happening all around us. Find new and interesting ways to connect with the nature and enter a world of exploration that bring together music, art and technology.

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  • Secret Garden

    Red Animations

  • Fungal Waves

    Blue Animations

  • Treebeard's Koto

    Green Animations

  • Soil Circuits

    Purple Animations

For Musicians

Connect the Pocket SCÍON to your DAW or external hardware devices an use the Pocket SCÍON’s polyphonic MIDI to introduce a source of generative inspiration to your compositions and live performances. Dig a little deeper with the app to select the scale, range and octave offset of the MIDI notes along with assignable CC’s and MIDI channels for flexible routing and parameter modulation.

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For Artists

Connect the Pocket SCÍON with your live visuals and installations. Incorporate data from the sensor into your projects using OSC (Open Sound Control) messages, MIDI and audio.

Pocket SCÍON becomes a portable means for data sonification and visualisation compatible with a wide range of audio and visual software, such as: Max/MSP, Pure Data, Touch Designer, Unreal Engine, and more.

Here is a TouchDesigner project file to help get you started.

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For Experiments

Connect the Pocket SCÍON to your laptop and plot the OSC data to see exactly what is happening at the sensor input. Experiment, learn and have fun, who knows what you will discover.

Here is a JupyterLab project to help get you started.

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Pocket SCÍON Application

Connect the Pocket SCÍON to a computer over USB, and the dedicated desktop application to customise the behaviour of the instruments, voices, MIDI and access Open Sound Control (OSC) messages. 

Head here for more technical information to download our user manual and to keep up to date with the latest features and firmware updates.

Product page

Instruō

My name is Jason. I am the founder of Instruō which is a creative collective of artists and engineers who design and build weird musical instruments in Glasgow, Scotland.  

Over the past ten years, Instruō has grown from a solo spare-bedroom synthesiser side project into a hub of creativity where I get to work every day with an incredibly talented team turning mad ideas like the Pocket SCÍON into reality.

The first Instruō collaborative project was the SCÍON Eurorack module, designed in partnership with Kian McEvoy. This began our journey of developing many new instruments and devices inspired by our musical ideas. SCÍON began as a passion project, but seeing it embraced by so many incredible artists has sparked fresh ideas for how this bizarre circuit and algorithm can be used. We are extremely excited to introduce the Pocket SCÍON and can’t wait to see all the creative ways you find to use it.

Biosonification

My name is Modern Biology and I make music with plants and mushrooms. I’ve been hosting events around the world for almost 5 years, using Instruō’s SCÍON device as the heart of a system that uses small changes in the bioelectricity of organisms to trigger note and rhythm changes on a modular synthesizer. I believe that this practice is a powerful way to help us reconnect with the natural world. I’m asked almost every day, both online and in real life, “How can I do this myself?”

Just over a year ago I got in touch with Kian and Jason at Instruō and asked them if they’d like to work on a device together. Something affordable, portable, non-dependent on modular synths and simple enough for beginners, yet deep enough for serious musicians. After numerous in-person meetings, Zoom calls between Vancouver and Instruo’s HQ in Glasgow, and the hard work of the entire Instruō team, the Pocket SCÍON is here!

I’m so excited to see how you use it.