A number of years in the past, artist Trendy Biology grew to become a viral sensation when he posted movies of himself controlling a modular synth with mushrooms on TikTok. Pocket Scion offers anybody related capabilities, however with out having to spend 1000’s of {dollars} on a Eurorack rig – and in a way more moveable package deal.
A core a part of Trendy Biology’s setup is a module referred to as Scion from Glasgow-based Instruo. Scion turns biofeedback, whether or not that’s from houseplants or your personal pores and skin, into CV (management voltage) for controlling different synth modules in a bigger setup. Touching two sensors to your hand or a mushroom completes a circuit, after which electrical fluctuations in that circuit can be utilized to set off completely different notes, or change the cutoff on a filter, for example.
A little bit over a yr in the past, he approached Instruo about constructing one thing new. The fruit of that collaboration is the Pocket Scion, an reasonably priced self-contained instrument that may flip small electrical modifications from dwelling organisms into MIDI knowledge and create soundscapes utilizing one of many 4 built-in sound engines.
The Pocket Scion has quite a lot of superior capabilities too, together with MIDI out for controlling exterior devices. There’s additionally a companion app for Home windows, macOS, and Linux that exposes sound design instruments for creating your personal synth patches, and might ship knowledge over Open Sound Management (OSC), which supplies it management over a ton of audio and video applications like Max/MSP, Pure Information, and Unreal Engine for creating visualization or advanced reactive artwork installations. It’s extra highly effective than you’d anticipate given its $149 value.
The preliminary run of Pocket Scions bought out virtually instantly. However you possibly can place a preorder for when the following batch ships “early subsequent week,” in response to retailer Management Voltage.
