Drum Mind 83 is a mini drum machine by the Japanese developer Home Back Instruments, taking you back to the drum machines of the 80s.
While looking for the first exciting news of 2024, I came across Home Bake Instruments—a Japanese indie developer of portable synths and drum machines. He has a beautiful series of mini instruments, produced in mini quantities and available only in Japan.
His latest development is a tiny drum machine that can be played directly on the circuit board.
Drum Mint 83
Home Bake Instruments has created with the Drum Mint 83 a pretty feature-rich tiny drum machine, aka rhythm machine.
The core has seven voices and offers analog modeling and PCM-based sound sources. You get a bass drum (B.D), a snare (SD), a hi-hat (CH/OP), a rim shot part RS (CP) with clap option, a low tom generator, including cowbell via the tone setting (LT (CB)), and a ride part (R.C.)
To refine your sounds in the pattern with a built-in overdrive for adding crunch and a stereo delay for more lively sounds.
Drum Mind 83 also hosts a sequencer with 16 steps and 8 patterns in total. There are also handy features like pattern chain playback, flam, swing or pattern mute. HBI also added an AI-based phrase generator that gives you instant new patterns.
On the connection side, it has a USB-C for powering and a stereo mini jack output. No MIDI or other sync options. According to the developer, it uses a more powerful CPU than the previous versions. It brings better sound quality and opens the door for new features, including the stereo delay.
First Impression
It’s a funny little drum machine that sounds very good at first glance. It is especially interesting for musicians who enjoy small-sized instruments.
Drum Mint 83 is available now for ¥13800 or +/- 92,60€ + shipping + import fees. If you are ordering from outside Japan, you must organize shipping yourself.
More information here: Home Bake Instruments
No connections, MIDI or sync? That sort of kills it being used in a nice small portable set-up. It’s a shame that such a cool portable instrument doesn’t have that as an option. It’s my biggest regret with another small instrument purpose I made a few years back.
A drum machine… without MIDI/Sync… ? What’s the point ?
AI now is a hot word for a pattern generator. No sync / midi puts into “no need to worry” category 🙂