Home Bake Instruments ARPS is a new straightforward mini synth from Japan that combines a wavetable engine with an arpeggiator.
I have recently reported twice about Home Bake Instruments, a Japanese developer of affordable mini synthesizers and devices. For example, I wrote about Chaos, a chaotic semi-modular drone Synthesizer. In the meantime, he released another drone synth called Drones MAX.
His latest release is, for a change, not a drone but an arpeggiator synth.
Home Bake Instruments ARPS
The Japanese developer specializes in small synths that can be operated hands-on with a handful of parameters and without menu diving. This also applies to ARPS, a new mini synth that creates sounds from scale arpeggios.
The core consists of four wavetable oscillators with more than 200 waveforms that can be smoothly changed using the corresponding knob. Then, you can shape your sound with a one-knob envelope that changes the attack and release percentages at the same time.
The developer says that if you turn it all the way to the left, it will change to an arpeggio sound, and if you turn it to the right, it will change to a reverse sound with a gentle attack. A filter is, however, missing.
ARPS uses a chaotic note generator with a built-in scale function for the arpeggios. You can choose various scales (Chroma, Ionian, mBlues, MPenta, mPenta…), and set the root and range of the scale output with other knobs. Plus, you can adjust the clock frequency/speed of the arpeggiator.
Further, you can set the volume of the sound with a dedicated knob on the right side. Let’s check the connections.
It has a USB-C port for power and, on the interface, a main output and a trigger jack input, allowing you to trigger the arpeggiator from another signal.
First Impression
At first glance, a fun little synth with its own concept. Even though it’s a very simple synth, I’m happy to see that there are developers who bring such straightforward, affordable instruments to the market.
I like what comes out of it. Next time I’m in Japan, hopefully (the second time after 2017), I might keep an eye out for these devices.
Home Bake Instruments ARPS is available now for ¥14,800 or +/- 99,76€ + fees. At the time of publication of the article (19/09/24), ARPS is sold out.I hope there will be more units soon.
More information here: Home Bake Instruments
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