Playpen
By GregVK on January 12, 2026 12:01 am
After 5 days of procrastinating and faffing around with the idea I'd settled on, I ended up switching to a new one on Saturday morning.
I was on Dad duty with my baby boy (he'll be one this coming Saturday), sitting in his playpen with him, when it occurred to me to sample his toys. I'd thought about this before, but the idea was always to take them into my studio and sample them under the best conditions possible.
I decided to embrace chaos and hit record. So every slice of the sample I used is full of background noise. Dogs barking, birds chirping, cars driving past, my wife talking, my son doing his usual mixture of laughing, shouting, moaning and cooing, along with the rattles, scrapes, bangs and boops of his scattered collection of toys.
The main sample I ended up using was "HAPI" drum (a type of steel drum), hit with a plastic hammer, plus loads of my son's voice.
I also used a rattle to add some character to the snare.
I also used an old sample of one of my bass guitars, chopped up to work with this groove, and recorded a little acoustic guitar melody directly into the M8's mic. I think the gain was too low. So the noise floor was pretty intense. But who cares!
All in all, I didn't have nearly as much time as would have liked to work on it. But I just wanted to make something silly and fun. Lol, that's not my general way of making music, so as usual, the vibe of the song turned a little dark. But I had a great time with this.
I guess that's one of the coolest things about sampling. You get to collaborate with the world around you, finding and creating patterns out of the beautiful mess of day to day existence.
Weekly Beats has helped me embrace the idea that you make art with whatever you have. When I'm in my studio I'm usually doing client work, and when I have free time, I'm spending time with family. My Dirtywave M8 has empowered me to make music wherever I am, along with the refreshing mindset shift that says I can (and should) make art with whatever tools I have available. I don't have to wait for the perfect conditions (which almost never show up).
I'm worrying less about "quality" and more about having fun!
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