Caffeine Productions: Recent Episodes
Caffeine Productions
This is a record label, originally started c. 1998 - relaunched in digital format. I'm releasing my own tunes but also looking for other artists. You will see drum'n'bass but also a lot of experimental stuff and acoustic guitar tracks. Also, pure noise music is very welcome
Track created solely on an Amiga 1200 in about 2002. Lightly re-mastered in 2025; had to take some of the top end off it, it was a bit too "screechy" sounding due to the usual 8-bit clipping mayhem.Samples my original version of "This is it" by Peanut & Jorj / OCTOSHED! - https://soundcloud.com/octoshed/this-is-it-remastered-2024?in=octoshed/sets/this-is-it-single
The Reason [2025] 120bpmOriginal version of this track is here:https://soundcloud.com/octoshed/the-reason-120bpm?in=octoshed/sets/strobe-2016
5/4 beats, 180bpm (ish), MC-707This is a more distorted version of "Colin FA" (the "DB" in this version means "Dirty Beats"]. The saturation/crunch is from overloading the 4-track tape machine. Also crunched this into the CALF Limiter in Audacity. It is a completely separate live mix from the other cleaner-beats version. The dirty version was played/created first, but the clean-beats version was released first because it took a while to mix/master the mad crunchy version due to the blown-up tape causing some mad glitches, which I was finally able to fix (basically by turning the outputs down on the tape machine).This track is 180bpm originally, but the tape may have affected the speed it's been captured at, so it could be a slightly different BPM. It is in 5/4.
5/4 beats, 180bpm (ish), MC-707First structured composition created on the 707 (before now it's just been more jammy, but this has more of a structure and different sections etc, not just knob twiddling). Played the sections ("Scenes/Clips)" live, recorded onto 4-track tape - beats in one channel, everything else in another channel. Bounced across to Harrison Mixbus to re-digitize it, in mono. Then uploaded to Soundcloud, and Distributed instantly (well, Friday May 30th 2025 it will be released to the rest of the world - Spotify/Apple etc).This track is 180bpm originally, but the tape may have affected the speed it's been captured at, so it could be a slightly different BPM. It is in 5/4.
Monday October 28th 2024: MC-707 jam, one channel, recorded straight to tape - kind of dub reggae techno vibe, but no real b-line, then at 34:43 it goes a bit gabba!Note: tempo might be slightly out due to tape machine.
Monday October 28th 2024: Roland T-8 for the beats (plus a little bit of b-line), with Korg Minilogue for the arpeggio stuff.Recorded straight to tape, 2 channels, panned hard - beats in one side, synths in other channel.Note: tempo might be slightly out due to tape machine.
Just a 1-minute loop, looped for 11 minutes.Created in Hydrogen on Linux, and boosted/limited/distorted in Audacity.17/8 time.The beats are broken down into 4 + 4 + 4 + 5.And the "5" is 2 beats then 3 beats.
Sometimes, well, blah blah, you know, umm, yeah. Yeah. You know what I mean? Blah again.Links:Ardour - https://ardour.org/Renoise - https://www.renoise.com/Harrison Mixbus - https://harrisonconsoles.com/product/mixbus/Korg Minilogue: www.korg.com/uk/products/synthesizers/minilogue/
Saturday 30th September 2023: this is another backing track/beat. It repeatedly switches from 6/4 team to 4/4 time (3 bars of the the first, then 4 bars of the second, so it loops in blocks of 7 bars. Maths.)I have a melody + b-lines already lined up. This beat is to help me write/record/build the track.The beats were created in Renoise, then recorded into Harrison Mixbus for extra processing/FX etc.Links:Renoise - https://www.renoise.com/Ardour - https://ardour.org/Mixbus - https://harrisonconsoles.com/product/mixbus/
Saturday 30th September 2023: recorded this a few weeks ago, and completely forgot about it. Mixed it down with the drums as quiet as possible. Another track featuring a DrumGizmo beat, with a Korg Minilogue arpeggio/melodies, kind of a remix/re-do of earlier/recent tracks. Just a jam, but I really love some of the sounds that come out of that Korg machine - very very sweet, emotive, sweet distortion.Links:DrumGizmo - www.drumgizmo.org/wiki/doku.php?id=startKorg Minilogue: www.korg.com/uk/products/synthesizers/minilogue/
Monday 18th September 2023: Another "WIP". The 2 layers so far.. Fast dirty drum'n'bass, but turned down quietly, with louder arpeggios on the Korg Minilogue. Mostly uploading to Soundcloud so that I can play it and work on it, jam with it etc, etc.Made this on 10th August 2023.
Morphing... let's begin.. This is another track that is extremely unfinished! Featuring a sample of Morph, the classic claymation character. He was on BBC Radio 4 so I lifted a sample off there.
Jase and Brandy. Recorded their track onto 4-track tape. I digitised it and mixed the levels to what I thought was appropriate.
"Reporting back from the front-line - three times is enough. But this isn't the end. Nor will it wait."
-This started out as an attempt to do a total Dr. Who theme tune remix - gave up on that and was just left with the "Exterminate!" sample and a triplet pulse buried deep in the mix - this is a bit of a dodgy production because the bass drum itself contains a bass note that kind of clashes with the actual b-lines. Makes for a muddy mix in some ways. Who cares anyway?!!! (I do.)
The track does seem to have a condensed, tight sound in other ways. And it's funny.. it's funny that I never finished this sentence in a proper ..
Smoooth rollin breakebeats - b-line copied from a Booker T track - synth sample - hissing hats - more filtering - playing with filters in live mix.... bass rather massive! Created around 2003 (?)