If you're looking to bring out a self released CD that will probably sell 500 copies and you want to stand a fighting chance of breaking even (or at least not losing too much), unless you already own a studio or have friends with a studio who can do you a favour, there is only a limited amount of time you can afford to spend there. You have to be creative and use the resources available to you wisely.

Isn't it ironic, too, that so much money is spent trying digitally recreate the sound of old four track analogue recordings?

Also, isn't it weird that these marvellous, expensive studios spend so much of their time putting out arid, soulless, overproduced, sterile, artificial-sounding crap?

And, now I'm on a roll, why do so many British guitar bands use so much compression on their recordings these days? It's not big or clever! They might all be using expensive studios and top engineers and producers, but it sounds horrible!

What about the eighties? How much of the stuff they churned out using the latest state of the art equipment and recording techniques is virtually unlistenable now, almost sounding as if it was designed to make the listener cringe - in a way that many earlier, more primitive recordings don't? Too much money being thrown at recording, too much cocaine being consumed, no doubt...

God preserve us from folkies who want to smother the music with polish...

Keep music raw, that's what I say. If I wanted polish I'd listen to Smooth FM instead of music I could give a shit about.

Finally, I have two CDs on a label that trumpets loudly on all its releases how revolutionary and wonderful and state of the art its recording facilties are. To my ears, they sound absolutely horrible. Despite the excellent music, I avoid playing them in a way that I never do my crackly old Harry Smith anthology or my Lomax field recordings or my first Velvet Underground album or my Kitchen Cynics bedroom recordings.

Sometimes, less is more.