"It's nice to just know your instrument as well."

Mr Beatnick told me you've never used a soft synth in your life.

[Laughs] I haven't!

Why's that?

These things [pointing at his hardware synthesizers] are simple, they're dead simple, but they can do so much. I never get lost for ideas from these things so I just don't see the need. And I just really like the way of working of just recording audio and working with audio, not triggering something that's creating audio, you know what I mean? It's just my work method really, it just works better for me. And also I can just switch the computer off and sit with them, and generate sounds and get to know them. I'm mainly happy to really use these two [pointing at his Pro-One and Juno], I really know them. It's nice to just know your instrument as well.

Do you think there's too much of that- everyone having a million plugins they don't know how to use?

I quite often hear other producers spotting presets when I play them someone's tune- they're like 'oh there's that preset from Reaktor'. There's like a little micro-culture that's almost like sampling, but using presets that some German engineer has made [laughs]- who knows what went into it? But y'know, fair enough if that's the sound that you wanna use or whatever, it's all pretty.....it's not that important in the end, it's just the way you enjoy working.

How did you get into engineering?

When I was 17 in school I used to record bands and stuff for money because I had a little recording setup by then and I had worked out how to use Cubase and stole my dad's laptop. But then one of the bands I used to record hooked me up with this sound engineer in Dundee, which is the nearest city in Fife, and got working for this soundsystem company. I worked for them for about 3 years- after about a year they'd taught me everything I needed to know to move onto a mixing desk and do everything by myself. That was good fun and it was mainly all dub stuff as well, people like Neville Staples, Mad Professor, people like that. That's what got me into it [dub] I think.

You've spoken before about how big an influence dub has been on your sound. What is it you feel you've taken from dub?

It's just the use of effects and space to create something that is not in the music and in the recordings already. That's what dub does, it takes music somewhere else and it doesn't have to be reggae music to be considered dub. The last track on my record is pretty reggae-ish but I don't think it has to be reggae to be considered dub. It's a sensibility rather than just exclusively to do with reggae and it applies to everything including hip-hop and disco. Dub is in every form of music..... Making that space with effects and engineering techniques- it brings the engineer in but removes him at the same time. The engineer is acting as a musician. That's important in music- there's too many engineers who are just rigid, they're just like 'I'm not a producer, I'm just gonna put a mic up and hit record'- they don't do more than they're asked for. I think that says a lot about the way that music's made, you know? I've been fortunate enough to work with really good engineers like Dave Brinkworth from Harmonic 313. He works in the studio with me and the guy's just got a passion for it, he wants to get interesting tones and bring things out and he's a geek for gear obviously [laughs]. It's great to work with people like that and everyone who comes in and works with him loves him because of that, he's just got ideas and doesn't just get you stuck spending £25 an hour or whatever.