Although he could hardly be called a Luddite, Suede's producer Ed Buller freely admits that he doesn't like computers. In fact he has such strong views on the subject that he agreed to put his head in the lion's mouth by defending his opinion in print...

I'm going to play devil's advocate now and admit that I have an intense dislike of computers because I think they are the most antiseptic device mankind has ever manufactured, as well as being the most uncreative thing anyone can introduce into a recording session.

I do own a computer — three years ago I went out and bought an Atari and some C-Lab software, which I prefer to Cubase. But it is just a word processor for music. You feed musical phrases into it and it churns out variations for you. There's no emotion and certainly no creativity — and therein lies the problem.

When I was a kid, my favourite band was Tangerine dream. All they used to do was sit around playing with synthesizers covered in knobs and dials and they would come out with the most fantastic records. After a while, they exhausted the possibilities of that kind of music, but in the process they created some wonderful sounds, because there was feedback between man and instrument. No matter how much you try, that kind of feedback isn't possible with a computer because all it is is a sample — just a recording played back at different pitches over a keyboard.

On one of the tracks on the Suede album we wanted a plucking sound like a zither or a dulcimer, so we decided to make the sound using a piano and a plectrum and sampling each string until we got the sound we wanted. That took us four hours and now, looking back, I think 'why didn't I just get a dulcimer and let Bernard play it?' It would have been much more fun. But when you're in the studio you think the computers will save you time and money — and what a red herring that is, because you spend much longer with a computer than you would with a real musician, and you lose all the personality of the instruments as well. No wonder so many people are drifting back to real instruments and vintage synths — you can have a rapport with them and they have a sound and texture that a modern machine could never give.

As soon as you start using computers, you find they don't take prisoners. It is very hard to find something to work against them so once you start using them you have to keep using them — it's like a drug that you can't stop taking. And if that's not bad enough, the other problem with them is that they are also bloody complicated. You've got one little slider and a little thumb wheel and 40-odd stages you have to go through before you can achieve even the simplest thing, like making the music sound brighter. With the old-style synths the same effect could be achieved by turning one knob.

I did a session once where it took two days with a computer to do a hi-hat loop. I couldn't believe it — it was so frustrating. Eventually I wanted to play the damn thing myself because even I could have done it in half an hour. Then, when we finally got the sound the artist wanted and played it back, we were listening to snatches of sound that had been stored digitally by a computer and replayed with no feeling or emotion at all.

With very few exceptions, it is impossible to get emotion out of a computer and in my opinion the only band that has ever really been successful with them is Kraftwerk. They recognised that the beauty of the machine lay in the sterility of its sound, so they took that sound and put the most stupid lyrics on top of it, which created enough of a contrast for it to become something really emotive. But I can't think of any other band that has managed to do that.

When you use computers on a session you become the guinea pig for the software, because no matter how well the manufacturers R&D it, the band and the producer always end up being the final test. It has become de rigeur in the control room, especially amongst remixers, to slap samples onto everything. I mean, Bob Clearmountain's CD of samples — who wants Bob Clearmountain's CD of samples? The idea of having the same snare drum sound on every record you make — how sad is that?

What really worries me is the effect computer technology will have on the music of the future. At this rate it won't be long before record companies will do a survey, feed the information into a computer and come out with a record — and I can't imagine anything more hideous than a situation like that.

It really is horribly sad, but I can see it happening. I'm not knocking A&R men — A&R is a difficult job and I think they are very under-appreciated people. It is a thankless job because if you don't sign the next big thing then you are better off not signing anything at all — that's the only way you are going to keep your job. A&R men don't retire gracefully with carriage clocks on their 60th birthday. Most of them retire very ungracefully, which is also sad because some of them are great. But I feel technology is only making matters worse because it allows record companies to believe they have the control. A&R men have already been known to create bands; how long will it be before they start creating formularised music too?

Bands that rely heavily on computers don't win in the long run because all this technology does is take away the need to learn to play an instrument properly. When I got hold of my Atari computer I wrote the Rites of Spring Part 2 in 20 minutes and thought it was brilliant. It wasn't until my brother came round and I played him the tape that I realised from the look on his face that it was utter garbage. Creating it was so simple — take a flute line, put it down a fifth, change a few notes, perhaps give it to an oboe — but it's a load of nonsense. It's like tunnel vision — it sucks you in and takes over your head. When you actually listen to what you have done you see that it isn't original, it isn't interesting — it's just a load of crap.