There's nothing sweet about Sugar - and little that's easy on the ears in their new album File Under Easy Listening. Just before it was finished, main man and producer Bob Mould wiped the master tapes because it was all sounding too polished. The band started all over again in a different city and, in more ways than one, a different state.

Such uncompromising measures may seem intimidating, but they win the trust of the guitar-driven bands who have succumbed willingly to Bob's abrasive style. Bob himself, needless to say, is one of the nicest, soft-spoken kind of guys you'll ever meet.

"I was asked to produce," he says, "by bands who had a general distrust of producers. They didn't think they'd be sympathetic to the material. That's why I got asked - not for any technical ability, but because I could offer a level of sensibility to a project."

Three albums on, Sugar continue to benefit more than anyone from being completely Moulded. But although they aim for rawness, the songs are not bleak and negative. The wall of guitars is there to support the classic structures of pop. It's just that Bob will do anything to avoid tedium and predictability.

"I don't make 12 rough versions before drafting in a producer. Everything's pretty thoroughly combed through before I think about going into a real studio. At home now I've got a 24-track setup - an old Tascam 1-inch. It's debatable whether that's a professional studio or not. But as far as doing demo work, it's perfect."

There's no room for a drum kit, so Bob bashes out ideas on a drum machine. But there's no room for MIDI, either...

"Everything's in real-time; MIDI is something I've never really got into at home. I just sit there for the day with a Roland R8, and figure things out. It makes it a lot easier for me to latch onto ideas."

Working things out in advance may also have something to do with living thousands of miles away from bass player David Barbe and drummer Malcolm Travis, an arrangement which stops them getting on each other's nerves, but which also makes casual daily jamming a bit awkward.

"We get together when we've got a stack load of ideas," continues Bob. "It actually cuts down on a lot of time. If you know all your parts, you can open up and add your flourishes, but the studio is the worst place to be learning the mechanics of a song. You should never go in with a vague idea - unless of course you've got millions of pounds to piss away..."

"It creates a little bit of a phase problem, but I'm not hung up on that"

Being musically prepared also allows Bob to concentrate on getting that all-important guitar sound.

"It's pretty raw. It's what you get when you don't have any low-pass filters on the mixing console. It was recorded in a fairly spacious room with my usual live sound setup - which is pretty loud, cranked all the way up, angled about ten feet away from an absorbent wall with three close mics: a Sennheiser 421, 409 and a Microtec microphone - like an Eastern Bloc Neumann. The 421 and 409 combination on the Marshall cabinets was a weird combination; the 421, Shure SM50 and an SM57 is the usual starting point, but 421 and 409 seemed to complement each other so well. For some reason it really came to life on the guitar array. Bringing in the Microtec just added that little bit of warmth.

"Those, with no compression, were fed through some of the earliest Neve pre-amp EQs, the 1064s. They just had the selection of frequencies I like - especially 2.4kHz, where the guitar comes to life - and then straight to tape. You can deal with things like gating and compression during the mixdown. There's no chorus, no nothing - and it'll take your head off.

"The mics were stuck to the cones - if I could literally tape them on I would, if it meant I'd get a closer sound. You can create ambience at the mix stage with placement. I tend to do two tracks of each guitar and put them hard left and right. Room sounds are not good when you're layering this many parts."

This way, the stereo web of guitars fleshing out Sugar's pithy songs loses none of its impact - despite the softer environment of analogue tape and compression. A similar approach is applied to the drums.

"The room we recorded the drums in wasn't that large," explains Bob, "so while the mics weren't perhaps as close, there still wasn't much dimension - the drums are really in your face, again using the 421s and 409s for the toms, an SM57 for the snare, and we close-mic'd the ride for a really hard sound. There was a pair of AKG 414s for the overheads - in an XY pattern right above the snare drum. That was the room sound. Also in the room we had a set of NS10s, pushing the close mic'd snare back into the room, just to build it up more. It creates a little bit of a phase problem, but I'm not hung up on that."

"Some of the best music I've heard this year has been 'bedroom' music"

Tellingly, Bob claims that he "didn't have time" to add much in the way of signal processing on the album. Flavour is added by the odd sample, tambourines and shakers to 'accelerate' given sections of a song, and even synthesisers - "I like to process the hell out of those, though," he says. Other than that, minimal interference is paramount.

"Don't ever use effects to tape," advises Bob, "unless you're totally sold on it, like it's part of the arrangement or part of a specific sound you're trying to create. I suppose if you're using a 4- or 8-track set up at home, it's all right, though you really need to experiment before you commit anything - except maybe compression."

At the mixing stage, things become more methodical.

"I'll bring everything up as if it was a live gig, just to get a feel of what's in the mix. Firstly, I'll clean up the mix, eliminate the unwanted vocal noises and extraneous noise. Then I'll get a general mix level set, and then kill everything and work with individual parts, starting from the lower frequencies up - the rhythm parts and bass, the foundation. With a pop mix, it's traditional for the vocals and snare drum to sit on top, the kick drum about a third in the mix, and then everything else around it. But it's really about the personality of the song - the objective. I'll bring the guitars in quite late, because they're so much easier to EQ than the drums without compromising the balance in the mix.

"I mix a song a day (11am - 1am), though 'Gift' took two days. When ear fatigue sets in, I'll leave everything set up and stop. I'd never start doing a mix after 10pm. When mix sessions go on too long, it's not technical problems that hold you up - it's just that you don't have a clue what you want. Maybe then you should take a week off...

"I've also got a favourite work chair. It's important to have a working environment that's comfortable and conducive to work. Bring your own favourite coffee, too. Don't work in a situation that you find uncomfortable. Adapt it to meet your idiosyncrasies. Some of the best music I've heard this year has been 'bedroom' music.

"I would suggest to anyone putting together an 8- or 16-track studio to stay away from the digital domain. You can find great old Otari or Tascam machines dirt cheap right now, because everyone was stupid enough to let them go when the ADAT came along. They're a little bit more of a pain to maintain, but when you try locking up an ADAT to one of these controllers, you'll soon regret it."

Classic machines for classic music?

"I grew up listening to '60s pop. I listened to The Beatles when I was five. There are basic concepts to pop music, as with classical music - there's a time and place for parts to come in and go out."