Interview: Ruf Dug

Hi Dug, how are you?

It's really warm!

Where are you?

I'm just in the studio all day today...

What's that looking like these days?

It's looking pretty good actually. I finished Ruf Kutz #4 a while ago and just sent RK #5 to mastering, but before that, I started buying a load of old gear. I wanted to start doing stuff on tape. I spent a couple of months just shrewdly on eBay and Gumtree and all those second hand sites. I only got a couple of bargains, but I pretty much got all the bits I needed. I got an analogue mixer, two old rack mount synths that are like tone generators, but you can get patches for them that are amazing. I got an Akai sampler, an old BBC spring reverb, Tascam tape recorder, and a Roland D50, and a couple of other bits and pieces like that Alesis compressor that Daft Punk used, and all these kinda bits. They're all hardware. So I've just been going at it these last few weeks. Just using the computer to sequence and nothing else, recording all this hardware stuff and then putting it all onto cassette, like TDK's basically, this four track cassette recorder.

That's quite a different mindset to doing an edit, or using the computer…

Well, whenever I've made tracks on the computer, I've always had this hardware stuff in mind. When I was in Sydney, I used to go round this guy Mike Burnham's studio, called The Tardis. Like, fully analogue studio, he used to have it in London. He's just got hundreds of thousands of pounds worth of gear in there, and he's a proper head. Pritch has used his studio before, same goes for the Heliocentrics, Mike's the producer for them too. Anyway, I used to know him down in Sydney, and spent a bit of time playing in his studio, but this was before I knew anything really, so I couldn't really make anything. But I started to get some idea of a studio space, so whenever I've made stuff on the computer, I've always had that kind of space in my head. But now at least I can start making stuff, even though I've got like a thousandth of the budget. He's got like one of those lovely Neve desks, and I've got like this eight track Soundcraft! But It's really good, cause you can only do so many things on it, because it's really simple. There's a sound quality about it. It's a bit like Legowelt, that kind of vibe basically, sounds like it's on tape.

So you've had this in mind for a while.

Yeah it's just about keeping it warm and crunchy, and not too polished. It's surprisingly clear, actually. I had this romantic idea of what tape would sound like, and it is really muffly and crackly, but the fidelity is quite good actually. There's just a warmth and a wobbliness that I really like.

There seems to be a resurgence of interest in tape recently.

Yeah, there has, and Legowelt's doing really well at the moment, he's perhaps the most prominent of the electronic and techno producers that's pushing that old-school-tape, digital-synths-with-midi kind of vibe, but there's Not Not Fun and James Ferraro and that whole psych side, too. I mean James Ferraro does a load of releases on tape, Sun Araw's been doing a load of stuff that you can only get on tape, so as a format, it's making a comeback. But a lot of their stuff sounds really lo-fi, like it's been recorded on some crappy VHS recorder… and they're putting this stuff out on vinyl sounding like that! But we're playing it in the club and people are dancing to it, so it's acceptable. Even though it sounds like it's been recorded on a Walkman.

Which do you think is more important, the fidelity or the music?

Well, do you remember when fidelity first came about? Whenever I think of fidelity, I think of Bruce Hornsby and the Range, or Genesis, or something like that. When CDs came out, it was all about fidelity. It was all, 'listen to these hi hats', that was the vibe. But as CD has slowly faded away and been replaced by mp3, where fidelity is no longer the leading factor, and instead size and convenience becomes an issue, and the prevailing delivery is through shite headphones that look amazing, then I think it's possible to take fidelity out of the equation, but in a considered way. Not in a crappy MP3 distortion way, but like 'let's record onto tape, or onto VHS and then onto tape.' We're at the point now where we've been away from that wishy-washy MP3 sound that it's going to come back as a considered effect. If it's not been done already, then it'll come back soon, cause it sounds kinda nice, that flanged, wishy-washy effect on snares and things. Like that buffer over-ride, when Mathew David used those kind of things and that became hot. But it's nice not to have it at the moment.

Lo-fidelity has a kind of message of its own as well.

Well, yeah there's a spectrum of lo-fi isn't there? And it's something that can be considered now as well, it's not like everything has to sound amazing. It's part of the work now.

Do you ever have a conflict between what you think sounds great as a producer, but that you wouldn't put out as a label?

Hmmm, not really. I only do 250, so it's pretty low-risk. I mean, there's stuff I've done that I wouldn't put out, and there's stuff of other peoples that I've heard and I wouldn't put out, so it's not like I'd put out anything. But I basically think yes or no, and that's about as deep as the decision making process goes. I mean, if I was doing more, then maybe I'd think about it, but at the moment it's just pretty self-indulgent!

It's also good to go through the whole process isn't it? From studio to mastering to test-presses and official release.

Yeah, well it's nice when I'm writing something, knowing that if it's good enough I can put it out, and not have to worry about whether someone else will like it or not. That takes a bit of the pressure off. The only time when I find out whether a track's good or not is when I get the masters back and I start getting feedback from people.

Who does your mastering?

It's a mate of mine from Sydney actually, a guy called Stalker. We were both guests on this radio in Sydney years ago. He's just a crazy analog head, and over the years he's got into mastering, he's built this mad analogue rig. He's a guy who lives out in the hills in the west of Sydney, and he's got loads of nice gear and an amazing pair of ears, and he's just a really good mate. He's doing really well at the moment, he's mastering for loads of people like Chew Fu, and for movies. He also makes amazing deep techno, I'm gonna put some of his stuff out. In terms of fidelity it's just another layer. I can send it to him and he just makes it sound fat. It's another reference. I mean I could send it to Dubplates and Mastering, but everyone does that. Also, when the tracks come back, they sound a bit different from everyone else.

It seems mastering is a learning process that never ends.

Mastering engineers just freak me out in general. They've got this incredible understanding on so many different levels. Not only have they got this amazing pair of ears, but also the scientific understanding to back it up. It's like a martial art or something.

Their appreciation of music is kind of unselfish too, isn't it?

Yeah. Their impact is so underrated! What about Nils from The Exchange? Who would Daft Punk be, or mid-nineties house and electronic music, without him? Same with Ron Murphy. Same with Transition. I remember John Dent's lecture at the Academy, that was amazing.

And how's Wet Play been?

It's been great actually last year. We've just come back from a break so we're refreshed. Since July we did one a month until New Years, and we also did a few extras in-between, like a Maria Minerva party and other stuff. So we took a while off at the start of this year to recharge a bit. This year we'll just do six or seven.

There's a difference between throwing a party and promoting one, right?

Yeah, if you do it too much it gets like a job. I still like doing parties, but I'm not interested in going to a club and just standing in a room. You want something more engaging, more theatrical almost. You want to transport people to a different place…

More like those 60's Acid Test happenings?

Yeah, more like a community, where everybody can take part and feel involved, and you can only do a few of those at a time. I know what you need to do to make serious money with parties, and I don't want to do that. You just end up doing big events. We've got a great crew of people here, and I just want to enjoy hanging out with them at the party really.