"You do the best you can, you fight technology in all kinds of ways, but I don't know anybody who's made a record that sounds decent in the past 20 years, really," Dylan tells the novelist Jonathan Lethem for Rolling Stone magazine.

Responding to claims by record companies and some artists that illegal downloading starves them of income, he says: "It was like, 'everybody's gettin' music for free'. I was like, 'well, why not? It ain't worth nothing anyway'."

In the 20-year period he condemns Dylan has released eight studio albums, but he makes no attempt to exempt his own work from his critique. Speaking of his latest CD, released in the US next week, he says: "Even these songs probably sounded 10 times better in the studio when we recorded 'em."

The singer-songwriter's ambivalent feelings about recording his songs are already well known. Sean Wilentz, the Princeton historian and Dylan expert, told the Guardian: "He's never really been happy in the studio anyway - he goes in and gets out as quickly as he can. Partly it's a reaction against overproduction, and I think he wanted to move towards an older and crisper sound ... but [also] I think he likes to think of himself as a spontaneous performer, and he's always said what you're getting on a record is just more concise - each of those versions is what it is, but it's not the perfect recording. That's not possible."

Dylan made clear his yearning for the music of the past when he began a weekly show on US satellite radio this year. His first playlist was a wide-ranging tour through the history of American music, encompassing Fats Domino, Judy Garland, Stevie Wonder, Dean Martin, Frank Sinatra and Muddy Waters.

His main criticism of contemporary CDs is the lack of sound clarity arising when producers try to make each strand of a recording as uniformly loud as possible. "You listen to these modern records, they're atrocious, they have sound all over them. There's no definition of nothing, no vocal, no nothing, just, like ... static."

Dylan has therefore decided to produce his latest album, entitled Modern Times, himself. "I felt like I've always produced my own records anyway, except I just had someone there in the way. I feel like nobody's gonna know how I should sound except me anyway ... I can do that in my sleep."

But his despair about new recording techniques does not mean he rejects new musicians out of hand. One track on the new album has a glowing reference to the R&B singer Alicia Keys. "I remember seeing her on the Grammys. I think I was on the show with her, I didn't meet her or anything. But I said to myself, 'There's nothing about that girl I don't like'."

Referring to sound technology, Mike Howlett, who chairs the Music Producers Guild, said: "If there is a problem then it lies with the quality of the music; therefore Dylan seems to be confusing quality of performance with sound quality. The top end of digital equipment gives a highly accurate reproduction of the signal coming in, so it is neither helping nor hindering the sound." But he said the sound of analogue equipment gave "some interesting distortions", which lent music "a certain character".

Sound bites

1887 Thomas Edison uses a tinfoil cylinder phonograph to record the human voice (singing Mary had a little lamb) for the first time. The original is said to be missing, but a 1927 re-enactment can now be downloaded in MP3 format

1925 Research pioneered by Western Electric benefits from advancements in microphone and loudspeaker technology. The first electrically recorded discs go on sale, with recordings of whole orchestras

1948 The first series of 12-inch vinyl LPs is introduced by Columbia Records, offering 20 minutes a side and more durability than previous formats. Within decades, stereo recordings, based on the work of the scientist AD Blumlein in the 1930s, are challenging mono sound

1963 Philips demonstrates the first compact audio cassettes that rely on high-quality polyester tape, but they are originally marketed for dictation. Three years later, car stereos are equipped with eight-track stereo tape cassette players. In 1969 Dolby B noise reduction is introduced

1982 Sony and Philips launch the five-inch compact disc. Digital technology opens the door to new sampling techniques in music studios. Within six years, CD sales overtake LP sales - in a decade, CDs become the dominant form of recorded music

1997 Tomislav Uzelac develops the first successful MP3 player, which uses compressed digital audio files. Four years later Apple Computer uses MP3 technology to launch the iPod