Alan Braxe and DJ Falcon reveal secret sauce converter behind their French touch sound
“I want this converter. Nothing else.”
Producers Alan Braxe and DJ Falcon have named the Universal Audio 2192 converter as essential parts of both their studios, hinting towards the interface potentially being a secret sauce tool behind their signature French house sound.
Daft Punk collaborator DJ Falcon and one-third of Music Sounds Better With You outfit Stardust, Alan Braxe, revealed the secret weapon during their feature on the My Forever Studio Podcast. In the podcast, guests are invited to imagine their dream studio, including its location and the six studio items they’d include in it.
The two producers – also cousins – have produced separately for many years but more recently have started to release music together. Both producers claim to have the same converter in their respective studios.
The Universal Audio 2192, is a stereo converter that converts digital frequencies into analogue and vice versa. When audio goes into it, it comes out with an added analogue warmth to its sonic character.
An attractive feature of the converter, as the French duo highlight, is its ability to be turned up without clipping or sounding distorted. That’s thanks to its exclusion of a dedicated soft-limit function. Instead of this, the interface includes headroom structures that have been designed off analogue input stages, meaning a compressor naturally kicks in as the signal gets to a point where it might start clipping.
“I would love to use the same converter I have used for a very long time,” Braxe leads. “It’s no longer available. It’s the Universal Audio 2192. It’s an old converter from probably like 15 years ago. I just want that. Nothing else.”
“My ear is completely formatted by this converter. I don’t want to change.”
“It’s warm, you can go into your head[room], and there is no distortion. It’s not transparent at all. There is something very pleasant in the conversion process.”
The My Forever Studio podcast, hosted by Chris Barker and Will Betts, invites guest producers in to discuss their dream forever studio. However, they’re only allowed to include six studio items alongside a DAW, audio interface and computer in their studio. Listen to episode 49 with Braxe and Falcon here and check out all episodes here.
