Paul Epworth, the 2012 Grammy Producer of the Year has been on a bit of a roll recently. So far in 2013, he has received the BRIT Award for Best Producer at the MPG Awards 2013, as well as UK Producer of the Year at the Music Producers Guild Awards. The latest James Bond Theme, “Skyfall” co-written by Adele and Epworth has been named Best Original song at both the Academy Awards and Golden Globes, and won single of the year at the BRIT Awards. The Lynx Aurora 16 converter has been Epworth’s go-to converter for many years and has been used for recordings by Adele, Florence and the Machine, Foster the People, Cee Lo Green and others. We had a chance to talk with Paul in California recently prior to a new project using Aurora.

Epworth first heard Aurora converters at Ben Hillier’s The Pool Studio. “Ben swore by Aurora converters. I had always found that they offered a much more faithful recreation of what you recorded when compared to other converters. It became our usual practice to use Aurora – we used them all the time. When I spec’ed out my own studio, I wanted to make sure we got the same sound and quality, so we installed the Aurora 16. We’ve been really thrilled with it.”

Epworth’s own studio is based around Pro Tools HD and Logic platforms, with Aurora providing the AD and DA conversion for both. “Aurora offers depth and good stereo imaging, a true high fidelity interface,” according to Epworth. “There is a favorable warmth to Aurora, an even ordered harmonic feeling to it. It does not overly color the sound and it makes things feel good.”

Aurora was the primary converter used in the recording of Adele’s Academy Award winning Skyfall. With Adele, every part of the vocal, including a clear representation of the effect of reverb, is essential. “Reverb is such an important thing to her vocals, she really does want the depth and the character of the way things hang in the air. She’s all about the details of her vocal nuances,” explained Epworth. “I think it’s important that whatever you use as an audio interface translates that. That is something that I feel I have been able to do with Aurora.”

The basic tracks of “Skyfall”, including vocals and piano, were recorded at Epworth’s studio using his Aurora converter. The session was wrapped up with a full orchestra at Abbey Road studio.

According to Epworth’s website www.paulepworth.com, he explains his recent work success as: “A lot of the stuff that I’ve done over the last year or so has been about finding that purity of sound and not embellishing it with weird (stuff). So the song transcends everything else and has the chance to stand the test of time. That’s such a great thing, to make a pop record that everyone can relate to, a timeless classic. But there’s room for weird (stuff) too! I want to explore every possibility in music.”

The Aurora 16 converter from Lynx is one of the tools in his tool kit that lets him achieve this purity of sound.