Matrix Assisted Laser Desorption Ionization (MALDI) is a soft ionization method with widespread analytical applications. One of its limits is the spurious signal in the low mass region, due to the required use of matrices to desorb and ionize the analytes. The possibility to avoid their use will ease both sample preparation and mass spectrum interpretation because the low mass region will not be crowded by peaks of the matrix. In recent years, nanostructured materials have been proposed as matrix-free substrates, but their use is limited to specific combination of nanostructures and analytes, while no general matrix-free approach has yet been demonstrated. Here we propose a radically new type of transducer and we demonstrate that fluorosilanized bulk surfaces achieve similar detection limit of nanostructured substrates. The results of our work suggest that desorption/ionization (D/I) is a purely interfacial effect, with negligible contribution from the chemical nature of the underlying substrate, provided that the substrate contains fluorine species, is an electrical conductor and a good UV absorber.