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It was probably inevitable that the electronic technical high school became my natural choice. And so was the town of Krakow where we lived. But that was a completely different world. The music of Depeche Mode, Vollenweider, Jarré, the blown output stages in the school's broadcasting station where one day I decided to throw "a school break party with the Depeches"... all this made up the atmosphere that shaped me. Even the title of my high school diploma Steering Automation for the Ceramic Kiln didn't bother me in the least.

The situation changed when one day I heard an announcement over the school broadcasting station that the Mascaron Theater of Satire was looking for a sound engineer. Why such an announcement at school? I have no idea and to this day nobody has been able to explain it. Mascaron was a professional theater and as such should have placed newspaper or radio adverts. But at school even if it was the Electrical School Complex No. 2 in Krakow? Out of nowhere, it became one of the turning points in my life. Since it was October and I was already out of school for four months, the announcement should not have reached me yet it did. Before noon the same day -- and I worked shifts then - I raced off to the Mascaron manager Mr. Biskup for the job interview. Did I have live sound engineering experience? Absolutely, I was a born expert! Say, I worked at the Chrypa festival at the Nowohucki Cultural Centre. For proof, I produced a few pictures with performers, i.e. myself and the then well-known Polish singer Andrzej Zaucha, sitting together hugging in the cloakroom. All was true except for the fact that my job at the festival involved checking tickets.


Could I manage certain small repairs? Me not manage? There had to be something about my assurances of mastery in these fields that had Mr. Biskup agree. I was to start the very next day. At 19:00 I had to come to the Town Hall (the theater was located in the center of the Krakow Main Square) responsible for sound engineering the evening's performance. Luckily, I had no idea what was involved, otherwise I wouldn't have slept that night nor gone to work the next day. Fortunately, the sound engineer was seated right next to the light operator who sometimes used to work with both hands, managing simpler performances on his own. Even luckier, he probably took to me instantly as he never told anybody that I was sitting in front of a Peavey mixing table and Tascam reel-to-reel recorders for the first time in my life. And so it went.


Since no man shall live by bread alone, I decided to take up studies right after high school. As it happened, my other passion was literature, hence I enrolled at the Polish philology department of the Jagiellonian University. Because my theater job only took up evenings, there was no problem doing both at the same time. Then the next 'miracle' happened. One of my friends from the same university class came running to Mascaron with the message that the Juliusz Slowacki Theatre, a prestigious Krakow theater, was in urgent need of an experienced sound engineer. How did he know that? His uncle Jozef Rychlik, professor at the Musical Academy in Krakow, composer and expert on music theory, was then the theater's musical director. During the next Sunday luncheon, my friend mentioned me between hors-d'oeuvres. Half an hour later (both theaters are separated merely by the Main Square and Szpitalna Street), I was at the conversation with the uncle. Did I have some experience with sound engineering in a recording studio (the theater had a recording studio)? Most assuredly I had birthed many a recording (in my heart, I specified hat mainly from the radio to the cassette tape recorder). How about live sound engineering? Here I could honestly admit to experience as I had to set up, move and assemble everything by myself at Mascaron. "Why don't you come to rehearsal tomorrow and the next day to our HR manager to sign the work contract?" Apparently my job interview had gone over well enough. When Mr. Biskup learned of my new job, he thankfully didn't make difficulties and the same day terminated my Mascaron employment. Thus began the next chapter of my life.


Seven years later, with experience gained managing the sound engineering section at the Slovak as the theater is popularly known in Krakow, with numerous recordings (the studio wasn't large but quite pleasant - 24 tracks of analog Tascam reel recorders, Yamaha reverb and Lexicon delay units, famous Neumann and AKG microphones, three Studer 2-tracks, DAT etc.) of theater and film music (i.e.. for the Krakow composer Zygmunt Konieczny) as well as for television; with hours upon hours spent on recording the performances of the Krakow Opera, which performed in the Slovak on Sundays and Mondays; and last but not least with my just launched PhD studies in the field of contemporary Polish prose... well, I faced the dilemma of what to do next. Should I stay at the university and take up literature full time? Should I find some job in television or a recording studio? An accident (I naturally view it as divine intervention) decreed that my friend's brother having just returned from the USA would open in Krakow the audio distribution shop Audioholic with such brands as McIntosh, VTL, Aerial, Runco, PSB and Nakamichi. I was sucked in for almost two years.

In the nearby city of Chorzow meanwhile, the new Sound and Vision audio magazine was slowly coming together by this time. One day its representatives turned up at Audioholic with a job offer. It's not hard to imagine that a bit later, I became a Sound and Vision journalist where I quickly crawled up the career ladder, first becoming deputy chief editor, a month later chief editor. Then new horizons opened before me. It turned out that soon after getting my PhD, I could start working in the magazine I had always dreamt about since its first issue when it was called From Audio to Radio - or Audio for short. And so it happened. There I have been an editor for the last six years.


After leaving Sound and Vision where I did almost everything (besides audio reviews and keeping an eye on the paste ups, I also worked with the photographer and the graphic section), my work at Audio where I only performed reviews left me lots of free time. Now my wife came up with the idea to start some kind of online audio magazine. Because I knew a graphic artist who specialized in such projects, I asked him to prepare a layout design and quote. Happy with both, I launched the first issue on the 1st of May, 2004 under the title High Fidelity OnLine or www.highfidelity.pl. As it turned out, there was a huge demand for this type of articles. Soon many audio companies were willing to cooperate, audio distributors wanted to put up adverts and so on. Not long after the fourth anniversary, I successfully registered the magazine at court and it's been called High Fidelity ever since. It is a monthly magazine published in the EU territory online or in print.

Can you imagine a better job? I get to listen to music and am paid for it. I get to meet interesting people, test audio equipment most only dream of and get paid. Not everything is roses as there is no work without sacrifice. But I would never trade. I don't need to wear a suit or shave everyday, I can say "get lost" to neckties, I can spend as much time with my family as I want. I only have two rules to obey - absolute honesty towards readers and audio distributors; and meeting deadlines (the internet abhors a vacuum). So I stick to those rules.