When your first plug-ins came out, Poland was not known for audio software.
Everything comes from passion. I grew up in a house where music has been very important, and by music I mean not only live music but also recordings. I remember going to recording studios when I was a kid. It kind of makes me wonder whether the sound I used to hear back then is what I try to recreate now. On the other hand there is live music; a direct connection between the artist and the listener creates a huge emotional space, which I also try to bring out in our plug-ins. We had very good audio equipment at home that included an Akai reel-to-reel tape recorder, which was used by my father for his work in the theatre. Education was another factor that helped me develop my musical sensitivity. I didn't attend music school for an extended period of time, but apparently it was enough for me to be able to perceive music differently. I didn't feel capable of becoming an instrumentalist, which eventually turned out to be a good decision. Sometimes it makes more sense to give up on something and focus on the things that really drive you. I always wanted to work with sound, as well as do more engineering work, rather than just play other people's music. Shortly after finishing my first degree, I started my adventure with sound.
What was the first environment you worked in?
Initially I was working with MIDI on Atari ST running Cubase. A Tascam 238 [cassette 8-track], reverb effect, mixing desk, and a solid reel-to-reel ReVox unit as master recorder were added later on. The next step was, of course, a full-featured DAW. Our first digital system was a simple modular 16-bit Spectral Design sequencer with a configurable number of tracks, filters, and converters. Then came a Yamaha audio card with a DSP mixer on board, as well as two converter modules. At the time it gave us amazing possibilities — we could connect our external reverbs to it while mixing while the filters and dynamics were handled by the DSP module. That was very important, because the CPU was too weak to handle all those tasks and the audio software was not very reliable back then. I was learning as I went, which resulted in making a lot of mistakes. One of the most common ones was making bass-heavy mixes. But there were some good sides to the old days too. For example, mistakes made on tape sound completely different than mistakes made in a fully digital environment. Understanding the difference is crucial when looking for a good sound, from the algorithmic perspective.
They say that analog tape is very forgiving.
The first analog mixes I made were rather grotesque sounding, or at least had an archaic vibe to them, but they still managed to sound quite pleasant. Making similar mistakes while working on a computer usually caused the material to be totally unlistenable. What I used to do back then wasn't quite suited for the radio, but still sounded pretty cool, as far as demo projects. I used to work on theatrical projects as well, and those problems don't exist in that world. What fascinated me the most were the reverb effects — we could get some nice sounds out of those units in the late '80s.
Is there any particular reverb module you have in mind? There weren't a lot of them around back in the '80s.
It's true, and on top of that the ones that were available were not affordable. Luckily we managed to get our hands on the Dynacord DRP 20X. It was a digital reverb unit with additional chorus and delay effects on board. The reverb sound was stunning. I can't imagine anything sounding better back in the day, unless, of course, you had money to get yourself a Lexicon 240 or 480. The thing about reverb is that listeners' preferences change with time. Back in those days we were looking to get some big sounds out of our reverb boxes. This was especially applicable in the theatre music, and when we were looking for more experimental sounds.
How did you learn more about creating software?
I had an opportunity to learn at the newly opened Polish- Japanese Academy of Information Technology shortly after. We began to work with Professor Andrzej Czyzewski from Gdansk University of Technology. I'd been interested in computers and new technologies since my primary school days. I was even doing some programming in attempts to get interesting sounds from my Atari 800. Academy of Information Technology gave me an opportunity to get back to coding, and the great scholars of Warsaw University instructed us to think about algorithms with an open mind.
When did you meet PSP co-founder Antoni Ozynski?
We've known each other since high school. The friendship lasted throughout our college years.
What was the first software you created?
The first audio software was an audio editor of sorts, but I quickly abandoned that project and moved on to some more exciting ideas. I was really into reverb effects and limiters. After graduating I tried to apply for a job, but it turned out that nobody in Poland was really looking for an audio plug-in developer. Luckily Antoni was a management graduate, so we kicked off our business. There were no outside funding sources, but we believed the most important factor was passion. Antoni was supporting the project financially and I had the knowledge. We created our website and started selling our first set of plug-ins.
How did the Polish press react to your plug-ins?
The Estrada i Studio magazine staff was very supportive. It was a very pleasant surprise for us, because up to that point we had mostly been experiencing discouragement and disbelief on multiple areas of our activity. Later on we received the same feedback from the foreign press. If it wasn't for the support of the music industry press, we would have never really kicked off, from a business perspective — it was essential for us.
StereoPack was your first batch of plug-ins. Can you tell us how they came about?
StereoPack was a toolset containing a couple of stereo plug-ins. To be honest, we were a bit underwhelmed with the response we got. At the time there were already many computer-based DAW users, but the plug-in market wasn't too big. Unfortunately, it turned out that it wasn't enough to gain more attention. We were still a very young and inexperienced company, and we kept learning from our own mistakes. After releasing our first plug-ins, Antoni started getting in touch with the press and people from the industry. We kept developing new products and, with time, we started getting more and more attention.
Antoni once said that pirated versions of your plug-ins were your best marketing tool, and people who had been learning on them purchased the legal version later on.
