GEORGI Sofroniev - Getzata to his friends - is a tall teenage-looking 29-year-old man, who spends his working day in a tiny closet in front of a mixing-panel, a computer and various other electronic gadgets. For breaks, in a bit larger room, he fixes wires and rearranges mikes and musical instruments.

Getzata is an audio engineer at the M&D Studio - a recording studio and rehearsal room in Sofia. His main duties are to do sound checks at rehearsals, to record the bands' music and to mix the recorded material - but in this area he can only do the most elementary work, leaving the more complex work to his colleague.

Getzata has been working there for about three years. He was offered the job at the studio through mutual friends and accepted, as it was close to his interests.

"I am a musician," Getzata says. He studied violin at the Secondary Music School in Pleven, and intended to pursue a career in the music area. But when the time came for applying to higher school, he found out he was stronger in - and more attracted by - the theoretical music disciplines. Thus, next year Getzata is to graduate from the National Music Academy in Sofia with a degree in musical pedagogy. But he does not intend to become a music teacher.

"This is something I will do only if I have no other option, because it pays very little," he says.

"I would like to get closer to being a musician - I am very interested in doing music arrangements and composing film music, but at present I can't do it - I lack the necessary money and free time. I can't afford a good computer or quality speakers; and there is no time for side occupation at the studio," Getzata says, and shows the full rehearsal schedule.

At present Getzata is satisfied with the way things are, as he loves his job and finds it very interesting.

"I don't do it just for the money," he says. ""I meet all kinds of musicians - various persons, various styles of music - and I learn from them. Of course, I learn most from the best - I admire their professionalism, their musical skills, their way of thinking. They don't just play compositions here - they improvise as well, and it's fantastic to listen to them," Getzata says, giving the example of Stundji, the drummer for Balkan Horses. "To me, he's one of the greatest drummers in the world."

"This is the best rehearsal room in Sofia and even in Bulgaria," Getzata claims. It's the major rehearsal room for top Bulgarian bands D2 and Mastilo, he says, and most of the best Bulgarian musicians have come here for one reason or other: Safo, Te, drum player Stundji, Anabel Karajan and her band. In July 2003, before his concert in Sofia, Joe Lynn Turner (former vocalist for Rainbow and Deep Purple) and his band rehearsed there as well.

"We were very nervous about whether we would measure up - the studio doesn't look very glamorous, many things are hand-made - but they turned out to be completely normal people and everything went fine," Getzata says.

Apart from the big and famous musicians, many who are not that well-known, and not that skilled, rehearse there as well.

"The bulk of our clientele are unknown bands, part of which want to make it big and want to, or already, play in clubs. Among them there are bands which make really high quality music of their own," Getzata says. He gives as example a band called NIE, which consists of a financier, an engineer, and a technician. "They have been rehearsing in the studio for a few years now, and have already recorded six pieces of their own - but they have absolutely no commercial goals - they just do it for the fun," he says.

But sometimes these people that are not professional musicians and just play for fun create one of the negatives of Getzata's job. "There are clients without the necessary training and instruments, but with high pretensions. They arrive with Bulgarian-made guitars (which are in fact produced by a furniture factory) and expect to sound like Dream Theatre, for example," Getzata says. "In order for a product to be of really good quality, all of its ingredients must be of such quality: from the instruments and the musicians' skills to the final mix," he continues. "One cannot arrive in the studio with a Bulgarian guitar, not having guitar playing skills, and to expect by simply paying for the studio to come up with something which abroad would cost him tens of thousands of dollars." Still, he says, he tries to help them as much as he can.

"The most negative side of this job is the very high decibels music - it's hard to endure it for a long time," Getzata says. With opening hours of the studio from 10am to 10pm. Monday through Sunday, sometimes he has had shifts of 12 hours non-stop of it. So he rests by never listening to loud music at home: "I just can't stand it," he says. In spite of that fact, he doesn't hate going to clubs to listen to live bands he likes - he loves it.