The Misner Factor by Robert Alexander
www.doramusic.com

Chapter 1   page 8 to page 28

"A day or two later 1 went to see John Burnett who was about twelve years older than me, and told him about the idea I'd had. It turned out that John had started a company producing guitar amplifiers called Lennard Amps at around the same time that Jim Marshall started in the 1960s. But it seems that John had partners that had somehow taken him to the cleaners, and he now made a small living designing and building loudspeakers and repairing his original amplifier designs. 1 told him that 1 had no money at all for the project, and, as it turned out, neither did John have any either - or at least, none he was prepared to risk at that stage".

Despite the lack of immediate funds, John Burnett decided that the idea of a School for Audio Engineering was a reasonably good one, enough at least for the two of them to make some cursory investigations. They were somewhat surprised to find out that nobody else had come up with the idea or was offering anything similar, so they agreed to be partners in the project with a quick handshake. The seed for SAE was sown. Now all they needed was a plan, a venue, lots of equipment (of any kind), a curriculum, some students to teach and of course money. And they had none of these, and little idea of how to get any of them.

1 had a friend, somebody 1 casually knew through the cleaning business", Tom explains, 11 who knew a guy called Laurence Steele who had a small advertising agency called Complete Promotions at 420 Elizabeth Street, on the corner of Devonshire Street. The agency was on the first floor above an ANZ Bank and was accessed via a narrow metal fire escape that ran up the side of the building. Above the advertising agency, on the second floor, he also had a really run-down so-called 'studio', which was originally used for recording voice-overs and jingles and all their advertising stuff. It was a really nasty two room affair that you could hardly call a studio. One room was about 5m by 3m and had a few white acoustic tiles hanging off the walls, and the other room was even smaller about 4m by 3m.

"There was a yet smaller room outside which was called 'the office' next to these, and the

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whole thing was completely filthy dirty and totally run-down, and from what 1 could tell very little used except for storage. Here and there were bits of odd gear, a Sony four-track recorder, an old amplifier and a few random guitar effects none of which seemed to be either used or even working. There were also two microphone stands, and random parts of a drum kit. It was all really rather sad. But it was a 'space'. And that was what John and 1 needed - a space of some kind, especially one that was cheap or even better, free.

"Despite the size of the place and its condition, 1 decided to put a proposal about the project and told him that 1 was interested in using the studio on the first floor. But 1 couldn't afford to pay him any rent and neither could John. So 1 made a deal whereby if 1 fixed up his studio, repaired all the gear etc., 1 could have a certain number of days for my thing i.e. four days a week - and in return on the other days, I'd do any jingles that he needed for free.

"This would work out to the equivalent of about 24 hours free studio time for him each week, most of which was usually required in the afternoons which suited my needs fine. He thought about it for a few moments, and then agreed. Straight away John and 1 set about fixing up the studio space above Complete Promotions at 420 Elizabeth Street, and for the next month or so we got that place looking much more like a recording studio.

"Towards Christmas 1976, the space was beginning to look a little better. John and 1 had tidied it up a lot, and Michael Quinn came in from time to time when he wasn't working on the Ambulances to help us out. 1 spent a small amount of money on paint and some second hand acoustic tiles that 1 managed to pick up from somewhere, and 1 put in an office desk and a chair. So you see at one point in my life 1 was a handyman believe it or not. Nowadays it would be dangerous to give me a tool of any kind! Anyhow, John had checked out and repaired the electrics, re-wired the lighting etc. and once the gear was all working again we were soon recording voice-overs for the ad agency whenever they needed us.

1 remember one big fat guy, 1 can't remember his name now, but he came in to do a lot of voice over work for the agency. Apparently he was originally a DJ with 2UW, and 1 found out that later that he went to the United States and ended up hosting the television programme 'America's Most Wanted'. Anyhow, he had this great voice and did deep booming stuff like 'This is the new Datsun deal for 1977', or whatever was required.

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1t was then decided that - our first partnership decision - because John Burnett already had some 'stuff', which included a pair of speakers a microphone or two, as well as the electronics knowledge from the audio hire company, that he'd be responsible for that side of the proposed education. John would teach electronics and 1 would teach audio engineering. 1 had no stuff as such. 1 had a Roland Phase Delay which 1 used for my guitar, but nothing else. What we also didn't have was a console of any,kind. So John announced that over Christmas 1976, and into New Year 1977, he was going to make one!

"What he came up with was a tiny little custom-built, eight into two audio console with funny round black knobs on it that looked like they'd come from a Hi-fi system. There were no faders, just these chunky rotary knobs for level and a series of basic EQ functions above also made from the same large black knobs. At the top of each 'channel' were large silver jack inputs, and a silver toggle switch for line or mic switching. Though it was basic, we thought at the time that it looked great and besides, it was after all a 'custom-built' recording console!

"The 'console' was mounted into a slot cut in the top of a large wooden desk that we'd acquired. There was a space on the left for a turntable and additional spaces on the right for effects units - should we ever end up getting any. This was then covered in a black carpet like material that was glued on to make it look a bit more studio-like. 1 helped John to build the patch bay, it was big and vertical like those used by telephone companies. It had two rows of fourteen quarter inch jack patch points placed on a large silver metal face plate. The whole patch bay was then enclosed in another homemade wooden cabinet that was also covered in the same black carpet material.

"This then became the very first SAE console - and it was totally built by ourselves. To mark this amazing event, 1 got hold of some of the Letraset from the ad agency downstairs and used it to write 'School Of Audio Eng' on it, and in big letters 'SAE on the top front of the patch bay. 1 thought it looked excellent, and it gave the impression that it was a purpose built SAE patch bay and console - which it was -- exactly what 1 wanted people to think. We cleaned up the Sony TC-854 four-track tape recorder, which by the way, 1 still have to this day! It was 'Simul-sync' and one of the first Sony four-track recorders of its kind available in Australia and probably the only piece of 'top-end' gear in the whole place!"

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At about the same time as Tom and John were working at tidying up the studio in Elizabeth Street, the decision was finally made that the cleaning business would have to be sold off to help fund the new project. This might sound like a risky move, especially as at the time it represented almost the only income for Tom and Kathy and their newborn son. But Tom hated the cleaning, especially the long overnight hours and the petty bickering that he had to put up with from the casual cleaning staff that they employed. Besides, it was a boring life and nothing like that which he had imagined he'd be leading. Convincing himself first, and then Kathy they decided that they'd sell off Cameron Cleaning Contractors and in early December 1976, they did just that.

The problem was that nobody wanted to buy the company. That is, nobody wanted to buy all of it. By then CCC covered several areas of Sydney including Westmead, Bondi, the City, and a others; but no one person was interested in all of it. Of the twenty casual cleaners employed by the company, most could see that there was an opportunity and some even showed real interest when they realised that the company was up for sale. But Cameron Cleaning Contractors was really quite successful, and they thought they wouldn't be able to afford the asking price.

So Tom decided to sell off just the Westmead 'branch' and its associated cleaning equipment and contracts to one of the casual cleaners who'd showed the most interest in that particular suburb. But he had no idea what price to put on it. Deciding on the spur of the moment to pluck a figure out of thin-air, he told the man he could have the Westmead branch for A$ 000, and was somewhat surprised when the figure was immediately agreed. That kind of opened the floor doors! Bonds Junction Plaza went for A$1000, Circular Quay went for another A$1000 and so on, until all the branches and all the equipment with their associated clients and buildings were sold off, mostly to former CCC employees.

With one hurdle out of the way, another presented itself almost immediately. Just after New Year 1977, John Burnett came to Tom and announced that he didn't think that the studio/school idea was going to work after all, and that he wanted out of it. It came as a complete shock to me of course" Tom says, "But it was obvious from the start that John didn't really have his heart in the project. He needed to provide an income for his wife and his son, and as far as John was concerned SAE was not gonna be that income, and that was that.

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Not quite knowing how he would be able to get SAE off the ground on his own, Tom asked Michael Quinn if he wanted to get involved: "Tom comes over to see me..." Michael recalls, "...and we were in the kitchen and he says to me 'Look Michael, 1 am give this teaching people how to work a studio a go, and I'll charge them a few bucks along the way. It'll only last six months. Nobody wants to know about it anyhow, but it might get me a bit more money towards the recording studio. Are you interested in getting involved in it with me?' and 1 went 'Nah', because 1 was really struggling then. 1 didn't have much money, and it was real hand to mouth stuff for Sharon and me. Working in the Ambulance Service had helped out a bit more, but it wasn't much to live on and bring up a family. Tom's little venture looked decidedly dodgy to me, besides, 1 couldn't put a cassette player, an amplifier, speakers and a turntable together in those days! 1 just assumed that if it came that way, it worked straight out the box! If it didn't, I'd have to call someone in, 'cos 1 had no idea of how any of this stuff worked. So 1 had to tell Tom

'No'."

Tom takes up the story: 1 figured 'OK - 1 can do this alone'. The problem was that 1 was in real trouble because John Burnett had built and paid for the console and we had his loudspeakers in the studio. He was also expected to teach the electronics part of the course. We decided, after talking it through for some time, that OK, we would dissolve our 'hand-shake' partnership, 1 would pay John for his speakers and for the components he had paid for in the console. In return, he said that he would still do a bit of teaching of electronics for the course, assuming we ever actually got any students to enrol. John and 1 agreed to this, and despite the shock, the project was back on again - though it is true to say that SAE very nearly died right there and then, before it even got going". The 'partnership' had lasted just three months.

Tom, now effectively on his own again, had to put some of the money from the sale of CCC into the School of Audio Engineering project. Not much though, its true. After paying off some debts, paying John Burnett for his share of the costs of the building of the console and patch bay, and his loudspeakers, and then keeping some aside for Kathy and Cameron to survive on, the newly formed SAE had a start-up fund of a little over A$400.

"Once again, there was no great plan for the first course" Tom says, "it kind of evolved out of my new-found necessity. 1 had decided that it should be about six months, or 24 weeks long, and that 1 would advertise in the Sydney Morning Herald for the students. At that time 1

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didn't even think that the 'school' idea of the studio would be a viable one. 1 had decided that 1 was going to give it a shot and see what happened, but all 1 really wanted to do was to have a place to work and record bands of my own and maybe make a few dollars from it. The school idea was simply a way of paying for that, it was never supposed to be the main income. 1 thought that sure, 1 would enjoy the teaching bit during the day maybe, and then 1 would record my own music and some bands at night. Simple as that".

In early January 1977, Tom called the advertising department of the Sydney Morning Herald (SMH), and placed a 3-line advert in their 'Casual Work Available' column for the 'Recording Engineer Course' at the School of Audio Engineering beginning in February. The telephone number given was that for Complete Promotions as SAE had no telephone line at this time, just an extension number upstairs.

But the ad in the SMH wasn't for any actual job as such, so the staff at the newspaper called Tom up after a few days and complained 'Hey, you can't put this ad in here because you are advertising for a job which doesn't exist'. Tom takes up the story, "So 1 said to this advertising girl, 'Yeah, but your newspaper doesn't have a column in your advertising section that suits my needs. Why don't you start up a new column for me?'. So she asked me how much advertising 1 was intending to do with them, and 1 said 'hey, 1 really don't have any idea at this point in time, currently 1 only have my little ad ... at the moment! But who knows in the future?' And from that, the Sydney Morning Herald started up a completely new column for me called 'Courses and Tuition Available', and that column runs to this day.

"Then came my next shock. She wanted payment for the advertising. 1 said to her 'What do you mean? Pay for the ads?' 1 was truly amazed because 1 thought hang on, I've already paid for your damned newspaper and now you want me to pay for the advertising as well!? You see in those early days when 1 started i~ business, 1 didn't even know that you had to pay for advertising. Nobody told me! 1 just thought you rang up and placed an ad for free. That was how naive 1 was. Anyhow, 1 came to some arrangement with them - which basically meant 1 didn't have to pay for the ads straight away because 1 argued that the course hadn't yet begun. So, with the ads placed now in the right column, 1 sat back and waited to see if anybody would bother to call the number printed in the newspaper. And you know, 1 really had no idea if the phone would ever ring".

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He needn't have worried. The phone at Complete Promotions began to ring almost straight away, certainly within a day or two of the ad being placed. So much so that downstairs there was somebody working almost full time answering the enquiries and sending them upstairs to the extension phone in the little office manned by Tom. The interest was immediate and specific - certainly for the first course that SAE offered. The majority of the students who wanted to enrol were live sound engineers who had spent part of their time working in the many bars, clubs and venues in Sydney, or tape operators/second engineers already working in recording studios who now wanted a 'formal qualification'. Now they were interested in getting into some serious studio work.

Despite there being no brochure of any kind (the first SAE brochure didn't appear until 1978, for the third course intake), within two weeks of the ads appearing in the SMH all twenty places on the first SAE course had been signed up for. "They had been 'invited 'to come and view the custom-built 'teaching facility- Tom laughs now, "...and of course, 1 explained to them that SAE was a big company -always a very big company - with resources enough to have our own ultimate recording console built -the console that 'all recording studios must have' needless to say!".

They were then presented with a hand-typed leaflet (sadly none of these now survive), which stated that the aims of SAE were "...to provide a specialized training ground for the record and music industries". It trumpeted, "...the need for this facility was felt by the industry leaders for many years. That professional training standards must be set, and a complete curriculum designed". As always with Tom, his 'bravado' and 'bluster' played as strong a role in the initial PR as did 'fact' and 'truth'.

Several students enquired what times the classes were, and on what days? " 1 hadn't even considered that, Tom told me, 1 hadn't thought about what time the classes would be, or even how long they were going to be, much less on what day they would be held. So after the first students asked me this, 1 kind of made it up on the spot and said 'Oh, er... yes, classes are on Monday and Wednesday mornings and they are two and half hours duration with a coffee break in the middle'. But the problem was that several people said that they were working during the daytime and they could only come to class if it was held in the evening.

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"So, thinking quickly, 1 said 'Sure, we run evening lectures as well', and that was when 1 came up with the idea for repeating the classes on Tuesday and Thursday if you missed an earlier one. Everything was 100% necessity driven. 'Necessity is the mother of invention', or whatever that saying is huh? So, within days 1 had the entire Monday-Wednesday, Tuesday Thursday daytime and evening class structure all figured out. Later on 1 added the Saturday all-day class, but not at that early stage. And you know 1 was the first to ever use that for courses of this nature. Now naturally, it's been copied all over the world and just about anybody who runs courses adopts this teaching timetable; but 1 came up with it first and used it at SAE in Sydney in 1977.

The way the lectures were structured meant that most of the students would never see each other - all part of the Misner master plan. 1f the students see each other, then they'll talk about the course structure. 1 didn't know how much or how little each student already knew. If they talked, then they might figure out just how ramshackle the entire set-up was". By keeping the lectures apart, it ensured that most students in different groups would never meet, even at practical sessions.

The leaflet also contained details of the fee schedule for the new students. For the first course students were to pay a non-refundable enrolment fee of A$100. There were no printed receipts, students wishing to sign up for the course would come up to the 'office' and see Tom, hand over the cash, and he would write out a hand-written receipt for the money. Tom freely admits that though this was initially stated as an 'administration fee used to guarantee your place on the course due to demand', it was in fact "...a wonderful invention of mine to get another A$1100 out of the students. The truth was, there was no administration as such to do, though there was quite a demand for places even on the first course. But 1 kept no files or paperwork of any kind. Anyway, there would not have been an enrolment fee if one of the people who dame up to me had not asked 'How much is the enrolment fee?'. 1 thought 'Hmmmmm... enrolment fee!? A$100 thank you'. Besides, nobody, not one person complained about the hundred dollars. They all seemed to think it a perfectly reasonable fee to ask for, and we've asked for an enrolment fee ever since, though today much more of it goes towards genuine administration costs". Then there were the course fees to be paid in weekly instalments. These were set at the

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somewhat strange figure of A$27.12 per week. 1 decided that it would look better if the course fees had an odd figure set each week, hence the twelve cents. The idea was that it would seem to the students that we were such an organised company, that we'd calculated the value of the course right down to the last cent. And that twenty seven dollars and twelve cents was therefore the required amount. And so each week, I'd collect the fees before class and the students would all pay up, usually in cash their A$27 dollars and of course the twelve cents.

"One day however, not long after the course had begun, one of the students came to me with a pile of loose change, mostly coppers amounting to about A$2 or so, and handed it all to me in a pile on my desk. 'There you go', he said, 'That's my twelve cents for each week remaining on the course. Now 1 only owe you A$27,exactly each week!'. It taught me a very valuable lesson - never underestimate the intelligence of the students and their ability to figure things out for themselves within SAE. And so, from the second course onwards the fees were always rounded up to the nearest exact dollar".

Of all the questions Tom was asked during the interview and enrolment process, of the most common was 'Is the course hands-on?' So this, in turn led to Tom emphasising in later interviews just how 'hand-on' the practical part of the course was. There was top be 1 unlimited use of the equipment' and later 'former SAE graduates could come back anytime and use the gear if available'. But the students now needed exercises to perform on the equipment for their 'hands-on' practical time, and none of these existed. They all had to be made up and produced in a format that could be given to them, and one of the first of these were the now famous SAE 'editing exercises'.

This involved piecing together, quite literally with a razor blade, recording tape and splicing tape, several passages of scales which were in the wrong pitch order, or notes of varying loudness which were jumbled up and which had to be re-ordered. There was also a passage of speech which made no sense until it was re-assembled - that sort of thing. All of this had to be produced, first as a master from which the students could copy a tape of their own, and then the actual exercises that were typed out and copied for them to work from. Though he could draw upon his own experiences in America, at Channel 9, Festival Studios

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and Fantasy Records, as well as John Burnett agreeing to teach the electronics side of the audio industry, when Tom added it up there was only enough material for a little over 13 weeks - and the course had been advertised as 24 weeks long! 'Something had to be done to flesh-out the curriculum. But in typical Tom Misner fashion he relegated the problem to be dealt with later - up to then he'd enough material to teach the first few weeks, and the rest he was sure, would come in due course.

So, on a fine Monday morning in mid February 1977, the first course at the School of Audio Engineering began. The school motto was 'Recording Is Sound Knowledge'. All twenty students were male, and in most cases they were older and in some cases considerably older than Tom. 1 never really thought about it at the time. 1 was 21 going on 22, and most of them were 24 or 25. The oldest was over 30. But 1 looked older than 1 was, and besides 1 could carry it off. And people forget today that there was no choice back then, you either did an audio course with me or not at all".

You would imagine it to be a daunting prospect for a 21 year old who'd never had any public speaking experience, much less professional teacher training, to stand up in front of these students who he knew were (in most cases), fellow 'professionals'. But Tom rose to the occasion and found that he not only enjoyed teaching, but that he could 'perform' in front of them like the genuine showman that his character yearned to be. And the students loved it.

As the course progressed they were taught subjects such as 'Recording The Voice', 'Drum Micing 'The Mix down Process' and 'Microphone Technique'. All basic stuff, but drawn from actual experiences and undoubtedly enhanced with 'Tom-isms' - witty little stories (which he loves to tell), they are short, concise, and highly demonstrative. It's the kind of reference material that you never forget. Tom-isms would become a feature part of the Tom/student relationship over the coming years. These little quips of knowledge that often the student didn't even know was being imparted to them until at some unknown future date, they'd recall the moment and reflect. 1 know. He did it often enough to me - but that's a later story.

Tom spent more and more time with the students during their classes, and of course during their practical sessions. "They enjoyed my teaching classes very much..." he assures himself, "...and they told me so. Though they did find John Burnett and his electronics part

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of the teaching a little dull... and I'm being kind. You see the problem was that John really knew his stuff OK, but he wasn't a teacher and 1 think he didn't enjoy that part of the course at all. His practical sessions were great, soldering, fixing amplifiers. But in front of a class talking, that just wasn't his thing.

"And of course, this came across to the students where it taught me another very valuable lesson -students can pick up on stuff like that very quickly. If you have a bad or a dull teacher, they'll be the first to know about it - long before you do. John wasn't a showman. He didn't inspire the students like 1 tried to. 1 have no doubt that they learned a lot about electronics from him, and certainly by the end of the course, they could all not only fix an amplifier and solder very well, but could've graduated to a job in basic electrical engineering. But the classroom time was boring for them, and although it was only four weeks out of the twenty-four, they obviously didn't enjoy it as much as they should have. So, from the second course onwards John didn't teach anymore, 1 cut down the electronics part of the course, and we parted our ways".

John Burnett had left Tom significantly because he needed to provide money for his wife and his family. It turns out that shortly after splitting up the partnership with Tom, John left his wife for another woman, and they started up their own teaching business called The School of Electronics. "The first 1 heard of it was a huge half-page advert in the Sydney Morning Herald" Tom remembers. "And it came as a bit of a shock because they were teaching audio engineering as well. 1 was shocked and annoyed because 1 was the only person doing it at the time and it was my idea, and now he'd taken it. But the worse thing was that John and this woman had their school in a studio in North Sydney called Tin Pan Alley run by a guy called Steve Penny.

"Tin Pan Alley was a fully professional commercial recording studio, and John and his partner were renting studio time from Steve because they couldn't afford to buy anything of their own. So when a student would go looking for audio engineering courses, they'd go and see this great big studio in North Sydney, Tin Pan Alley, and then they'd come over and see me at my basic little set-up in Elizabeth Street. And you know what? 1 still outsold him! 1 found out years later that John got taken to the cleaners by the woman, just like his partners did to him in the amp business. The School of Electronics only lasted a few years or so. It

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was all rather a sad story and 1 felt quite sorry for poor John Burnett really".

By the twelfth or thirteenth week of the course - about half way through - Tom realised he was running out of material to teach. 1 knew my stuff too..." he says, "...there's no doubt about that. 1 just didn't know how to pace myself with the classroom teaching, so that by week twelve or thirteen, I'd all but run out of material to teach the students and 1 was in trouble. So 1 made a couple of phone calls to my former colleagues in America and they sent me some copies of 'Recording Engineer/Producer' and 'dB' magazine in the mail.

"Now you have to remember that at the time there weren't such magazines published or even available in Australia. Those types of magazines were too expensive to be imported from America or England, so I'd probably the only copy of each in the country... or so 1 thought. 1 read the copy of Recording Engineer/Producer and it had some very interesting articles in it, and naturally, 1 started to teach from it the very next week.

"This all worked out fine until about three weeks later, i was in the classroom talking and writing down some material about a subject (1 can't remember what it was now), and one of the students comes up to me in the break and says 'Hey, didn't 1 read about all this in Recording Engineer/Producer magazine last month?'. The little bastard was getting the magazine sent to him as well - horror! 1 suddenly realised 1 didn't have the only copy in the country! So 1 quickly told him 'No, of course not, piss off', and rather embarrassed 1 got yet another of life's very valuable lessons from a student - don't try to take the easy route out or try to pull the wool over their eyes. They will find you out.

`Needless to say, my rich vein of source material was now somewhat compromised. However, 1 continued to receive 'Recording Engineer/Producer' and 'dB' magazine, and indeed used them as a teaching tool, but 1 never again taught directly from an article in a magazine or a book. 1 always disguised the material with some reference to my past or used background stories embellished with a bit of the truth. But never direct from the page!".

The first SAE course in Sydney ran from February to July 1977, and though it definitely came as a relief to Tom, the course surprisingly made a small profit. True, it often required him to work seven days a week, as there were practical sessions booked on Saturdays when the

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ad agency had no work required. On Sunday, Tom would clean the school himself. I had to do it on a Sunday he reflects, "...because 1 couldn't let the students see me cleaning out the toilets now could l? After all, we were a 'big company', and 1 was the 'big boss, producer engineer'. 1 couldn't have my 'street-cred' ruined by cleaning out the toilets in front of them. But that doesn't mean 1 didn't do it. 1 did, and for quite some years afterwards too.

Things didn't always run smoothly though. We had a small student revolt mid-way through the course to deal with because the class wasn't organised enough, and the students went to radio station 2JJJ to complain. The revolt was eventually sorted out by John Burnett who was teaching the electronics part of the curriculum, but it proved that unless you were giving value for money you were going to get into trouble sooner of later".

Ail twenty students passed, and were issued with an 'SAE Certificate' designed by Tom and put together by the guys in the art department downstairs. The students passed not because Tom felt that they had to, "They all passed on merit he insists. And perhaps his judgement has been vindicated for, of those twenty students, all went on to work in the industry almost immediately - and, as far as can be determined they (all 20), still do to this day - some of them playing quite influential roles in everything from audio to manufacturing to video, television and film work.

Despite his initial misgivings and the idea that the teaching would play second fiddle to recording bands, there was no doubt that SAE was a success from Day One. Throughout the first course, people would somehow hear about SAE and ring up to ask 'When is your next course running?', and Tom would say 'Oh yeah, the next course is in August'. So, in late July, more advertising with the Sydney Morning Herald led to a complete intake for the second course, this time of 24 students (once again they were all male). The fees were raised to exactly A$28 per week.

Tom was still teaching on his own however, and he decided that while he couldn't afford a full-time employee to help, he could take on a part-time lecturer...or two. Who better than one or two of the students who had just passed? They knew the course, how the teaching structure worked and the layout of the school, and moreover they'd be cheap! They were both satisfied graduates who had nothing but praise and plaudits for SAE, and they both

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wanted to work. So, George Wikaira and Allan Brewster, graduates of SAE course No.1 became Tom's first part-time teachers.

The second course was also to run for six months, from mid-August 1977, to mid-February 1978. One of the students, Steve Marr (who'd later go on to work for Tom for many years as a builder of SAEs all over the world), recalls what it was like back then. "Climbing the stairs off a side door entry to an awkward-shaped building at 420 Elizabeth Street, 1 expected to find the usual fast-talking sales shirt waiting to collect my enrolment deposit for my SAE course", Steve explains. "That image quickly vanished as 1 entered a dingy little office, permeated with the aroma of coffee and Kentucky Fried Chicken, the remains of which covered most of the desk 1 now stood in front of.

1 introduced myself and was quickly relieved of my money by, 1 came to discover, none other than Tom Misner, owner, builder and so-it-would-seem teacher of my class. Though 1 now had my reservations, and even considered heading out the door as quickly as I'd come in, 1 came to recognise Tom's canny ability to converse with someone from within the framework of their own point of view. It was an essential attribute to teach because the audio engineering fraternity are a very specific crowd, quite isolationist, socially dislocated by choice and intensely competitive within their sphere of capacity. This was reflected quite early in the groups' classroom responses growing into an 'us' and 'them' consolidation of the different groups attending on different days of the week. And Tom loved it!".

During this period Tom borrowed some money from Inge and several new pieces of equipment were added including a decent Sony Cassette player/recorder, a Technics SU7300 Amplifier (which was Hi-fi, but useful), a Roland Space-Echo and a rather dodgy analogue reverb unit. The first decent microphone was also purchased - it was a Sennheiser MD421.

"What 1 really wanted..." says Tom with a wry smile, "...was an effect unit called an Ursa Major Space Station. But 1 couldn't afford it. It was expensive yes, but not totally extravagant, but by my standards then it might as well have been a million dollars - it was way beyond just going out and buying it. But of course I'd told all the students that SAE was purchasing this hallowed piece of technology. However, when it didn't appear for week after

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week, they wanted to know where it was. I'd been collecting the fees from the students cash of course -and then paying whatever bills 1 had to pay, and what was left over went into the 'Space Station fund'.

"Problem was, 1 knew it was going to take four to five weeks more before 1 could afford this thing, so I'd tell them things like 'Oh, you know how it is in Australia? Those bloody suppliers have let me down with the import again, nobody keeps stock of this kind of gear, I'm sitting here waiting and waiting for this damned thing ...' etc. etc. All the time the reality was, the suppliers shelves were full of the stuff, but all 1 could do was go and look at it - 1 could never afford to buy more than A$200 worth of gear at any one time, and even that had to be strictly limited. But another lesson was learned - to survive in business without money you have to be very creative".

And being 'creative' in business meant that you didn't look a gift-horse in the mouth. In other words, even if something was a bit dodgy, Tom was still interested. Thus begins the story of the association with SAE and Ampex, an association that continues to this day. 1t goes like this" says Tom, grinning from ear to ear as he tells the tale, 1 was on a break from teaching and myself and some of the students from the second course were in the little milk bar across the street from the school. We were chatting away about gear and stuff, and they said to me 'OK, so what is, in your opinion, the best recorder that you can buy?', and 1 said 'Ah, that'd be the Ampex range, something like the AG440' -which was totally the top-ofthe-range eight track machine at that time. But it cost something like A$12,000 and was way beyond what 1 could afford. So they said to me 'Where would you get one of those then?' and I told them 'I guess from Ampex of course'.

"The next day, these two guys turned up at the school and came to see me in my little office. 'You know that Ampex AG440? Well we've got one in the truck downstairs and if you want it you can have it for five hundred bucks! And true enough, downstairs in their truck, there was this brand new Ampex 8-track tape machine sitting in its crate. It turns out that they'd driven over to the Ampex warehouse and walked in saying 'We're here to collect the AG440'. The Ampex warehouse was so disorganised that they just believed them, and they actually helped them load the thing into the back of their truck and then they drove away with it! Just like that.

Pg 23

"Well of course, 1 bought the machine for A$500 didn't l? So now, SAE was an 8-track facility. And the story gets better. About six weeks later, an Ampex sales rep turns up at the school and comes to see me to sell me tapes. 'Oh' he says, 'You should be using Ampex tape on your machine' he announces, and took great interest in our 'brand new' AG440, which by this time was in the studio and being used by the students. 'This looks almost brand new' the Ampex guy says, 'It's probably still under warranty - you should get it aligned'.

"Now 1 think to myself 'Oh no, that's the last thing 1 want. 1 can't send it to Ampex to be aligned, they'll find out its theirs. How am 1 going to get out of this one?'. But the Ampex chap says 'Hey, its no problem', they'll send somebody around to the school to align it for me, and indeed, two days later, a man from the maintenance department of Ampex turned up and aligned the machine for free. He didn't even look at the bloody serial number! 1 was so pleased, 1 actually purchased two brand new reels of 1 " tape for it from the sales guy.

"Anyhow, towards the end of the second course, around January 1978, 1 sold the AG440 to some bloke from Newcastle for A$6,000. With the money 1 bought an Optro Z' 16-track machine made by a brilliant acoustician called Graham Thirkell. Now, SAE was a 16-track facility, and all inside a year of opening. But despite Graham Thirkell and his genius, 1 never got sixteen tracks to work on that damned machine, 1 only ever got fourteen out of it. Still, it was an improvement on eight tracks, and a rather dodgy eight tracks at that! The Optro was a big, big box and 1 used to kick it to get it to work - not a method 1 recommend to my students today".

Through fair means or foul, the School of Audio Engineering had, by early 1978, an impressive recording capability comparable at the time to many high-end commercial studios in Australia. Everything however, wds still being channelled through the custom-built John Burnett eight channel mixing console. Despite having so impressed Tom and John when it had been built 14 months earlier, and in spite of the fact that it was 'the console that all recording studios must have', it'd been very quickly outgrown by the needs of the recording machines it now shared the room with. Clearly a new console was needed. "Besides, the Letraset kept coming off which annoyed the hell out of me" said Tom. I kept

Pg 24

re-lettering that damned console with the Letraset, and then one day the solution just came to me - use nail varnish over the top of the Letraset. So 1 did. And it worked perfectly. 1 guess it was just about that time that 1 finally managed to solve the peeling Letraset problem, 1 decided 1 really needed to change the John Burnett console - typical".

The answer to Toms' console dilemma presented itself like so many things in his life - in a somewhat strange manner. First, a room-space downstairs on the first floor at 420 Elizabeth Street became available that had previously been occupied by the graphics department of the ad agency. They'd decided, for whatever reason, that this was no longer needed. The space, which was actually two quite large rooms compared to the school upstairs, was immediately taken on by SAE. Tom now had a new master plan. Actually, it was the same master plan (i.e. no plan at all), but a re-hash of the original idea to have a commercial recording studio and to record bands there.

"I'd heard through Graham Thirkell and the grapevine - which by now actively began to seek me out..." Tom chuckles, "...that Paradise Studios in Sydney were upgrading their room to a Tom Hidley room through their Westlake connection. The problem was that they had a Souncicraft console in there. Tom Hidley came along, all uppity, and said 'You're not putting a bloody Souncicraft in one of my rooms', which admittedly would have been a bit silly, so Paradise decided to buy a Harrison, instead.

"Therefore, an almost new Soundcraft Series 213 console became available suddenly at 'the right price'. Unfortunately, it didn't really matter much to me what price it was up for - ) knew 1 couldn't afford it. But Andrew Richardson and Billy Field from Paradise Studios, insisted that i could get finance for the desk and they even arranged a guarantee or something so that the sale would go through with money from Blackmoor Finance of Melbourne.

1 realise now that there's no way the bank would have financed me on my own merits because 1 didn't have any! - 1 had no collateral, no money in the bank, no house, no assets of any kind - but they didn't know that, did they? And that was the key issue. As far as they, the finance company and anybody else were concerned, 1 was a highly successful educator with a quite impressive studio full of gear. What they also didn't know was that most of that success was based on bravado and bluster that 1 myself had concocted!

Pg 25

"So, the almost new Soundcraft Series 2B console arrived. Now, SAE finally had a really decent console and all this happened at about the same time as the additional space became available downstairs. The school was going quite well - 1 was in the process of organising the third intake by then - but at the back of my mind 1 still had my reservations about it being 'my life's work'. 1 certainly didn't know whether it would continue to make a profit.

1 decided 1 should build a commercial recording studio in the new space downstairs, just in case the school thing went wrong on me. 1 could let the students use it of course, they'd even man the studio and become 'assistant engineers' for me - which meant 1 didn't have to pay 'proper' engineers. At night it would make me money recording commercial bands for record companies, and during the day 1 had the school - Thus was born 'Central Recorders---.

As if Tom hadn't been lucky enough with Ampex already, at about the time he was finishing the construction of the studio and control room for Central Recorders (it was just around the corner from Central Station, Sydney's main railway terminus), they called him up again. Tom recalls, "There was this sales chap from Ampex on the line - not the same one, another man. And he said to me 'Ampex have got these two brand new machines that a successful business like SAE should be considering', after all, we were Ampex clients right?! It turned out that they were in fact an MM-1200, totally top-of-the-range 24~track recorder worth about A$30,000 and the other an ATR-1 00 2-track mastering machine worth A$12,000.

Naturally, 1 said to the man 'Thank you very much, but we're not really in the market for such machines right now, but 1 will of course consider Ampex if we decide to upgrade in the future'. I'm just about to put the phone down on him when he says 'Well, hey, why don't we loan you the machines on evaluation for a weekend, and then you can decide?'. What could 1 say but 'yes'? So quickly 1 called the Sydney Morning Herald - 'SAE are having an 'Open Day' this coming Saturday', 1 tell them, and 1 want splash advertising so we can show off the new Ampex 'temporary acquisitions'. 1 even had leaflets produced and made sure these were distributed in the streets, mostly it has to be said, by the existing second course students.

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"This huge truck arrived from Ampex with two enormous crates - the MM-1200 and the ATR-1 00 had arrived. Luckily, I'd finished enough of what was to become Central Recorders to the point where the studio was tidy if not quite fully operational. The Soundcraft desk had arrived from Paradise and was installed and the decorating and fitting out of the studio was almost completed. It's a good thing too, because we'd have never got those two Ampex machines all the way up the stairs to the school on the second floor - they were simply too big and heavy.

"So, now it's Saturday morning and the day of the first ever 'Open Day' at SAE, and literally dozens of people turned up. 1 was there with George Wikaira, Allan Brewster and Kathy and we proudly showed off the studio downstairs with its two brand new Ampex machines. Upstairs in the school there was the Optro 16-trackset-up - all very impressive. Needless to say, the third course intake was filled practically on that morning alone.

"After a very successful Open Day, I'd set aside Sunday to be the day that 1 would finally get to play around on the MM-1 200 and ATR-1 00 myself, before Ampex came and picked them up on Monday afternoon. Playing about with the machines, 1 remember sitting there thinking 'Wow, what wonderful pieces of equipment these are'. Then on Monday morning 1 waited for the truck to arrive to come and pick them back up. Monday afternoon came... and went, and no truck turned up. 1 thought 'Hey, I'm not gonna phone Ampex to come pick up their machines', so 1 left it. The next day came. No truck, and the next and the next.

"Six months passed by, and 1 still had the now integral Ampex MM-1200 and ATR-100 in Central Recorders when one morning 1 got a phone call - its Ampex! 'Hello' they say, 'You have an MM-1200 and an ATR-100 of ours on evaluation and we'd like them back please!'. 'Oh-oh' 1 think, but what could 1 do? So 1 said, 'Sure, come and pick them up'. And then Ampex tell me what had happened. It turned out that the sales guy who'd arranged for the evaluation loan six months earlier had made all the transport details to get the items to SAE, and then either left or been fired the very next day and so nobody had any details of where to come to pick the two machines up again. Now however, the game was up and Ampex were sending a truck to come and pick up their machines. So, the next day 1 waited for the truck to arrive... and it never came! Nor on the next day, or the next day!

Pg 27

"Six more months passed by, and 1 get another phone call one morning - its Ampex again! 'Hello' they say, 'You have two of our machines and we'd like to make arrangements with you for them!'. 'Oh yes' 1 say, 'What arrangements?'. It turns out that in the year or more since Ampex had delivered the MM-1200 and the ATR-100, they'd had a change of company policy and put out a big announcement that they were no longer in the audio recorder market - they had in fact stopped making recorder/reproducer machines. The Ampex person who had called SAE that morning was actually an auditor trying to sell the machines to me! You have to remember that new they were worth around A$42,000 for the pair, and even now a year later the MM-1200 alone was probably still worth A$20,000.

"So the Ampex auditor man says 'According to m y records you've had these machines on evaluation for more than a year now. You obviously like them so, we'll make a deal with you - a bargain price. You can have them both for just A$24,000 OM'. It was a great deal. But 1 couldn't afford that kind of money, even though it was a fantastic price and so, sadly, 1 had to turn him down. 'Besides' 1 said to the man, 'They're second hand now!'. 'OK' the auditor chap said, '...we'll send a truck to come and pick them up tomorrow at noon'.

"The next day, bang on time, a huge truck arrived from Ampex to come and pick up the two machines. Just as the driver was getting out of the cab, there's a call from Ampex they want to talk to him on the phone. The truck driver takes the call, looks a bit disgruntled and then puts down the telephone. 'The collection's cancelled' he tells me, and with that he drives away - and 1 still have the two machines! It turns out that Ampex have no internal system in operation for the return of machines, that their paperwork has simply no way of accepting the MM-1 200 and the ATR-1 00 back into the warehouse. So they left them with me.

"Another ten months go by and 1 get yet another call from the auditors at Ampex - they want to do another deal. 'How much are the machines worth to SAE?' they ask me. 'But they're old machines now!' 1 said to the guy, 'Besides, you're not making any machines anymore. How do 1 know if Ampex are even gonna support them in the years to come?'. 'Oh sure' he says to me, '...Ampex will support them for at least the next ten years. We must make a deal for the machines - tell me what you're offering for them'.

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"So now 1 had another dilemma - what did 1 offer them for the two machines (which were still worth about A$15-18,000 even then). So 1 said to the chap 'You know, as a school we're just a poor education facility? Really, 1 couldn't offer you any more than say... A$3,000 for them!'. i could hear the guy choking on the other end of the phone. 'There's no way we could let them go that cheap' he tells me, so 1 said 'OK, well you'd better come and pick them up hadn't you?'. And 1 thanked him and put the phone down.

"One hour later, and the Ampex man rings me up again. 'Hello' he says, 'OK. I've have had a word with my manager and he says you can have the machines for A$3,000'. And this, 1 believe, is the start of the legend of Tom Misner began, 'The Misner Factor' and SAE doing so well, because all the other studios in Sydney, Trafalgar, Studios 301, Paradise, they must have thought 'Wow! Tom must be doing really well to afford those two machines' - and all the time they only cost me A$3,000. That Ampex deal was unbelievable - they even arranged the finance for the A$3,000 - and were so happy with it, they ran ads in magazines showing me naturally happy, and proud, with a smiling face, sitting in front of my new acquisitions - an MM-1200 and an ATR-100. Fantastic. That was my first encounter with Ampex - and they have been my friends ever since!".

At the end of the second course in February 1978, one of the students became the first SAE student to fail. He complained bitterly to Tom who refused to grant him the SAE Certificate, and the situation grew quite nasty before Tom came up with the solution. "The students were told that they had to meet certain criteria to pass the course", he says. "But because 1 didn't have any background in education 1 had to make up any schemes for this as 1 went along.

"So, during the course the students had to take four examinations that were then marked, and if they didn't pass an exam, or they finished bottom of the list, the student in question had to prove me that they were ready and able, before 1 let them move on to the next stage. If they finished bottom of the list in two exams in a row, then they were out of the course. 1 was tough, but they wanted me to be tough -and you know, it gave the course credibility in their eyes. It was as if their money was not just a passport to the certificate.

Created: 24-Feb-2007

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