.

Appropriately, this story on Max Byer relies in large degree, on information collected by Harry Mauger. Featured himself in 'Think Back' for November 1994, Harry as you may recall is a retired recording engineer from Melbourne's Astor/Philips Group, and his contribution emphasises Max Byer's activities from a professional viewpoint.

Included were several photographs made available by Doug Richards, a former Byer employee who had the foresight to capture factory scenes with the idea they might one day be of historical value.

For my own part, the article also involved an exercise in recalling the past - but from the hobbyist level. Back in the 1950's, I was a professional technical writer by day, but with a strictly amateur spare-time interest in film and slide projection, stage presentation and music by night - in the context of suburban and rural church actvities.

Out of this latter activity came a hankering to make my own sound recordings - also on a strictly amateur basis. But as for other would-be recordists at the time, the problem was: how to go about it?
.

The Byer 'Junior' had no overhead traverse mechanism. Instead, the pickup/cutter was locked to a spindle supported by a bearing through the assembly plate and carrying a sector vane underneath, as shown in Fig.3, reproduced from the May 1951 issue of this magazine, then known as Radio & Hobbies.

In cutting mode, the vane engaged a worm drive from the turntable spindle, which drove the sector and hence the attached cutter radially across the disc, producing the required spiral groove.

In the Byer recorder, the mechanism was normally set up to drive the stylus from the label towards the outer edge of the disc, leaving the 'swarf (lacquer 'string' removed by the cutting stylus) behind in the recorded area - hopefully clear of the stylus as it nudged its way progressively outwards.

Needless to say, my first reaction on encountering the disarmingly basic looking Byer recorder/player was to install a recording stylus and blank disc, and cut a plain groove. Despite the economy of design, the groove turned out to be visually 'clean' - evenly spaced and with no sign of mechanical vibration or 'rumble'. The designer/manufacturer had obviously known a thing or two!
.

Prompted by Harry Meager, Jack Richardson, Byer's one-time factory foreman, jotted down a dozen-odd pages of handwritten notes which came as an eye-opener to a mere Sydneysider whose contact with BRS had mainly to do with hobby-level recording.

Recalling Byer's disc coating process, Jack explained that the discs were loaded in rows onto six rotating spindles, radiating spider-like from a central vertical column. Supported below them was a special tank containing the lacquer.

With the discs rotating, the tank was raised slowly just far enough to allow the lacquer to partially submerge both sides of one row of discs at a time, leaving un-coated an area around the spindle sufficient to accommodate the label.

The lacquer tank was then lowered, leaving the coated discs rotating on the 'spider' to drip and dry while the next row of discs was readied for their partial immersion.

Byer had two such six-armed spiders. Needless to say, it was essential that the process be carried out under dust-free conditions.

12-inch and 16-inch metal discs were normally sanded prior to coating, to ensure that the lacquer would adhere. Then they were heated under a half-ton pressure to ensure flatness.

Jack Richardson said that Max took up the production of disc recorders as much as anything to support the demand for his blank discs.

From the first basic portable model mentioned earlier, successive variants provided a two-speed facility with microgroove, another for either inside-out or outside-in recording, a special record-only head with harder suspension rubbers, and a supplementary purppse-built amplifier to provide for PA etc., as well as amateur recording.

The play/record heads were assembled in-house, as were moving coil pickups for use with recording lathes involving professional 12-inch and 16-inch turntables. For the latter, Byer Industries also produced their own overhead traverse mechanism.
.

By 1946, Max Byer had taken over a larger section of the Dorcas Street premises, allowing him to cast in-house up to 16-inch transcription turntables for the broadcast industry. In 1947, further expansion saw occupation of the whole factory and incorporation as Byer Industries Pty Ltd.

When stereo sound appeared on the horizon, Max Byer was one of those who convinced Melbourne radio stations 3XY and 3UZ to cooperate in a public demonstration. Each broadcast one side of the stereo signal and the public were invited to listen to the result, with two radios in the same room tuned to the respective stations.
.

Faced with such situations, my enthusiasm for amateur disc recording waned markedly. Editor John Moyle fared rather better, as is evident from articles published in the early 1950's.

John's involvement with the technology peaked when he acquired a later version of the Byer recorder, able to produce a direct cut recording in the LP format: microgroove and 33rpm.

As a connoisseur of classical music, John saw it as an opportunity to record ABC concert broadcasts, particularly those carried by their 'experimental' FM outlet.
There was no problem with temperamental artists, and the performances had already been 'miked' and monitored to broadcast standards.

John generally managed to obtain blanks and stylii which would steer the swarf well clear of the uncut area. In any case, with the incoming signal under control, he was able to concentrate on the cut - camel-hair brush in hand, to nudge the swarf aside if the need arose.
.

About the same time (about 1950 ??) magnetic tape and tape equipment made its tentative appearance on the local market, although it was the subject, initially, of much confusion about standards. There were four or more traverse speeds (30, 15, 7.5 and 3.75 inches/second), and the tape was variously spooled oxide-in or oxide-out.

The magnetic track(s) could occupy the full l/4" width of the tape or be 'halftrack' or 'quarter-track' and/or accommodate mono in various configurations - or conceivably, stereo.

The physical stiffness and flatness of tape also tended to vary with the brand, batch or age, which sparked endless arguments about tape and takeup methods - arguments about which we probably copped more than our fair share in the editorial office of R&H.

As it happened, I tended to be exposed predominantly to the Pyrox/AWA 'Magictape' recorder, which was utilitarian rather than trendy. But it convinced me that tape technology held the ultimate answer for both professionals and amateurs alike.

Max Byer's initial response to the appearance of tape was not to produce a self-contained tape recorder/player. Instead, with simplicity and economy in mind, he devised the unique BRS 'Magnofilm' tape adaptor, further reinforcing Byer's public image as a supplier to hobbyists.
.

The adapter was less costly than a separate self-contained deck, and produced excellent recordings. But it required a fair amount of fiddling to set up, rewind, erase and load the tape.

John Moyle acknowledged its potential at the time but, to him, it provided another example of the 'messiness' that seemed to characterise the new medium. "Falls off the reel" was his oft repeated grouch about tape!

John didn't mind in the least being regarded as a 'disc' man. But, then again, he didn't live long enough to experience the 'tidiness' of the compact tape cassette, and its dramatic transformation from an inexpensive handyman system to a rival for top-quality stereo microgroove discs.

Here again, Jack Richardson's notes add depth to our personal recollections of that very early phase. Readying for the tape era and looking well beyond the humble tape adaptor, Byere engaged their own pattern maker, set up an in-house foundry for castings and prepared to do their own silk screening.

They put a lot of work into the production of tape heads in-house - sortie of which used .005" mumetal laminations, stacked and glued into blocks, heat treated and machined into shape. Special attention was given to head contour and positioning to optimise tape contact, and also to spooling motors controlled by DC to apply tension. At one stage, Byer pole pieces found a ready market in Canada, by reason of their superior performance.

Aside from the tape adaptor, Byers also developed and released the first Australian continuous tape player. Jack still has painful memories of a tape loop containing the 'Happy Little Vegemites' advertising ditty, which was tested in the factory for weeks on end - driving everyone within earshot slowly around the bend!

It would appear that, having released his tape adaptor, Max Byer lost no time in developing self-contained tape recorders, such that Jack Richardson suggests that Max could reasonably be credited with producing the first-ever Australian-made unit.

The Byer 55, he says, was 'developed in a hurry' to keep things moving while they proceeded with the design of the more elaborate Byer 66.

Employing a single motor and mechanical function control, the 55 attracted favourable comment from the CSIRO for its simplicity of operation. Max Byer was so delighted that, uncharacteristically, he hired an aerial signwriter to write 'BYER 55' in the sky over Melbourne.

Seen as a 'domestic' recorder, the 55 was reasonably successful in its own right although admittedly - says Jack - it was "a bit of a nightmare" to service.

The Byer 66 was intended for the more demanding commercial market, and avoided the use of pressure pads and complex wrap-arounds for the tape. Well ahead of other portables, it was typically used for high-speed copying of speech and for background music at funeral services and other public gatherings.

In fact, Jack says that its performance was such that it was regarded as a neo-professional machine, "with very few shortcomings".

Basic amplifiers and auxiliary tuners, etc., for the Byer 66 were manufactured by Zephyr Products but were married to the tape system and double-checked at the Dorcas Street factory.

Following the 66 came the 77 Mk 1, Byer's first three-motor plus solenoid operated deck. Designed with the 1956 Olympic Games in view, at least 250 were supplied to the ABC, where they performed well.
.

What was possibly the supreme compliment to Max Byer came in R&H in June 1951, when it was announced that Byer Industries Pty Ltd had been granted exclusive manufacturing rights of the American 'Magnecorder' for the Sterling market.

The announcement continued: the Magnecorder ... is used more extensively in the United States than any other (professional) recorder ... and promises to prove extremely popular with Australian radio and electrical engineers ... It is understood that the first batch is already off the assembly line.

For the remainder of the Byer story, I am indebted mainly to Clive Sloss - who some may subsequently remember as a sales executive with Simon Gray Pty Ltd, the Melbourne hifi equipment distributor (Leak, Wharfedale, Ortofon, etc).
.

Early in his career, Clive had gained experience in broadcasting as a technician with stations 3AK, 3XY and 3UZ. In the early 1960's, he applied for and gained a position with Byer Industries as Technical Sales Manager. His initial assignment was to promote the new Mark II versions of the Byer 66 and 77 reel-to-reel recorders.

I quote: "Accepting the position was a sheer delight. Max was a perfectionist and a great person; the equipment was well constructed and the technology was up to date at the time. Tripping around Australia soon became my vocation."

Clive could rightly claim that Byer Industries had a good reputation for their acetate discs, accessories including the RCA/AWA ribbon microphone, disc cutters and professional turntables (including those supplied to New Zealand).

There was the model 55 portable domestic tape recorder, model 66 rated as the best of the portables, the 77 and the Byer-built PTH Magnecorder - for many years the 'workhorse' of the broadcasting industry. And now, the Mark n 66 and 77.

According to Max Byer's daughter, her father encountered health problems in 1958 and 'retired' from the recording industry in 1958, although "he never really stopped creating and becoming engrossed in whatever he project he took up".

Clive Sloss says that for a period, a three-man management committee (including himself) looked after the business affairs of Byer Industries.

It became apparent to them that the Company was financially marginal, in that while Byer enjoyed some protection in the way of import duties, such was the competition that capital would always be a problem.

Ultimately, Byers was taken over by the Rola company of Richmond, who retained the factory at Dorcas Street but moved the Administration and Sales departments to their own head office.

Later, Rola itself was taken over by Plessey, who were then swallowed by Philips. In the process Byer Industries virtually disappeared as an entity.

Clive says that he lost personal contact with Max Byer, who apparently established a motel in Holbrook, NSW "which still bears the Byer name and logo". Max subsequently moved to Adelaide.

His daughter Patricia simply records that "after numerous business ventures, he eventually retired to the Mornington Peninsula in the early 1980's. He passed away in January 1985".

To round off the biography, I can do no better than quote from Clive Sloss' summary: "Byer Industries was a small but efficient organisation, led by a great man who was dedicated in the main to broadcasting and allied industries".
.
by Neville Williams - 20 ELECTRONICS Australia, August 1995
.