50 Years of SAE
For almost half a century, SAE University College has played an essential role in Adelaide’s music story, teaching generations of sound engineers, producers, and creative practitioners while providing a place where the city’s musicians could experiment, record and learn.
SAE Adelaide’s story began in 1981, when its fourth Australian campus was established on North Terrace. SAE was originally founded by Tom Misner in Sydney in 1976 to meet a growing need for formal training in sound production. Studio technician Steve Defina was sent to Adelaide to establish the new campus, and classes quickly filled. The technology was entirely analogue. Reel-to-reel tape machines dominated the studios, and editing meant razorblades, splicing tape, and patience.
By 1988, demand had outgrown the North Terrace site, and SAE moved to larger premises at Camden Park. Throughout the 1990s, the campus became a meeting point for Adelaide’s burgeoning original music scene. Students and staff worked across genres, documenting the city’s post-punk and guitar bands alongside early hip-hop and extreme metal. Demo tapes, live recordings and commercial releases were produced there, including the first EP from the Hilltop Hoods.
For previous student, sound engineer, and musician Chris Lambert, SAE became more than a place to work.
” It was at Camden Park that I joined a collective of sound engineers and musicians called NewAuralNet that would shape my future trajectory. It was with this group that I learned the studio-craft that formed the foundation of my future… All these individuals were highly influential, not just for me, but on the entire media industry within South Australia and beyond.”
Then the technology changed.
When SAE moved to Gouger Street in 1999, the Adelaide campus entered the digital era. Lambert became its first multimedia lecturer, teaching students and local musicians how to work with synthesizers, samplers, Pro Tools, Ableton Live and other emerging technologies. The four person staff did almost everything themselves, teaching, designing, marketing, repairing equipment, supporting students and even cleaning the campus.
Gouger Street became the site of its own musical moments. Lambert recorded Delta’s vocals for the Culture of Kings II compilation and bass for London hip-hop pioneer Ty. There were also more informal experiments like recording the echo of a concrete stairwell, battling a temperamental vending machine, and countless conversations between musicians, engineers, and students.
In 2020, SAE began its most recent move from Gouger Street into purpose-built facilities within the historic Eynesbury building on Franklin Street. The new campus opened for higher education in 2023, bringing studios, live rooms, edit suites, and extensive technical facilities into the heart of Adelaide. Alongside audio, the campus now also teaches degrees in Film, Games, Animation, Music, Design and Computer Science, as well as a Master of Creative Industries.
Today, SAE Adelaide is a very different institution from the four person operation of the Gouger Street years, yet the fundamental idea remains the same: give creative people the tools, knowledge and space to make something new. Organisations like SAE are part of what makes Adelaide a UNESCO City of Music. A thriving music city needs more than artists and stages; it needs the skilled people behind them, the sound engineers mixing live shows, running monitors, recording artists and producing music. The equipment has changed dramatically since those first reel-to-reel machines on North Terrace, but the need for people who know how to use it has remained.