Where Computers Cards meet Cassettes
Installation of the Telex system was painless on our Micron Millennia 933 MHz PC running Windows ME. Telex recommends installing the EDAT, Zing and Fast Edit software and drivers before installing the cards. Two adjacent PCI slots were used for the cards, and the system immediately recognized them and located the supplied drivers.

The first step in the computer-based duplication process is to digitize audio masters into the computer through the Zing card. The card has four RCA-style audio inputs that accept a relatively wide range of signal levels, thanks to the software’s input gain control. An audio file name is then given for each input being used, and the input speed is selected (1x, 2x, 4x or 8x). The Zing software offers very good metering for setting input levels, including a peak hold feature that displays the number of clipped samples. Once digitizing commences, the software shows the elapsed time of recording as well as the time remaining on the hard drive.

The Zing card records standard Wave (.WAV) files to the directory of your choosing. At normal speed, the Zing card is performing no magic whatsoever—your computer’s standard sound card will accomplish the same thing. It’s when you engage the higher-speed modes that the Zing card begins doing something special, which is turning a high-speed audio stream into a normal audio file.

You only reap this benefit, however, when you have the means to play back your original master tapes at high speed. There are really only two ways to do this—with a reel-to-reel recording played back at a higher speed, or a Telex XGEN 8x master (playback) machine attached to the new Telex DI-200 interface. Without one of these at your disposal, the Zing card will be of no advantage.

Once your audio masters are in the computer in .WAV format, it’s time to fire up the EDAT software. This software lets you specify the files used for all four record tracks, saving this information as a “Master” file for easy recall. The Master file also stores information about duplication speed, tape type and length, etc. Multiple Master files can be combined into a “Project” file for large duplication jobs.

The EDAT software displays level meters for all four audio tracks, as well as various file details and the elapsed time/remaining time for the master. In automatic mode, EDAT rewinds all slave cassettes before and after recording. In manual mode, recording can be stopped and started without rewinding.

If you need to do some editing of your audio files between digitizing and output, Telex provides a copy of Minnetonka Software’s Fast Edit 4.0 audio editing software. With Fast Edit, you can easily rearrange audio clips, eliminate unwanted sections, combine multiple files, do fades, apply effects and more. When you’re finished editing a wave file, you just save it back as a new file and import it into your EDAT Master.

Impressions
Anyone having experience with the truly dreadful-sounding duplication systems found in most churches is probably keenly interested in how the system sounds. The scoop on the Telex is that it sounds very, very good. Considering that the test system cranked out cassettes at a whopping 16x, the copies had an impressive amount of high-frequency clarity and a very low noise floor.

The stated high-frequency response of the XGEN is between 10 kHz and 12.5 kHz depending on tape formulation. Multiply this by the duplication speed, and the Telex system is churning out frequencies upwards of 200 kHz. Not too shabby!

The only significant artifact of the duplication was a quick pitch warble or vibrato (called “flutter”) apparent in the audio. While not noticeable during speaking, it was audible during musical programs. Flutter, which is the result of small speed variations during duplication, is better controlled with the 8x XGEN models. Churches planning on duplicating music will get better results with the slower duplication speeds.