Studer TLS-2000
A synchronizer that locks tape to picture to a tolerance of microseconds, and gave a Toronto studio a fifty-percent jump in business.
Overview
The TLS-2000 is Studer's Tape Lock System. Calling it "just a synchronizer" undersells it. The company's own documentation describes it as a synchronizing and electronic editing system for audio-to-audio, audio-to-film, and audio-to-video work. It locks a slave machine to a master over SMPTE code, at any of the standard frame rates: 24, 25, 29.97, or 30 fps. Offset between the two code numbers can be dialed in up to a full 24 hours in either direction. That sounds excessive until you're chasing a reel that starts an hour into a session.
The editing is where the TLS-2000 separates itself from a basic chase synchronizer. Punch-in and punch-out points can be entered to 1 ms accuracy, and the transport will loop between those two points. That makes it an electronic editing tool rather than a passive lockbox. Accurate parking is adjustable to ±5 ms, which is what makes precise manual editing possible at all. The system also carries a programmable autolocator keyed to either time code or real time.
The sources disagree on sync accuracy. One Studer manual puts the figure at "about 30 microseconds," while a second document states ±100 microseconds. Both are far tighter than the frame-accuracy that earlier systems settled for. Collectors comparing literature should note the discrepancy rather than assume a single number. Lock-up time is quoted at roughly three seconds. The slave machine, per Studer's documentation, must be either an A80/VU or an A800 recorder. No interface is needed to sync up to non-Studer gear, provided SMPTE time code can be supplied.
The capabilities go beyond two-machine lock. The TLS-2000 will let two machines track each other under all conditions, including fast forward and rewind. It can perform deck control of a video machine for loop operation, start coincident-address playback from up to four machines for sound effects, and communicate directly with a video editing complex. Studer's literature says it can carry out the most elaborate audio post-production jobs. The control information for an A80/VU multitrack comes from the time code supplied by the video master, requiring only a symmetrical line with a transmission range of 20 Hz to 150 kHz.
Eastern Sound in Toronto had been running the system since August 1977. Studio manager John Ellison described its limits as set only by the ingenuity and knowledge of the people using it, and gave an example: recording a TV music/variety show on two-inch videotape. The old methods were to record audio straight onto the videotape - what you get is what you hear - or to use what Ellison called a primitive sync system to cut audio to multitrack. With the Studer, the frame could be subdivided into roughly 57 milliseconds, letting sync be fine-tuned so that lip-sync never looked mechanical. Eastern credited the system with roughly a fifty-percent growth in business. That came from the studio manager, not a brochure.
The TLS-2000 turns up in the installation lists of serious rooms through the late 1970s and into the mid-1980s. Mix (October 1985, p.199) listed a TLS 2000 synchronizer among the gear in Fantasy Studios' Studio A in Berkeley, alongside an A800 24-track and an A-80 two-track. Studio Sound (February 1978, p.47) pitched the system's flexibility at owners of existing Studer rigs. It noted that machines could be positioned side by side or on separate floors, interconnected by a standard 3-pole audio line, and that updating existing A80 systems was simplicity itself.
The system was also sold as part of a broader package. Studio Sound (October 1978, p.26) described a companion remote unit that deliberately omitted transport control, evidently designed to complement the TLS2000 tape lock programmer, which carried those controls. A trolley console was produced to hold both units together. F.W.O. Bauch Ltd. showed a Studer 24-track with the TLS2000 "all purpose synchroniser" at a trade exhibition, per Beat Instrumental.
For anyone chasing one today, the TLS-2000 is a period professional system built around specific slave machines, the A80/VU and A800. It's not much use without one of those transports to lock. The mainframe, power supplies, and controller were often racked or closeted away from the machines themselves, as the Lakeside facility installation described in Recording Engineer shows. There the TLS mainframe and its power supplies sat in a small closet behind the multitracks, and the controller was brought out on a custom trolley. Complete systems are frequently scattered across a facility rather than sold as a unit, so buyers should expect to assemble a working set. The documentation is inconsistent on sync accuracy, so verify any quoted figure against the specific manual revision that ships with the unit.
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