TAMA DS-200

Stewart Copeland regularly used a TAMA DS-200 drum synthesizer for live performances with The Police from 1979 to 1984.

He started with just one TAMA DS-200 during the Reggatta De Blanc tour, being triggered by a 8" Remo Rototom. By the time of the Ghost In The Machine tour, he had two DS-200's. Two supplementary TAMA tom-toms had drum triggers for one DS-200 and the other DS-200 was for enhancing the bass drum.

As of 2022, both TAMA DS-200's are in the collection of Craig Betts.

Quotes about the TAMA DS-200
Jeff Seitz on the TAMA DS-200: "'We still use the Tama Sniper drum synthesizer (DS-200) and those come with very small contact pickups that you can place anywhere on anything. The pickup triggers an oscillator which also has a built in sweep control. It can sweep down at a very fast rate or a very slow rate. We have pickups on some tom-toms where you get basically a Syndrum effect; a sweeping sound down. The other one is triggered by the bass drum mic' itself. I actually tune the oscillator to a very low sound so the live bass drum sound is actually mixed with the synthesised sound and you get a very deep bass drum effect. So the bottom end of the bass drum is actually artificially produced by this drum synthesiser. The effect is much like the Boom Box, which can't be used on a record. We get it down to around sixty or fifty cycles and you’re giving the bass drum a lower effect without doing it with equalisation at the PA board. But in a big hall, you’re dealing with the feedback of the room and if you try to get those low EQ's on the mic', you may get feedback from the room feeding back into the mic'. So we don't have to deal with that at all.' (Jeff Seitz, Stewart Copeland's drum tech)"