AMS DMX 15-80

The AMS DMX 15-80 is a rack-mounted 15-bit digital delay/harmonizer, released by Advanced Music Systems in 1978. It has a mono input and stereo output. Not to be confused with its successor, the more well-known DMX 15-80S, which had stereo inputs and outputs (hence the 'S' suffix).

Producer Nigel Gray had an AMS DMX 15-80 delay unit at Surrey Sound Studios. He used it on studio work with The Police, especially for occasionally enhancing guitars and vocals on Outlandos D'Amour and Reggatta De Blanc. Normally he would set a delay of ~40 ms on one output and ~80 on the other to create a stereo chorusing effect. Nigel's AMS was likely an early version of the DDL without the additional pitch changing and sampling functions many of the later AMS DDL's had.

Stewart Copeland's AMS DMX 15-80
Stewart Copeland owned an AMS DMX 15-80 delay unit, which also came with pitch changing cards (introduced 1979). It was part his onstage rack with The Police in the early 1980s. The Frejus concert on 28 August 1980 is the first known time he had the AMS.

The AMS was intended as a backup to the Deltalab DL-4, primarily as he preferred using a delay that was readily adjustable (i.e. with knobs - which the DL-4 had). He also commented that the AMS was not so good to tour with, as it "gets drunk on Mexican power". Hence the AMS was retired from touring use by the time of the Synchronicity tour.

Stewart continued to use the AMS as a studio outboard unit, such as on The Rhythmatist and a variety of other projects in the 1980s.