Edinburgh Napier University

  This paper will focus on the Fairlight Computer Musical Instrument (CMI), which is generally regarded as the first commercially available digital sampler. However, its designers, Peter Vogel and Kim Ryrie, were primarily interested in the use of digital synthesis to replicate the sounds of acoustic instruments; sampling was a secondary concern. Users of the Fairlight CMI began to use it to sample the sounds of everyday life (Peter Gabriel, Kate Bush) and experiment with the pre-set sounds of the sample library (Afrika Bambaataa, Arthur Baker). Using a conceptual framework from Science and Technology Studies (STS) and this case study as an example of how musicians use instruments in ways unimagined by their designers, my argument is that writing a history of music technologies such as digital sampling instruments needs to also be the writing of a history of the designers and the users of these music technologies.