Abstract
How can we define the musical sampler instrument of today? A laptop together with a software-controlling interface is perhaps the closest we get to the conventional concept of “a sampler” today, as it occupies, as well as complements, the role samplers had during the its golden age in the 1980s and 1990s. Scholars who draw attention to aesthetic choices made when utilizing sampling techniques in popular music production usually neglect that musicians/producers often have different musical approaches to different kinds of samplers. In this thesis, I address the need for recognizing the significance of interface-design when researching sampling technology. Digital samplers have always been multi-purpose instruments, and different interfaces provide different interactional approaches to recording, manipulating, replaying and sequencing audio-segments. By exploring new ways of conceptualizing our understanding of sampler instruments, and by studying the use and development of different sampler interface-designs from a sociotechnical perspective, I argue that we can uncover several important aspects of how the historical and contemporary uses of sampling technology are perceived and defined in the sites of music production.