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All Outputs (41)

Following the Distributors: Syco Systems and Selling the Fairlight CMI (2025)
Presentation / Conference Contribution
Harkins, P. (2025, July). Following the Distributors: Syco Systems and Selling the Fairlight CMI. Paper presented at International Association for the Study of Popular Music (IASPM) International conference, Paris, France

In his study of the Minimoog, Trevor Pinch writes that ‘it is sellers who tie the world of use to the world of design and manufacture. Sellers are ‘boundary shifters’. They are the true ‘missing masses’ of technology studies’. He was referring to Dav... Read More about Following the Distributors: Syco Systems and Selling the Fairlight CMI.

Recording, Resampling, and Repurposing: The Case of Portishead’s Dummy and the Bristol Sound (2025)
Presentation / Conference Contribution
Harkins, P. (2025, July). Recording, Resampling, and Repurposing: The Case of Portishead’s Dummy and the Bristol Sound. Paper presented at International Association for the Study of Popular Music (IASPM) International conference, Paris, France

The Bristol Sound, which is often referred to as trip-hop, was a musical scene that developed in the late 1980s and 1990s and is strongly associated with the practices of digital sampling. Influenced by the culture of hip-hop, the post-punk scene in... Read More about Recording, Resampling, and Repurposing: The Case of Portishead’s Dummy and the Bristol Sound.

Frictions and Restrictions: Domestic Music Making and the Case of Girls Rock School (2024)
Presentation / Conference Contribution
Harkins, P. (2024, September). Frictions and Restrictions: Domestic Music Making and the Case of Girls Rock School. Paper presented at IASPM UK & Ireland Conference, University of Newcastle, UK

The use of digital technologies, such as MIDI, Digital Audio Workstations (DAWs), Virtual Studio Technologies (VSTs), sampling software, web-based platforms, and music-making apps, have been implicated in deep changes about how and where popular musi... Read More about Frictions and Restrictions: Domestic Music Making and the Case of Girls Rock School.

‘Have you tried fixing it?’ Repairing (and not Repairing) the Fairlight CMI (2024)
Presentation / Conference Contribution
Harkins, P. (2024, June). ‘Have you tried fixing it?’ Repairing (and not Repairing) the Fairlight CMI. Paper presented at Innovation in Music Conference, Kristiania University College, Oslo, Norway

In his study about the continued importance of old technologies, David Edgerton writes that ‘the majority [of scientists and engineers] have always been mainly concerned with the operation and maintenance of things and processes; with the use of thin... Read More about ‘Have you tried fixing it?’ Repairing (and not Repairing) the Fairlight CMI.

‘Keeping the Machines Alive’: Repairing and Maintaining the Fairlight CMI. (2023)
Presentation / Conference Contribution
Harkins, P. (2023, June). ‘Keeping the Machines Alive’: Repairing and Maintaining the Fairlight CMI. Paper presented at Innovation In Music Conference 2023, Edinburgh, UK

The story of the Fairlight CMI is a story of misuse. Designed primarily as a digital synthesizer for the imitation of acoustic instruments, it was used in the worlds of popular music to sample the sounds of everyday life and pre-existing recordings.... Read More about ‘Keeping the Machines Alive’: Repairing and Maintaining the Fairlight CMI..

Crisis? What Crisis? Carbonism, Solutionism, and the (Un)sustainability of Music (2023)
Presentation / Conference Contribution
Harkins, P. (2023, June). Crisis? What Crisis? Carbonism, Solutionism, and the (Un)sustainability of Music. Paper presented at XXII Biennial IASPM International Conference, Minneapolis, Minnesota, US

In June 2021, the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research published ‘Super-Low Carbon Live Music: a roadmap for the UK live music sector to play its part in tackling the climate crisis’. Commissioned by the Bristol trip-hop group, Massive Attack,... Read More about Crisis? What Crisis? Carbonism, Solutionism, and the (Un)sustainability of Music.

Beyond Sustainability: The Music Industries Declare Emergency on Planet Earth – or do they? (2022)
Presentation / Conference Contribution
Harkins, P. (2022, August). Beyond Sustainability: The Music Industries Declare Emergency on Planet Earth – or do they?. Paper presented at IASPM UK and Ireland Conference, University of Liverpool

In December last year, a number of record labels based in the UK signed the Music Climate Pact in which they committed to reducing the emission of greenhouse gases by 50% by 2030 and achieving net zero by 2050. Signatories of the pact included the th... Read More about Beyond Sustainability: The Music Industries Declare Emergency on Planet Earth – or do they?.

Finding the Female Users: A Feminist Historiography of the Fairlight CMI (2022)
Presentation / Conference Contribution
Harkins, P., & Blackburn, M. (2022, June). Finding the Female Users: A Feminist Historiography of the Fairlight CMI. Paper presented at Rethinking the History of Technology-based Music, University of Huddersfield

The story of the Fairlight CMI, a digital synthesizer that was designed in Sydney, Australia in the mid-to-late 1970s, is dominated by a few high-profile male users: Peter Gabriel, Herbie Hancock, and Stevie Wonder. In both academic and popular histo... Read More about Finding the Female Users: A Feminist Historiography of the Fairlight CMI.

(Dis)locating Democratisation: Grime, Digitalisation, and 'The PlayStation Generation' (2021)
Presentation / Conference Contribution
Harkins, P. (2021, May). (Dis)locating Democratisation: Grime, Digitalisation, and 'The PlayStation Generation'. Paper presented at Annual Symposium of Music Scholars in Finland, Online

For many commentators over the last two decades, digitisation represents nothing short of a watershed moment in how music is produced, stored, and consumed. In this paper, I address claims around the democratisation of music making with the advent of... Read More about (Dis)locating Democratisation: Grime, Digitalisation, and 'The PlayStation Generation'.

'Need we Say More': Contemporary Responses to the Fairlight CMI (2020)
Presentation / Conference Contribution
Harkins, P. (2020, December). 'Need we Say More': Contemporary Responses to the Fairlight CMI. Paper presented at Sound Instruments and Sonic Cultures: An Interdisciplinary Conference, National Science & Media Museum, Bradford/Online

Often described as the first digital sampler, the Fairlight Computer Musical Instrument (CMI) was primarily a digital synthesizer and computer workstation. Launched in 1979, it was one of the technologies that were used to re-shape the practices of m... Read More about 'Need we Say More': Contemporary Responses to the Fairlight CMI.

(Dis)locating Democratisation: Grime, Digitalisation, and ‘The PlayStation Generation’ (2020)
Presentation / Conference Contribution
Harkins, P. (2020, May). (Dis)locating Democratisation: Grime, Digitalisation, and ‘The PlayStation Generation’. Paper presented at London Calling IASPM UK & Ireland Conference, Online/University of West London

For many commentators over the last two decades, digitisation represents nothing short of a watershed moment in how music is produced, stored, and consumed. Just as the era of the fluid, non-degradable perfect digital copy has undermined the ability... Read More about (Dis)locating Democratisation: Grime, Digitalisation, and ‘The PlayStation Generation’.

Following the Auteurs: Kate Bush and the Fairlight CMI (2019)
Presentation / Conference Contribution
Harkins, P. (2019, December). Following the Auteurs: Kate Bush and the Fairlight CMI. Paper presented at This Woman's Work: A Kate Bush Symposium, Edinburgh College of Art

I’m a big fan of Kate Bush’s music but my priority in this paper is not to praise her many achievements. Instead, I want to look at how she was using music technologies in the 1980s and, more specifically, her relationship with the Fairlight Computer... Read More about Following the Auteurs: Kate Bush and the Fairlight CMI.

Can Music be Digitised? Samplers, Democratisation, and 'the Digital Age' (2018)
Presentation / Conference Contribution
Harkins, P. (2018, December). Can Music be Digitised? Samplers, Democratisation, and 'the Digital Age'. Paper presented at Music, Digitalisation, and Democracy, Abo Akademi University, Turku

Rather than an abrupt or revolutionary shift from analogue to digital, I will argue in this paper that the use of digital technologies such as samplers have been part of a more gradual process of socio-musical change. As well as examining the argumen... Read More about Can Music be Digitised? Samplers, Democratisation, and 'the Digital Age'.

Following the Distributors: Syco Systems and the Selling of Musical Instruments. (2018)
Presentation / Conference Contribution
Harkins, P. (2018, September). Following the Distributors: Syco Systems and the Selling of Musical Instruments. Paper presented at Art of Record Production (ARP)/International Association for the Study of Popular Music (IASPM) UK & Ireland Branch Conference, University of Huddersfield, UK

Since the 1980s and 1990s, scholars in Science and Technology Studies (STS) and, more specifically, those adopting the Social Construction of Technology (SCOT) approach have been investigating ‘the user-technology nexus’. This continued a shift in th... Read More about Following the Distributors: Syco Systems and the Selling of Musical Instruments..

Becoming a User? Science & Technology Studies (STS) and the Design/Use of Digital Synthesizer/Sampling Instruments (2018)
Presentation / Conference Contribution
Harkins, P. (2018, June). Becoming a User? Science & Technology Studies (STS) and the Design/Use of Digital Synthesizer/Sampling Instruments. Presented at Workshop on Objects of Electronic Sound & Music in Museums, National Science and Media Museum, Bradford

This provocation will give an overview of a research project about the historical and contemporary uses of digital synthesizer/sampling instruments. One of the problems I faced when developing a theoretical and conceptual framework was that the field... Read More about Becoming a User? Science & Technology Studies (STS) and the Design/Use of Digital Synthesizer/Sampling Instruments.

Questioning the Digital Revolution: Continuity and Change in the Design and Use of Music Technologies (2017)
Presentation / Conference Contribution
Harkins, P. (2017, June). Questioning the Digital Revolution: Continuity and Change in the Design and Use of Music Technologies. Paper presented at 19th Biennial Conference of the International Association for the Study of Popular Music

The use of digital technologies since the 1980s have changed the way in which music is stored, distributed, and consumed. The use of digital technologies has also reshaped the processes of musical production. This paper, though, challenges the view t... Read More about Questioning the Digital Revolution: Continuity and Change in the Design and Use of Music Technologies.