Creative Sound and Music Production

Our Creative Sound and Music Production degree gives you the opportunity to work and learn with students who share your passion in music production, sound and composition. You’ll explore and harness personal creative outcomes, while developing innovative approaches to your work.

You'll also have the opportunity to learn audio post-production skills such as editing, processing, producing and mixing, for film and TV. Great music and sound production has the ability to create emotional narratives and dynamic impact.
 
The teaching team have very high levels of specialist professional practice and expertise. You’ll have access to superb resources and facilities, and benefit from being part of a vibrant community of students and staff, creating exciting work and collaborating across subject boundaries.

Year one
You'll be encouraged to explore and grow your existing creative activities alongside important foundational practical and interpretive skills. This is supported in topics such as audio recording and production, sound design, critical listening, and the exploration of the relationship between music and sound to picture.

Year two
You'll take your skills and creativity into the professional arena, complimented by a series of creative and industry guest lectures, with the opportunity to engage with external collaboration, an internship or an industry placement. You’ll be guided toward greater technical competence in the core areas of sound production, critical listening and sound design. We also introduce multimedia skills that will open the opportunity of creative multidisciplinary projects and support the creation of powerful self-marketing and promotional tools.

Year three
The final year of the degree offers industry level optional pathways including the areas of Sonic Signature, Game Audio, Composition for Media, Sonic Performance, Audio Post Production, and Audio Visual Practice, from which you can select a specialised route to support your creative and professional aspirations.

You'll also get individual support in designing and managing a larger scale creative project of your choice, which we offer as an alternative to a traditional dissertation. All of the assignments in this final year are designed to be the foundation of your professional portfolio, and many are submitted as public facing online content.
 

All assessment is through coursework, with the majority of assignments aiming to develop your professional portfolio. Some modules have a supporting written element, as we are committed to developing your written communication skills as a way of empowering you to discuss your own work and the work of others. Tutors are always available to support assignments and particular assessment style preferences if needed.

You'll learn through a combination of lectures, music lab workshops, large and small group seminars, individual tutorials, online delivery and self-directed study. The majority of taught sessions are in specialised music studios, audio suites and fully-equipped computer labs that give you individual access to your own workstation with relevant software and audio materials.

Access to specialist rooms such as the recording studios and our comprehensive equipment hire system allows you to work on coursework and undertake directed and private study.

As part of your degree, you could study abroad on a placement at one of Bath Spa’s partner universities.

We compliment the industry experience of the teaching team with a range of industry guests. Guest sessions become more frequent across the second and third year of study, preparing you for professional and creative work beyond university.

We have a combination of legacy guests that offer inspiration into their established careers as well as many high-achieving early career guests that can really help you make the transition into professional working.

Specialist guests include:

• composers and sound designers for film and games
• urban music producers and DJs
• mixing and mastering engineers
• publishing and record label bosses
• film / TV post-production specialists.

As well as visitors to our campus we regularly host guests from all over the world with the use of online meetings to offer presentations, Q and A sessions and project mentoring with students.

If you’re a full-time undergraduate student starting your first year at Bath Spa University, you can apply for the Certificate in Global Citizenship, which you’ll study alongside your degree.

You’ll gain global awareness and add an international dimension to your student experience, and funding is available. On successful completion of the programme, you’ll be awarded a Certificate in Global Citizenship. This is in addition to your degree; it doesn’t change your degree title or results.

Creative Sound and Music Production is taught at our Newton Park campus. You'll have access to excellent music production facilities including:

• ProTools HD recording studios
• Mixing Suites
• Apple Mac labs

As a Creative Sound and Music Production student, you'll also make use of other facilities, including:

• Commons building
• our Virtual Learning Environment
• Newton Park library

Our course facilities are specified, calibrated, and maintained to industry standards. You’ll have access to a full range of hardware and software to support the curriculum content including ProTools, Logic Audio Pro, Ableton Live, Max/MSP, and numerous plug-ins and processing software including Waves bundles, Native Instrument suites, GRM tools, Lexicon reverbs, MacDSP, and surround sound encoders. We have a growing array of hardware modular synth components and we also support visual and media based work with a full range of multimedia software.

You’ll be able to use a comprehensive equipment loan system with everything that you might need for extended project work, including an array of microphones and pre amps, specialist field recorder equipment, portable high specification monitors, and professional still and movie cameras with lighting.

Software and the technology of music making and production is in a constant state of development; our approach is to equip you with transferable techniques, artistic approaches, and working practices that will continue to evolve and keep you ahead of your game throughout your career.