Creative Sound and Music Production (Games)

Great sound design has the ability to enhance the gaming experience while creating emotional narrative and dynamic impact. Gain valuable insights into sound design, composition and dialogue on this specialist course.

You'll source original sound through Foley-studio style recording, synthesis, and location or site-specific sound capture. Within gaming, music composition ranges from traditional orchestration and arranging through to more abstract, electronic or urban production. You'll explore composition and the dialogue / voiceover recording and editing that often complements it. You'll also learn audio post-production skills such as editing, processing, producing and mixing, with a strong focus on the techniques used to implement this audio content into interactive game environments through industry-standard software known as Middleware. 

Our goal in designing this course is to give you the freedom to explore creatively, while instilling the technical skills you'll need to forge a career in this exciting industry. As your studies progress, you'll collaborate on industry-style projects, offering insights into team working and responding to a game designer or director's brief. Collaborations with students across other areas such as Creative Computing, Acting and Music (game designers, voice actors, producers and musicians) are encouraged.

Year one
Build the foundations. We'll encourage you to continue to explore and grow your existing creative activities alongside important practical and interpretive skills. You'll explore topics such as audio recording and production, sound design, critical listening, and the relationship between music and sound in games and moving image.

Year two

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’re guided toward greater technical competence in the core areas of sound design and critical listening, and undertake a collaborative project with game designers on the Games Development course.

Year three

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.

• 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.

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.

You'll be based at our Newton Park campus. Course facilities are specified and maintained to a high standard. They include three fully-equipped ProTools HD recording studios and a number of mixing suites, all with professionally installed and calibrated industry specification monitoring. You'll use across two Apple Mac labs with up to 50 workstations in our main presentation lab, specialist audio suite and Foley rooms.

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
• Writing and Learning Centre
• Specialist resources and subject librarian
• Free access to software, creative, design and business skills courses via Lynda.com
• English Language Unit.

You can also hire out equipment using SISO, Bath Spa University’s free equipment loan service. 

Our course facilities include 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, 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 also 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. 

We are all too aware that the software and technology of music making and production is in a constant state of development, so our approach is to equip you with transferable techniques, artistic approaches, and working practices that'll continue to evolve and keep you ahead of your game throughout your career.