Course summary

This degree programme provides a practical, theoretical and creative grounding in sound design across multiple industry areas, from music production to movie soundtracks, games audio, and beyond. Using industry-standard studio and live sound facilities, you’ll learn skills including professional recording and mixing techniques, how to evaluate newly emerging practices and studio technologies and build a portfolio of your personal sound work and projects. This course is offered as a four-year programme, including an initial Foundation Year. The Foundation Year will allow you to develop your academic study skills and build confidence in your abilities, identifying your own strengths and development needs for progression onto an undergraduate programme. Why study this subject? With a degree in sound design you could be working in post-production, outside broadcast, tv and film production, live music events, or for an audio supplier or broadcaster such as Sky or the BBC. You would use your studio and music production skills as part of team to create appropriate audio to demonstrate atmosphere, tempo or overall effect. Why study at Buckinghamshire New University? BNU pioneered music business and management degrees over 20 years ago. You’ll get to work in a production-house style environment, collaborating frequently with students from our other courses and with external partners on live projects. You might design sounds to accompany an animated creature created in the university’s motion-capture studio, or work with Film & TV Production students to produce sound and music for a sci-fi scene. You could also implement sound using game engine tools with our games development students. Honing your skills on real projects, you’ll build an extensive portfolio of work examples and experiences. All our music degrees at BNU come with membership of UK Music’s Music Academic Partnership (MAP), a ground-breaking collaboration between educational institutions and UK Music, designed to maximise the relationship between the industry and educational institutions. What facilities can I use? Our state-of-the-art recording studios and Dolby Atmos certified sound lab give you access to the space and technology you need. From individual edit rooms up to large Pro Tools Ultimate studios with attached live rooms and vocal booths, we have it all to help you gain hands-on experience. Studio 1 boasts a Dolby Atmos 7.1.4 speaker system and an Avid S6 console. Studio 2 boasts an Avid D-Command control surface and 24 channels of Focusrite ISA828 microphone preamps. Studio three and the Electronic Music Studio are based around Avid S3/S4 control surfaces and UAD Apollo x8 audio interfaces. What will I study? The course covers all the relevant building blocks of sound design. In addition to core recording and mixing skills, you’ll also get to grips with areas such as audio programming and synthesis, game engines and audio middleware, field sound recording, experimental composition and digital instrument design, and spatial audio. You’ll learn about technology and sound production, audio principles, theories and practices, and be introduced to the sound and computing technologies used in audio studios and elsewhere. You’ll apply, these skills to more specific production areas as the course progresses, such as live sound, audio drama, sounds for games and VR, and film sound design, before completing a specialist major research project in your final year. Opportunity modules are a key part of the BNU curriculum. You’ll choose modules in both your first and second year from a broad selection in areas such as sustainability, entrepreneurship, creativity, digital skills, personal growth, civic engagement, health & wellbeing and employment. Opportunity modules are designed to enable you to develop outside the traditional boundaries of your discipline and help you to further stand out from the crowd to future employers.