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Sound Design with Foundation Year

Entry requirements


UCAS Tariff

32-56

A typical offer will require a UCAS Tariff score between 32 - 56. Every application is considered on an individual basis. For further details of our international English entry requirements, please visit our General Entry Requirements pages.

About this course


Course option

4years

Full-time | 2024

Subject

Music production

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.

Modules

**Foundation Year**
**Core**
Preparing for Success: Knowledge and Creativity
Preparing for Success Self-development and Responsibility
Inquiry Based Learning
Introduction to Music Management, Production and Performance

**Year one**
**Core**
Audio Production Technologies
Live Audio
Recording and Mixing Techniques
Computer Programming for Audio Applications
Sound Design for Moving Image
**Opportunity**
2 x 10 credit year one Opportunity modules

**Year two**
**Core**
Location Sound & Post-production
Sound Design for Non-linear Media
Research Methods
**Optional**
Creative Audio Production
Electronic Production Techniques
Sound Design Projects
Genre Studies
**Opportunity**
2 x 10 credit year two Opportunity modules

**Year three**
**Core**
Sound Design and Sonic Installation
Immersive Audio Techniques
Dissertation/Independent Work
**Optional**
Professional Production Project
Game Audio: Techniques and Practices
Sound Design Final Portfolio
Podcasting – Creation & Production

Assessment methods

Teaching on the course is highly practical and hands-on with a focus on real production work working within our industry standard studios and sound facilities. The staff on this course have a wealth of professional and academic experience, with many still working in industry.

You’ll also learn through group discussion and one-to-one interaction with tutors, as well as through lectures, workshops and master classes.

A variety of assessment methods will be used as appropriate to the modules you take, including essays, reports, portfolios of creative audio content, written evaluations, presentations, and some continuous assessment on practical tasks. Assessments will be appropriate to the task, achievable, motivating and vocationally focussed, forming a constructive part of your learning process.

Tuition fees

Select where you currently live to see what you'll pay:

Channel Islands
£9,250
per year
England
£9,250
per year
EU
£15,000
per year
International
£15,000
per year
Northern Ireland
£9,250
per year
Republic of Ireland
£9,250
per year
Scotland
£9,250
per year
Wales
£9,250
per year

The Uni


Course location:

Buckinghamshire New University

Department:

School of Creative And Digital Industries

Read full university profile

What students say


We've crunched the numbers to see if overall student satisfaction here is high, medium or low compared to students studying this subject(s) at other universities.

71%
Music production

How do students rate their degree experience?

The stats below relate to the general subject area/s at this university, not this specific course. We show this where there isn’t enough data about the course, or where this is the most detailed info available to us.

Music

Teaching and learning

71%
Staff make the subject interesting
86%
Staff are good at explaining things
77%
Ideas and concepts are explored in-depth
78%
Opportunities to apply what I've learned

Assessment and feedback

Feedback on work has been timely
Feedback on work has been helpful
Staff are contactable when needed
Good advice available when making study choices

Resources and organisation

78%
Library resources
70%
IT resources
64%
Course specific equipment and facilities
43%
Course is well organised and has run smoothly

Student voice

Staff value students' opinions
Feel part of a community on my course

Who studies this subject and how do they get on?

72%
UK students
28%
International students
73%
Male students
27%
Female students
71%
2:1 or above
20%
First year drop out rate

Most popular A-Levels studied (and grade achieved)

B
C
D

After graduation


The stats in this section relate to the general subject area/s at this university – not this specific course. We show this where there isn't enough data about the course, or where this is the most detailed info available to us.

Music

What are graduates doing after six months?

This is what graduates told us they were doing (and earning), shortly after completing their course. We've crunched the numbers to show you if these immediate prospects are high, medium or low, compared to those studying this subject/s at other universities.

£18,000
med
Average annual salary
98%
med
Employed or in further education

Top job areas of graduates

24%
Sales, marketing and related associate professionals
16%
Artistic, literary and media occupations
8%
Other elementary services occupations

What about your long term prospects?

Looking further ahead, below is a rough guide for what graduates went on to earn.

Music

The graph shows median earnings of graduates who achieved a degree in this subject area one, three and five years after graduating from here.

£15k

£15k

£18k

£18k

£20k

£20k

Note: this data only looks at employees (and not those who are self-employed or also studying) and covers a broad sample of graduates and the various paths they've taken, which might not always be a direct result of their degree.

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This is what the university has told Ucas about the course. Use it to get a quick idea about what makes it unique compared to similar courses, elsewhere.

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Course location and department:

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Teaching Excellence Framework (TEF):

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This information comes from the National Student Survey, an annual student survey of final-year students. You can use this to see how satisfied students studying this subject area at this university, are (not the individual course).

This is the percentage of final-year students at this university who were "definitely" or "mostly" satisfied with their course. We've analysed this figure against other universities so you can see whether this is high, medium or low.

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This information is from the Higher Education Statistics Agency (HESA), for undergraduate students only.

You can use this to get an idea of who you might share a lecture with and how they progressed in this subject, here. It's also worth comparing typical A-level subjects and grades students achieved with the current course entry requirements; similarities or differences here could indicate how flexible (or not) a university might be.

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Post-six month graduation stats:

This is from the Destinations of Leavers from Higher Education Survey, based on responses from graduates who studied the same subject area here.

It offers a snapshot of what grads went on to do six months later, what they were earning on average, and whether they felt their degree helped them obtain a 'graduate role'. We calculate a mean rating to indicate if this is high, medium or low compared to other universities.

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Graduate field commentary:

The Higher Education Careers Services Unit have provided some further context for all graduates in this subject area, including details that numbers alone might not show

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The Longitudinal Educational Outcomes dataset combines HRMC earnings data with student records from the Higher Education Statistics Agency.

While there are lots of factors at play when it comes to your future earnings, use this as a rough timeline of what graduates in this subject area were earning on average one, three and five years later. Can you see a steady increase in salary, or did grads need some experience under their belt before seeing a nice bump up in their pay packet?

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