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Audio Engineering and Production

Institute of Contemporary Music Performance

UCAS Code: W101 | Bachelor of Arts (with Honours) - BA (Hons)

Entry requirements


UCAS Tariff

80

About this course


Course option

3years

Full-time | 2024

Subject

Music production

If you’re keen to launch a professional career as an audio engineer or music producer, this three-year degree teaches you everything you need to know to an advanced level. You’ll become competent at using the latest state-of-the-art specialist studio equipment and technology, and will be confident working with musicians and artists to produce high-quality recordings across a range of recording studio environments.

Despite being highly practical, this course isn’t afraid to explore the more theoretical concepts of audio engineering and music production, such as musical language, acoustics and psychoacoustics. These principles are used as a base to explain the more functional areas of the industry, including studio design, audio signal analysis and processing, microphone technology and application, live sound reinforcement and capture, and modular synthesis.

Spending plenty of time in ICMP’s cutting-edge recording studios over the three years of your course, you’ll become an advanced production professional, getting to grips with elements including advanced recording methods, audio editing, and post-production, multi-track mixing and mastering.

Lessons will also take place in ICMP’s fully-kitted-out Mac labs, teaching spaces and rehearsal rooms – all equipped with high-quality production equipment and digital audio workstations (DAWs). Gear includes top-of-the-range instruments, microphones, PAs, loop stations, controllers, effects pedals, vocal processors and more. As an ICMP student, you can book these facilities free of charge for personal use, seven days a week, outside of class hours.

Your learning will be guided by our faculty of highly experienced tutors, who are all exemplary educators and experts in their fields. They’ll provide expertise and support as you get to know the modern music industry, and cover audio engineering entrepreneurship, marketing, PR and branding.

At ICMP, all our audio engineering students are highly in-demand, so you’ll have ongoing opportunities to record and engineer the work of talented fellow students from other ICMP course disciplines. Collaboration is integral to all our courses, so you’ll no doubt develop an impressive portfolio of recordings to showcase to the industry.

You’ll also participate in real-world performances and music events across all three years of study, as you get ready to launch yourself into the music business. These include regular face-to-face opportunities to connect with the industry and grow your network through gigs, masterclasses, songwriters’ circle events, guest lectures, careers days, industry conferences and more.

In your final year, you’ll complete two exciting industry-focused modules – Professional Practice and Creative Audio Engineering Project – where you’ll develop a music-related proposal of your choice, and complete a self-directed creative audio engineering project which could be an EP, multi-media composition, creative collaboration, podcast, live performance piece or more.

Upon graduation, you’ll have the theoretical knowledge, artistic portfolio, music business know-how, creative drive and advanced technical skills you need to successfully launch a career in a professional recording studio environment – whether that’s as an audio engineer, music producer, mastering engineer, mixing engineer, recording engineer, podcast engineer or something else entirely.

Modules

YEAR 1 (LEVEL 4)
- Digital Audio Workstations (DAW)
- Audio Engineering Techniques
- Live Sound Engineering
- Music Business for Audio Engineers
- Theory of Sound
- Audio Programming

YEAR 2 (LEVEL 5)
- Sound Design & Creative Synthesis
- Marketing Strategies
- Advanced Live Sound Engineering
- Mix Engineering
- Studio Engineering
- Audio Editing & Postproduction

YEAR 3 (LEVEL 6)
- Advanced Studio Engineering
- Mastering Engineering
- Professional Practice
- Creative Audio Engineering Project

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
£10,250
per year
International
£15,250
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

Extra funding

For students to be eligible for SLC funding, they must be studying a designated course. Courses at the ICMP are designated each year by the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills. We have developed together with valued partners several scholarships and bursaries which supplement our outreach and widening participation activities and enhance access to our courses. Please contact our admissions team for more information.

The Uni


Course location:

Institute of Contemporary Music Performance

Department:

Music

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.

74%
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

80%
Staff make the subject interesting
92%
Staff are good at explaining things
83%
Ideas and concepts are explored in-depth
80%
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
81%
IT resources
83%
Course specific equipment and facilities
67%
Course is well organised and has run smoothly

Student voice

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

After graduation


We don't have more detailed stats to show you in relation to this subject area at this university but read about typical employment outcomes and prospects for graduates of this subject below.

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.

£14k

£14k

£15k

£15k

£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 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:

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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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