BSc (Hons) Music and Sound Design Technology

What’s the course about?

The BSc (Hons) Music and Sound Design Technology course is designed for students who wish to interrogate music and media through music, sound design and immersive audio applications.  Focus is placed on sound and music as a component of multimedia, including the world of sound design as a creative process.   Students create and work on a range of media focused projects including moving image, game audio and voice over production as well as determining how sound can be delivered within both multi-speaker environments and ‘virtual’ spaces.  

Core modules studied alongside music and sound design technology practice modules develop students’ techniques and approaches using a range of sound technologies, as well as fostering professional and industrial contextual immersion and awareness, and experience with specialisms within connected music and sound related fields. 

BSc (Hons) Music and Sound Design Technology sits within the overarching Music & Sound Technology Programme.  There are four-degree awards within this programme: BSc (Hons) Music Production, BSc (Hons) Music and Sound Design Technology, BSc (Hons) Audio Recording and Production, and BSc (Hons) Live Sound and Lighting Technology.  

All courses share the same ethos, and you’ll have opportunities to work alongside our music composition and music industry management students too, ensuring you benefit from teaching and experiences within a large community of musicians, composers, technologists and performers. 

Within the wider school of creative arts at UH, there are opportunities to collaborate with students from other creative areas, including animation and film and TV, allowing you to network with a broad range of creative industries. 

Year 1

Within the core modules, you’ll gain a solid grounding on a number of major DAW packages, as well as develop your creative and technical skills in mixing and effects processing, studio work and making your own virtual instruments. In order to develop your technical knowledge of connected audio specialisms, you’ll investigate acoustics, psychoacoustics, audio and Midi protocols and a number of sound projection systems whilst also using lab time to develop an understanding of audio electronics through building your own synthesizer for your own creative output. Music Business is also introduced where you’ll investigate various music business modules and contexts that connect what you are studying to the music industry. 

In addition to the core modules, music and sound design technology students also investigate sound and its use in enhancing moving image such as in film, TV, the web and games. Areas including synchronisation, matching screen placement and movement are covered, and students are introduced to the creative recording of source audio for re-purposing as Foley. Sonic branding techniques and story-telling aspects are also investigated. 

Year 2

In year 2 much focus is placed on developing your critical ear, and getting your music out there, with detailed work on developing both mixing and mastering techniques, and approaches to digital distribution and delivery. In addition, students continue to develop their deep understanding of microphones and sound signal routing, including network-based systems using our state of the art Rednet enabled facilities. You will continue to hone your studio practice and understanding of the wider music industry.  

As a music and sound design technology student, this goes hand in hand with dedicated taught areas to further develop your skills in re-dubbing, more advanced and intricate sync and sound design work, and extended techniques for processing found and sourced sound as well as deep immersion in the possibilities for surround and multi-channel audio work. 

Year 3

By year 3, the vast majority of our students have already formed a number of professional connections, and students are able to make use of these and reflect on their approaches within a dedicated field project. In addition, there is the final major project which under the supervision of a dedicated tutor allows you to specialize in your chosen area which could be for example album recording and production, software / hardware development, an experiment, or dissertation-based study.  

Drawing on the programmes’ industry accreditation links, students also engage with an externally defined industry brief within the area of (or relating to) music and sound design technology. This topic is delivered and supported by sessions from a range of academic staff in addition to bespoke sessions from industry professionals who feed in external expertise.  Spatial / immersive audio, virtual reality sound and game audio are also explored in depth. 

Guest Speakers

Key industry professionals regularly visit us to speak to our students. Recent Guest Speakers Include: 

• Dan Lancaster (Music Producer)
• Olga Fitzroy (Recording Engineer)
• Isabel Gracefield Grundy (Sound writer, mixing engineer and producer)
• Marta Salogni (Producer, Mixer, Engineer)
• Steph Marziano (Writer, Producer, Mixer)
• George Shilling (Mixing & Mastering Engineer, Cellist and Studio Owner)
• Matt Ingram (Drummer, Producer and Engineer from London, and Co-Founder of Urchin Studios)
• Alan Branch (Grammy Award winning Engineer, Producer, Writer and Musician)
• Gareth Jones (Huge modular analogue synth enthusiast, who has worked with a huge selection of artists, including making 5 LPs with Depeche Mode, and another 5 with Erasure)
• Mike Warriner (Commercial Director at Focusrite)
• Dan Cox  (Award winning sound engineer, mixer and producer, and an executive Director of the Music Producer’s Guild)
• Bernard O’Reilly (Sound designer, sound effects editor and FX recordist)
• Neil Coomber (mixer, producer and engineer)                 
• Nick Watson (Mastering Engineer – Fluid Mastering)
• Richard Pryke (sound engineer / re-recording engineer – best known for his Academy Award for Best Sound for the film Slumdog Millionaire)
• Tony Platt (Audio Engineer)
• Phill Brown (Sound Engineer, Producer – worked with Bob Marley, Jimi Hendrix, Dido, to name but a few)
• Alistair Meachin (Acoustics, Audio & AV Consultant – Harmonia Consulting Ltd). 

This course is part of the music department in the School of Creative Arts, and a wide range of undergraduate music degrees are on offer.

Check out our facilities

Music students at the University of Hertfordshire have access to a stunning array of well-maintained resources and facilities aligned to industry standards, including recording studios, performance spaces, critical listening spaces, high-spec computing labs and a loan store offering a range of free-to-use equipment.

Your main campus is College Lane  

This is where the creative arts, science and health-related subjects are based. This means you’ll share the campus with future nurses, scientists, artists and more. You can use the common rooms to relax with friends, work out in the 24-hour gym or have a drink in our on-campus pub or cafes. We also have restaurants for you to eat in or grab something on the go. Our Learning Resources Centres are open 24/7, which means you can study whenever suits you best. Want to pop over to the other campus? You can take the free shuttle bus or walk there in just 15 minutes.