Introduction
It offers students the opportunity to design, manipulate, and produce audio across a range of platforms such as radio, video/film post-production, animation, TV, digital media, music, A/V installations, broadcasting and computer games and also take part in the University’s community radio station (Siren FM). Students will be able to research and undertake analytical study via a range of critical and theoretical approaches that place and frame audio and music within a historical, social, and cultural context. Finally, the programme will also provide a thorough and practical understanding of issues and practices within the cultural and media industries.
BA (Hons) Audio Production is a three year full-time undergraduate programme and four to five years part-time. The first year provides a broad foundation in audio production skills, in conjunction with media, music, and cultural critical, and industry studies. The second year provides an opportunity to specialise in two in two of three areas of audio production practice; music, radio and post-production for film and TV. The second year also offers an exchange programme with Moorhead University in Minnesota, USA. The critical studies modules examine themes of auditory culture, music, art and experimental production. Branding/marketing and research modules enable students to research and develop a range of critical and theoretical approaches to the final year dissertation. In the third year, students complete two major projects in specific areas of production (either individually or within a group). A dissertation provides students with the opportunity to research and write about any suitable topic related to the audio and music industries.
Course Content
Level One
Radio & Sound
This unit introduces students to the principles of sound and sound recording. Students will have the opportunity to develop basic professional skills of sound recording both in the studio context and on location. Students will work in groups to complete exercises and produce projects to demonstrate their acquisition of the basic skills in both radio and sound production.
Multitrack Recording & Music Production
This module provides an introduction to the multi-track studio environment, in which, students will identify and employ digital audio recording, editing and mixing techniques and technologies. The study of listening skills essential to the perception of audio quality will be introduced and developed along with the practical and technical elements necessary for studio based audio and music production.
Sound Editing for Visual Media
This module provides an overview of current industry techniques and practices from understanding the route from edit platforms to final sound mix; cleaning up and replacing original recorded sound. Recording and placing commentary, dialogue, effects and music editing: the addition of creative elements to create aural landscapes for still or moving images. Music and sound effects library sources, server based libraries and importing and exporting audio files, sourcing, cataloguing and sifting.
Electronic Music Production
In this module students investigate the practices and creative possibilities of working within a desktop music and sound design production environment. This will involve MIDI programming, composition of basic musical and rhythmic arrangements, sound design, sound effects and an introduction to software instruments, synthesis, sampling techniques and digital signal processing.
Critical Studies: Mediation & Representation
This module aims to promote critical engagement with key cultural studies concepts and methods. It is organised around an examination of critical studies, media & cultural contexts and forms to enable students to develop a critical understanding of key theoretical concepts and critical approaches that have informed studies of cultural production and consumption, particularly during the latter half of the 20th century. Consideration will also be given to significant technological changes, emerging during the closing decades of the millennium, that have radically impacted on methods of production and distribution in the global market and how these are being accommodated, or not, through new paradigms in media and cultural studies as well as economic, regulatory and legal frameworks.
Principles of Audio
This module provides an introduction to the multi-track studio environment, in which, students will identify and employ digital audio recording, editing and mixing techniques and technologies. The study of listening skills essential to the perception of audio quality will be introduced and developed along with the practical and technical elements necessary for studio-based musical instrument recording and music production.
Research: Understanding the Cultural Industries
This module contextualises students’ production practice by introducing students to the ways in which both media and music institutions within the creative and cultural industries are organised. The module will explore and examine key issues in the history and current organisation of, and possible changes in, the cultural industries as institutions and practices. Students will develop an understanding of the legal, ethical, regulatory, and self-regulatory frameworks within which they operate.
Level Two
Radio & Sound Production
The module introduces students to advanced techniques in the areas of radio broadcasting, sound, and music production. Students will be introduced to various factual and fiction radio formats and concepts with the emphasis on encouraging both creative and experimental approaches. Students will work in production teams in a range of roles as required by the project briefs.
Audio for Visual Production
Developing the foundation skills from level one, this module introduces students to advanced techniques of sound design and editing techniques for the moving and still image. The technologies include digital audio workstations and software technologies to the Dolby 5.1 ‘surround sound’ dubbing theatre. Techniques include ‘Foley sound’: the art of movement re-recording and using props for sound effects creation to picture. ADR (Automated Dialogue Replacement) and ‘lip sync’ to picture and music production: composer spotting sessions and assessing musical requirements. The roles of mixer, assistant, sound editor in selecting and assembling sound recordings and different mixes in preparation for final sound production of a television programme, film, animation, still image, or game.
Music Production & Enterprise
This module enables students to examine the role of the music producer. Students will work closely with a music artist and develop a portfolio of recorded original musical pieces produced to a professional standard. For the technical aspects, this module builds on the multitrack studio and DAW techniques learned at level one. However, it is the creative and project management aspects which are given more focus here. Students will also devise a promotional strategy/music enterprise for the development of the act as an independent artist. To underpin this, the music industry will be analysed including legal aspects, income generation and the role of professional bodies along with evaluation of business models old and new reflecting the key issues and challenges within the music industries.
Critical Studies: Auditory Culture
Born into, and as part of, a sea of vibrations, we render it sonorous in cultural practice. In making, hearing and feeling sound, we frame the world and become what we are. In this, we also find ourselves in the midst of power relations, conflicts of value and interest. Sound is political, in the broadest sense, even where it takes the form of entertainment. What are the politics of acoustic space? What is the role of sound in the formation of memory and our sense of past, present and future? Of course, music is an important part of all of this, and it is with the study of a number of aspects of music cultures that the module begins, but by auditory culture we mean more than music. The module investigates the complex ways in which our sound worlds are fashioned, including issues around noise, silence and acoustic ecology. In short, we will explore how a sense of self, community and the world emerges through the interplay of musically and non-musically organized (and disorganized) sound.
Practices of Listening
Students will examine, explore, and critically debate production practices within a framework of aesthetics, ideology, experimental and avant-garde sound art. The module will place and reference these concepts within historical and contemporary movements (e.g. post-punk; industrial; electronic; neo-folk; gothic, etc), technological developments, political and social circumstances of production, reception processes, and reception contexts.
Research: Marketing & Branding
This module introduces the key concepts and issues of marketing, branding, targeting, audience, segmentation, advertising and promotion within the context of audio and music production as a tool of communication.
Media Research: Methods And Proposal Design
The aim of this module is to develop research, dissertation planning and management skills, enabling students to undertake and complete successfully an Independent study at Level 3. The emphasis will be audio, music, film and broadcast forms.
Careers
Students are well placed to enter audio-related careers in radio, television, film, animation, audio for games, mobile applications, broadcasting and online applications. They will also have the skills necessary to work in audio engineering for music or audio event management.
Level Three
Practice: Audio Project 1 & 2
This module requires students to produce an advanced concept led project using the technologies centred upon audio, music and/or broadcast formats. It provides an opportunity to produce work to an advanced level of creativity and technique, in a practice based medium, and will offer opportunities to undertake interdisciplinary production.
Critical Studies: Independent Study
The Audio Production Independent Study dissertation is the culmination of each student’s undergraduate investigation into the structures and debates surrounding audio, music, media, and cultural production. This takes the form of an extended essay.
Research and Development A & B
The first semester part of the module introduces students to a range of professional skills relevant to the requirements of Research and Development proposals. Students research and develop original ideas for major projects in media, music, broadcast, or live/public events. The key outcomes include a presentation and dossier detailing ongoing research into project development, planning and funding strategies.
Student Quotation
"The facilities here are brilliant and reliable and the Audio Production staff are great - really easy to get along with, very approachable and easy to talk to. Outside class time the sound equipment and computer rooms can be accessed for work such as mixing and editing, and the multi track studios for recording.
Leon Bogle - Audio Production student
Special Features
Full-time FM and internet-based Community radio station SIREN FM based at the University.
A broad range of visiting speakers from radio, film and television: the music and audio industries, and experimental sound performance artists. The second year also offers an exchange programme with Moorhead University in Minnesota, USA.
How You Are Assessed
A range of practical projects both individually and within groups. Presentations and essays: reports and case studies.
Facilities
The Multitrack Studio is a Pro Tools HD2/Mac Pro equipped recording studio with dual control room, live room, dead room and drum isolation booth for music and drama production.
The Lincoln Sound Theatre integrates commentary room, foley room and 5.1 surround sound control room with large screen LCD projection for audio post-production (Pro Tools/Mac Pro).
Four radio production studios, six audio edit suites and an Audio Production teaching and production suite (Pro Tools/iMac).
Other equipment includes: Soundcraft Ghost 24ch and Yamaha 02R96 v.2 digital mixing consoles, iMac/Pro Tools LE 8 & Logic Studio, PC/Cubase, Digidesign 003 control surface, Genelec 8030A & Tannoy monitoring, DV Toolkit (5.1 surround sound), Blue Sky MediaDesk 5.1 surround monitoring. Wide selection of microphones including AKG, Rode, Neumann, Electrovoice and outboard equipment including Sony, Drawmer, TC Electronics, Akai, Alesis.
Careers
Students are well placed to enter audio-related careers in radio, television, film, animation, audio for games, mobile applications, and Internet broadcasting. They will also have the skills necessary to work in music engineering or audio event management.
Fees
| 2012 Entry | UK/EU | International |
|---|---|---|
| Full-time | £9000 | £12033 |
| Part-time | £75 per credit point | £100 per credit point |
| Placement (optional) | Exempt | Exempt |
| Assessment Only | £38 per credit point | £50 per credit point |
For further information and funding your study please see our Fees & Funding pages.
