Course summary

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 post-production professional, getting to grips with elements including ambisonics, binaural recording, spacial and multichannel mixing, ADR and dialogue audio editing, and Dolby Atmos. 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.