Music and Sound highlights - Semester 1

Music Production students have been busying themselves in the labs and studios this semester working on a multitude of exciting projects, workshops and classes.

During the past few months our level 4 students have been undertaking a series of creative challenges where they responded to a real world briefs in under 3 hours (an incredibly short space of time for work like this!) with many of the results being simply breathtaking. We had challenges ranging from creating cosmic music to accompany the animations of a space themed documentary, to creatively using a small selection of audio samples to make a full drum and bass track.

The level 5 students have been spending countless hours in the studios honing their craft during a series of recording studio workshops. The drum recording sessions were particular highlights where the students got to experiment with a vast array of different microphones and recording techniques used by countless professional engineers.

Later in the semester the students travelled back in time to mix the original multitracks from Queen’s seminal ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ using only analogue hardware and outboard effects. During these sessions the students were able to look behind the curtain to learn the hidden secrets of how Freddie Mercury managed to create his iconic vocal arrangements and sound.

Level 6 students also took part in a series of advanced recording technique workshops focused around the electric guitar. They undertook a series of microphone ‘shoot outs’ to discover how it’s possible to capture different sounds, tones and textures by combing different microphone technologies and techniques together for maximum effect.

Sound design students have been busying themselves in the labs and studios this semester working on a multitude of exciting projects, workshops and classes. During the past few months our level 4 students have been undertaking a series of creativity challenges that mirror real world briefs and workflows. These included using a scene from Disney’s Andor TV show to design a sonic weapon and re-designing and prototyping sounds for the Marvel Vs Capcom 3 video game. But the level 4 highlight was definitely using a scene from Star Wars: A New Hope to recreate and record the iconic lightsaber sound effect live to picture in the universities TV studio.

Level 5 and 6 students have been working together in a series of workshops and classes around sound design for visual media. The students were tasked with designing, recording and creating sounds for a wide variety of scenarios. These included imagined monsters, futuristic cyberpunk ambiences, performing Foley for animations, immersive surround sound mixing, and using industry standard tools like FMOD for creating adaptive audio systems within an actual game engine that has been used for creating countless AAA video games.