BA (Hons) Recording, Mixing and Production

Program Overview

This Level 4-6 music mixing and mastering program at the London College of Music provides students with extensive training in recording, production, and mixing skills. Led by industry professionals, the program offers practical experience in professional studios and opportunities for collaboration with musicians across various genres. Graduates are equipped for careers as sound technicians, mixing engineers, and record producers, with past graduates working with renowned artists such as Lady Gaga and U2.

Program Outline

Our music mixing and mastering course represents more than two decades of development and experience. During your studies at the London College of Music (LCM), you will build up your core recording and production skills to mix and master for commercial release. Throughout the course, you will have opportunities to work in professional studios and with a wide range of musicians.

Outline:

Level 4

• DAW Mixing and Production: Develop creative user of professional DAW systems.
Gain fluency in use of hardware and software synths, samplers, controllers and grasp essential concepts required for next level music production.
• Recording Theory: Introduce variety of topics vital to the field of music technology.
Equip students with a grounding in the core knowledge and techniques germane to the disciplinary nature of the music technology courses. Provide a solid grounding in the theory, techniques and terminology associated with contemporary acoustic and digital recording practice, as well as ensuring a fundamental grasp of the basic physics of sound and sound propagation.
• Portfolio Development: Focus on the development of your portfolio career.
Examine workflow demands in a time managed ethos to allow best practice. Explore creative outlets, future facing opportunities and residual income streams to allow you to pursue a career as a music professional whilst developing your portfolio.
• Recording Practice: Develop the required skills needed to operate studio recording technology to a high standard.
Further the listening skills covered in Recording Theory and will increase your sensitivity to different recording and musical contexts. Extend ear-training techniques and examine each component of studio technology in detail. Address how the techniques of recording are coupled to the technology, providing each student with a backbone of knowledge designed to help the recording demands of the second year.
• Remix Practice: Explore the aesthetics of the remix, what it ‘looks’ like and how it is perceived.
Deploy specialised tools and techniques associated with the practice. Embrace remix culture as a sonic and philosophical paradigm. Acquire processing, production and mixing skills beneficial to students in their roles both as remixers and creative engineers.

Level 5

• LCM Record Label: Participate in a simulated record label from the perspective of the record-production students.
Establish a foundation of knowledge around the structure of contemporary record labels. Learn how to identify and correct recording and arrangement issues using advanced pre-production and project management skills.
• Recording Music: Develop the required skills to operate both physical and virtual recording technology to a higher standard.
Engage in a combination of practical and theoretical workshops aimed at developing a fluency in recording planning and practice. Further develop students’ abilities to critically evaluate, and confidently produce musical recordings in a chosen style.
• Creative Collaboration and Innovation: Examine multidisciplinary case studies ranging from pioneering scholarly ideas, through to scientific theories and revolutionary art forms.
Learn the importance of thinking outside the box, synthesising different backgrounds into new forms, and putting these ideas into practice. Use a process of stimulated recall to analyse that data and reflect upon your creative practice – an autoethnographic approach. Use a series of masterclass presentations given by members of staff and/or postgraduate research students to think about your practice – an ethnographic approach. Conduct a review of some of the academic literature in their field which is relevant to their practice – a theoretical approach. Use these three activities to think about a way that you can improve your professional practice in some way and will form the basis for designing a major project at level 6, which will bring that improvement to fruition.
• Advanced DAW Practice: Build upon core Digital Audio Workstation (DAW) skills and enhance your understanding of Pro Tools software.
Produce a computer-based, digital mix of music-only projects to a professional standard. Be fully prepared to collaborate with other producers, engineers and musicians to realise your creative goals.
• LCM Music Factory: Embrace the network and community available within London College of Music and the University to provide real-life scenarios for the production of original music with a contemporary stylistic focus through collaboration.
Offer the student an opportunity to experience both the pressure and challenges of producing recorded artefacts to a specific musical brief. There is also a significant research aspect to the module, with assessment based upon both practical and theoretical knowledge in equal measures.

Level 6

• Advanced Audio Processing Techniques: Explore the shaping of electronic sounds, timbre as a compositional tool, advanced sampling and advanced forms of synthesis.
Conduct experiments that explore techniques covered in the online lectures and production workshops. Create a short video explaining or demonstrating some aspect of what you have learnt and how you have applied it.
• Mixing Music: Develop and specialise students’ mixing skill to an advanced level.
Provide a practice-based context for the application, evolution and acquisition of advanced mix-techniques. Focus on genre-specific techniques, and a range of software, hardware and hybrid workflows, encouraging the development of mixing folios that showcase a wide-ranging palette of techno-artistic skills. Require both the critical evaluation of, and reflection upon both mixing practices and end outcomes – framed in the context of the history, culture, technological development and the current aesthetics of the artform.
• Mastering Music: Develop an understanding of the processes and technologies used in mastering.
Have opportunities to apply these techniques to create a portfolio of mastered materials. Seminar work will help you to develop the essential listening skills for mastering as you simultaneously enhance your technical abilities to the highest level of control. Focus on historical origins and approaches to mixing and will analyse the work of professional contemporary mix engineers.
• Major Project: Create your dream project with a high degree of independence.
Be allocated a supervisor and then given the freedom to create a piece of work, which you feel really represents you as a music technology student.

Teaching:

You will work to generate newly recorded work using the latest in technology, and our extensive recording facilities which include Dolby Atmos Spaces, a significant number of large format recording studios, specialist mastering facilities, and Universal Audio mobile recording rigs. You will develop advanced skills, such as tonal and spatial processing, a deep understanding of dynamics, and mixing skills for multiple musical formats. This course will train you to apply these techniques in UWL’s numerous recording studio facilities, where you can practically apply, and critically assess your work. As a part of the larger LCM community, you are encouraged to collaborate with a significant number of fellow artists and musicians from the popular music courses, as well as classical and jazz musicians on our traditional performance courses. You will be able to work with students across genres, including western classical, pop, jazz, grime, and hip hop, as well as define new musical trends with your collaborators. Dr Pratt has worked as a record producer, a performer, and an educator for over twenty years. He has released professionally through Sony, Universal, and Independent record labels and has recorded several highly rotated songs for radio and television. As a researcher, Dr Pratt has published papers on recording concepts, transnational recording, and sensemaking theory. As a performer, he has toured Australia, Hong Kong, The UK, the USA, played in multiple festivals as well as performing on hallowed stages such as the Whisky a Gogo (LA) and the Bowery Ballroom (NY).

Careers:

Once you successfully complete your course, you could go on to work as a:

• Sound technician
• Recording engineer
• Mastering engineer
• Mixing engineer
• Production sound mixer
• Record producer
Past graduates have gone on to work with the likes of Lady Gaga, U2 and Trevor Horn.

Other:

The University is very modern, and it has a really good atmosphere. Costel Cantia You can refine your skills in one of the largest professionally equipped music studio complexes in Europe. Including acoustically designed recording studios and multi-performance production studios. Facilities:

• Performance spaces
• Production studios
• One-to-one teaching pods
• Music performance rooms
• Basement practice rooms
• Media Resource Centre

Fees & funding Fees & funding Funding: UK Funding: International £9,250 per year The fee above is the cost per year of your course.If your course runs for two years or more, you will need to pay the fee for each academic year at the start of that year. Funding your studies You may be eligible for a student loan to cover the cost of tuition fees, or a maintenance loan. Additional funding is available to some types of students, such as those with dependants and disabled students. We offer generous bursaries and scholarships to make sure your aspirations are your only limit. In recent years, hundreds of students have received our Full-time Undergraduate Student Bursary. Funding your studies £16,250 per year The fee above is the cost per year of your course.If your course runs for two years or more, you will need to pay the fee for each academic year at the start of that year. International students - funding your studies Financial support for international students