Gd sound engineering degrees?

[Marcel]

I'm interested in doing a sound engineering degree at university but i'm finding it hard to choose a course, could anyone recommend some good degree courses? The courses at Surrey and Leeds College of Music look gd but im struggling to select others, any help would be greatly appreciated
Thanks

[Simon Ryder]

Try SAE and see how it compares, they have them in London, Liverpool and Glasgow but if you can make the London one it is far better equipped. www.saeuk.com

Otherwise type tonmeister into a seach engine and see if those courses look suitable as well.

It really depends on what you are looking for but as you are on this sitte I guess you want something more technical that teaches you what goes on with electronics, acoustics etc. Many courses just teach you how to push buttons and don't give any breadth of knowledge so look at the syllabuses and make sure they give you what you really need.

Gateway (kingston university) is also supposed to be very good.

I can vouch for SAE as I have personal experience of it and have found it to be very good but look around and see what suits you.
Hope this helps,
S

[A]

If you were willing to study in Manchester then the School of Sound Recording would be ideal. I have contact details if yr interested, they dont do degree courses though.

[Po cant remember pword]

I'm in a similar situation myself. I'm a live freelance soundperson, and i figure studying engineering is gonna put me ahead and hope fully get me out of live dogwork. I've had a little look at SAE and seemingly they only have a BA which to me seems more creative then actual engineering so hmm to that, I didn't see anything about p tools in there either -did i miss something?

Well yeah. Keep the advice coming please people.

[Simon Ryder]

The SAE course with the technical stuff is the Diploma which is their main qualification. If you wish to top this up to a full degree then it takes a second year which is mostly devoted to the humanities side. The Diploma will teach you studio recording in studios based on Neve and SSL consoles, Pro Tools and Logic training, acoustics, basic electronics, MIDI, mastering and post production. They touch on live sound at the moment but I am currently working to get that part of the course expanded.

If you are looking for a course that is tailored more to the enterainment industry then Debry University does a BSC hons involving sound, lighting, stage management etc. I have no personal experience of this course but it looks interesting.
www.derby.ac.uk/prospectus/ugprospectus/coursedetails.asp?Id=556

Hope this helps,
Simon

[Po again]

Yeah thanks actually this diploma you speak of does sound intersting... hmmm. I'm desperate to learn protools, i know the stienberg software pretty well but fat lot of good that is heh. can you believe some of the unis I've been looking at have the cheek to be using cubase sx3 as their main programme? Yeah like that's so worth 10 grand of dept.

Thanks for the link it actually does seem like a great course, but it's really not the sort of thing i'm looking for personally maybe Marcel will be into it... it;s unbelievable how sick you can get of lugging sound systems around really I'm too young to die.

[allongsounddesigns]

i am doing my final year at Demontfort doing music tech (Ba). It's ok, we do a lot with protools and maxmsp, but it's mostly sound design and editing, no much of the actual engineering stuff. The studio modules in the second and third years are really good, but the other modules are pretty arty farty... again it does depend on what you want to do, as we also have a BSc course that deals more with the technical stuff with a little bit of sound design, and i think they've just started an audio production course. take a look, the facilities aren't bad, the Ba is now kitted out with g5's and digi002's.
whatever you choose, good luck mate.

[POOO]

Yah i've had a look there,

[allongsounddesigns]

what did ya think of it?

[POOOOOO]

Well personally i'm not looking for a music technololgy degree I mean some of them are really tempting don't get me wrong... Audio engineering is a very competative field so i'm thinking if I want to be ahead of the game i have to extend my skills a bit further than what a music technology degree can offer I would have definately thought a ba would be inadvisable. Maybe i'm totally wrong though it's just my intuition. I think a lot of the breaks you get in this game are luck and contacts though, so.... ARRRGGGHHHHH I DUNNO!

[allongsounddesigns]

fair enough, when i started i wasn't sure what exactly i wanted to do, but now i wish i had of done more of a production or audio engineering course. luckily i've been working as a stage tech for a theater, and have made a few contacts that maybe i can make use of when i finnish... and i'm going to start engineering for a friends band, so hopefully i can build up some experience there.
What sort of thing are you looking at getting into?

[Poooo]

Well i'm a live sound person already but i want to get out of that and into studio stuff or film stuff because my back hurts.

[soundmanjim]

ROTFLMAO!
you need better road crew!!! :-)

[angela k]

Why do you want a degree?, I have completed the NC in Music Tech which is 90% practical and im now doin the diploma in music tech (1 yr fast track), all the tutors I know work in the music industry aswell as teach-mostly engineering and producing. Every one of the tutors say you dont need a degree to be a sound engineer, I have also read that in a book aswell.
The course I am doing teaches you to work a studio, pro-tools, logic, cubase, microphones, audio technology/standards, muscical studies etc.

[poooooo]

Yah i did a diploma in sound engineering ages ago... We weren't taught on ptools for this i feel extreemly resentful and actually i think my course was a pile of nuts and the teachers were all losers.... I think it's all about where you do it though... Where did you do yours?