Our exciting Live Sound degree is highly practical, gear-heavy and packed full of industry opportunities to give you the skills and knowledge required for a successful career. We’ll teach you how to work with modern speaker systems, current mixing technology, acoustics, sound system optimisation, live sound production and elevate your listening skills and hone your professional practice.
The Live Sound degree will see you develop in-depth knowledge and the practical skills required to design, build and operate professional sound systems in a range of varied live event situations, such as festivals, small and large scale venues, theatres and other commercial events.
All practical elements of this course take place in our specially-designed teaching and performance spaces, in Manchester this includes the 1,300 capacity working venue New Century. Over the three years you’ll become confident in areas such as Front of House mixing, digital audio networking, advanced system optimisation, audio console operations, and immersive sound installations.
You'll be using professional-grade equipment from respected manufacturers such as LÁcousitcs, Allen & Heath, Martin Audio, Midas, Avid, Yamaha and d&b Audiotechnik, learning from tutors and our impressive roster of guest speakers who are at the very top of the UK’ Live Sound industry. In addition, you’ll have numerous work experience opportunities in a diverse array of live event situations, allowing you to apply your skills in real-world settings while gaining invaluable industry insights and connections.
Alongside these practical skills, you will also learn what it takes to work in the industry. While exploring how to set up your own business and generate self-employment opportunities, we will help nurture your confidence, team working skills and professional communication proficiency to maximise your chances of employment in the industry.
This course is taught by the dBs Institute and awarded by Access Creative College
This course is taught by the dBs Institute and awarded by Falmouth University
You will study a total of 16 modules, including a final major project. Programme structures and modules can change as part of our curriculum enhancement and review processes
In the first year of your Live Sound degree, you’ll learn about the behaviour of sound and how it is affected by physical environments, develop your live mixing skills and delve into loudspeaker designs. You’ll explore the evolution of sound culture and bring together many aspects of live sound in the planning, production and execution of a live show.
You’ll refine your live mixing skills, exploring digital processes and transition protocols, digital audio consoles and associated devices, synchronisation and time-codes and the use of VCAs and snapshots in audio-mixing. You’ll develop the knowledge needed to operate and tune a sound system to a specific environment and discover how technology can be used to deliver live experiences via digital means.
In the final year of your Live Sound degree, you’ll deepen your understanding of monitoring and learn the skills needed to optimise the tuning of a system to create the best possible experience for an audience. You’ll also study radio frequency theory and operation and complete a research project that looks into your chosen area of the live sound industry.
Enjoy the freedom to fit your learning around you. For online students, course content – other than one-to-one sessions – will be available to access whenever suits you. Video materials that have been created for online students will also be made available to students that select to study on-site.
You will learn from tutors whose expertise extends across production, composition, sound design, sound engineering, label management, marketing and promotion.
You’ll also have access to our extensive guest lecture programme, giving you the chance to meet leading industry professionals – ranging from respected producers and performers to specialist technical staff from world-class audio companies.
As a student of this course, you will be encouraged to apply for placements and opportunities with dBs Pro, our in-house creative audio company.
This will allow you to further your experience and apply the skills you have been honing, as well as showcase your skills to clients and develop your creative own links in the industry.
Who better to tell you about our course than students already doing the course? In this video, some of our latest cohort talk about their experience of the dBs online masters degrees.
Applying for this course is easy! Simply click the "Apply" button below to submit your application directly through our website.
A member of our Admissions Team will then be in touch to discuss your suitability for the course, your interests and to arrange an interview.
Applications for undergraduate degrees are made through the University and Colleges Admissions Service (UCAS). You can apply online through the UCAS website.
Please note that the UCAS 'on-time' application deadline for equal consideration is Wednesday 25 January 2023.
If you would like to make an application for this course, fill in your details below and a member of our admissions team will be in touch to advise you through the application process.
For detailed information on how to apply please take a look at our guide to making an application.
If you’d like to find out more about our postgraduate courses, please fill in the form below. Once submitted, a member of our admissions team will be in touch to discuss our postgraduate course offerings and the next steps of the application process.
Please note, if you currently live outside of the UK and require a Tier 4 VISA to study in the United Kingdom, we are unable to accept your application for our on campus full-time or part-time postgraduate degree programmes. If this is the case, please apply for one of our online postgraduate courses instead.