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The MFA course is an advanced degree and prepares you for a career as both a video game composer and as a game sound designer, the kind of full-stack game audio professional that is increasingly in demand.
Scoring video games is rewarding and challenging but highly competitive.
Our real-world project based approach, tutored by working professional game composers and sound designers, is designed to help you compete at the highest level.
Being able to provide a complete audio service makes you much more employable.
The course will help you develop as a video games composer, raising your music to a new level, helping you find a voice and distinctive style of your own.
But then you go further and learn the technology and creative skills required to work as a video games sound designer, creating immersive audio worlds.
The course is project focused. We want you to feel like you’re already doing the job.
All your tutors are working professional video game composers and sound designers.
You will work on a inspiring range of games, including commercial releases, provided as part of your course materials. Y
ou will learn not only how to create inspiring interactive music and sound but also how to implement your audio inside the game using industry standard middleware like FMOD and WWise.
Whether you want to learn to compose for video games or are looking for a video game sound design course, our MFA will bring you real-world professional tuition you need to lay the solid foundations of a career in video game music and audio.
You will be uploading and downloading a large quantity of material so you should have access to a reliable broadband with a speed of at least 5Mbs or more.
We have found that the Google Chrome browser is the most compatible with the Adobe Connect webinar software we use which will also be an important part of your course. All your assignments are uploaded through the Student Portal on our website. This can also be accessed with any standard FTP client, for example CuteFTP on a PC or Transmit on a Mac.
You will need a computer, software and ancillary equipment (MIDI keyboard, monitors, hard drives both internal and external), Mac or PC, capable of producing professional quality music and audio, and recording equipment. This is the overriding principle and the following minimum technical specifications are given for guidance.
This is an intensive course with strict deadlines in order to mirror a real-world professional working environment. As such, students must be have acquired and be competent in the use of the minimum technical requirements prior to starting the course to get the most out of it. Students may be eligible for significant educational discounts.
DAW (Digital Audio Workstation):
We expect you to have a good knowledge of one computer based DAW:
Game Software:
You need to have a copy of the following programs but we do not expect you to know how to use them. The exact version number of this software is important, and the version we support may change. Full information on the current approved course software version is available through the VLE.
Recommended Additional Software:
The course has been developed in close consultation with the industry so we know we are teaching you the skills your future employers want you to have.
It’s a strongly project focused course and you will develop an effective workflow, remote working and collaboration and a clear understanding of what’s expected of a professional member of the game audio team.
You need to be technically literate and learn software easily.
This course does not require you to learn to code but you will be developing a powerful combination of creative and technical abilities that are market-focused.
Working in games is all about finding new ways of doing things and creative problem solving. This postgraduate course accurately reflects the working life of a games composer working as part of remote working team.
All your tutors are working professional video game sound designers.
You will work on a inspiring range of games, including commercial releases, provided as part of your course materials.
You will learn not only how to create inspiring interactive sound but also how to implement your audio inside the game using industry standard middleware like FMOD and WWise.
Whether you are a composer looking to increase your chances of employment or an audio professional with a passion a for sound design, our MA will bring you real-world professional tuition you need to lay the solid foundations of a career in video game sound design and audio.
Working specifically on creating great audio for video games, you will be tasked with recording, manipulating and implementing audio using the same tools you will be expected to use in the industry.
Sound Design for Video Games students are trained in the practical audio of games such as foley, dynamic game states and the many technical challenges that face professional sound designers working today.
Whilst you will learn how to edit music for video games, Sound Design for Video Games students won’t be assessed on their own compositional skills.
You will be uploading and downloading a large quantity of material so you should have access to a reliable broadband with a speed of at least 5Mbs or more.
We have found that the Google Chrome browser is the most compatible with the Adobe Connect webinar software we use which will also be an important part of your course.
All your assignments are uploaded through the Student Portal on our website. This can also be accessed with any standard FTP client, for example CuteFTP on a PC or Transmit on a Mac.
HARDWARE
You will need a computer, software and ancillary equipment (MIDI keyboard, monitors, hard drives both internal and external), Mac or PC, capable of producing professional quality music and audio, and recording equipment. This is the overriding principle and the following minimum technical specifications are given for guidance.
PC
MAC
SOFTWARE
This is an intensive course with strict deadlines in order to mirror a real-world professional working environment. As such, students must be have acquired and be competent in the use of the minimum technical requirements prior to starting the course to get the most out of it. Students may be eligible for significant educational discounts.
DAW (Digital Audio Workstation):
We expect you to have a working knowledge of one computer based DAW:
Game Software:
You need to have a copy of the following programs but we do not expect you to know how to use them. The exact version number of this software is important, and the version we support may change. Full information on the current approved course software version is available when on the course. Both Unity and Fmod are able to be downloaded for free.
Recommended Additional Software:
The course has been developed in close consultation with the industry, so we are teaching you the skills your future employers want you to have.
It’s a strongly project focused course and you will develop an effective workflow, remote working and collaboration and a clear understanding of what’s expected of the game composer as a member of the game audio team.
All your tutors are working professional video game composers.
You will work on an inspiring range of games, including commercial releases, provided as part of your course materials.
You will learn not only how to create inspiring interactive music but also how to implement your score inside the game using industry standard middleware like FMOD and WWise.
There are plenty of music production schools yet, despite increasing interest in video games soundtracks, almost none who specialize in scoring computer games.
This is currently the only online master’s degree in composing for video games. So if you enjoy working in a vibrant and rapidly evolving area of music production, if you embrace the technical and creative challenges that scoring computer games will involve, then come and join us.
Our MA will bring you the real-world professional tuition you need to lay the solid foundations of a career composing music for video games.
You will be uploading and downloading a large quantity of material so you should have access to a reliable broadband with a speed of at least 5Mbs or more.
We have found that the Google Chrome browser is the most compatible with the Adobe Connect webinar software we use which will also be an important part of your course.
All your assignments are uploaded through the Student Portal on our website. This can also be accessed with any standard FTP client, for example CuteFTP on a PC or Transmit on a Mac.
HARDWARE
You will need a computer, software and ancillary equipment (MIDI keyboard, monitors, hard drives both internal and external), Mac or PC, capable of producing professional quality music and audio, and recording equipment. This is the overriding principle and the following minimum technical specifications are given for guidance.
PC
MAC
SOFTWARE
This is an intensive course with strict deadlines in order to mirror a real-world professional working environment. As such, students must be have acquired and be competent in the use of the minimum technical requirements prior to starting the course to get the most out of it. Students may be eligible for significant educational discounts.
DAW (Digital Audio Workstation):
We expect you to have a good knowledge of one computer based DAW:
Game Software:
You need to have a copy of the following programs but we do not expect you to know how to use them. The exact version number of this software is important, and the version we support may change. Full information on the current approved course software version is available through the VLE.
Recommended Additional Software:
This course is one of the first of its kind in the UK and has a graduate employment rate of 97%. It prepares you for careers as software architects, project managers or software developers. You may also operate as a software consultant or do further research.
In collaboration with a number of high profile industrial leaders and computer game innovators, we have created an advanced course producing graduates with the potential to become future leaders in the global computer games industry.
The course is for honours graduates in computing science or a discipline with significant computing and/or mathematical content, such as computing, information systems, mathematics, engineering, systems engineering or physics.
You will benefit from:
-An industrial advisory board made up from high profile UK games companies
-Industrial placements at leading game studios
-Industry-sponsored prizes each year in categories such as Best Team, Best Project and Best Student
-A technical focus on game engineering
Newcastle has a first class record of research related to the development of computer game technologies and 97% of our graduates are in employment following graduation. Our graduates have gone on to work as programmers for a wide range of companies including:
-Ubisoft Reflections
-Fluid Pixel
-Nosebleed Interactive
The staff delivering this course have international reputations for their contributions to the fields of online gaming, graphics and simulation, artificial intelligence, programming and human computer interaction.
You will be encouraged to play a full part in the life of the School, participating in seminars delivered by distinguished external speakers. The experienced and helpful staff at Newcastle will be happy to offer support with all aspects of your course from admissions to graduation and developing your career beyond.
The course is available over one year full time, leading to an MSc award. We will equip you with the skills and knowledge required to develop computer game software. We will also provide an international perspective on advancements in computer game development.
There are three phases in the course. Phase one (60 credits) consists of 20 hours per week of lectures. We will introduce core knowledge and skills through modules in:
-Programming
-Graphics
-Game technologies
You will also undertake a substantial amount of supervised and unsupervised practical work.
During phase two (30 credits), we emphasise the practice of computer game development through modules in:
-Research methods for gaming innovations
-Entrepreneurial skills for the game industry
-The development and assessment of an actual computer game (team exercise)
Phase three (90 credits) is the individual system development or research project.
We have a policy of seeking British Computer Society (BCS) accreditation for all of our degrees, so you can be assured that you will graduate with a degree that meets the standards set out by the IT industry. Studying a BCS-accredited degree provides the foundation for professional membership of the BCS on graduation and is the first step to becoming a chartered IT professional.
Our Computer Game Engineering MSc has Creative Skillset Accreditation as well as being officially recognised as a NVidia CUDA Training Center.
The School of Computing Science at Newcastle University is an accredited and a recognised Partner in the Network of Teaching Excellence in Computer Science.
Facilities:
You will have dedicated computing facilities in the School of Computing. You will have access to the latest tools for system analysis and development, as well as an allocated PC and desk space in a project lab. For certain projects, special facilities for networking can be set up.
You will enjoy access to specialist IT facilities to support your studies, including:
We have moved to the new £58m purpose-built Urban Sciences Building. Our new building offers fantastic new facilities for our students and academic community. The building is part of Science Central, a £350 million project bringing together:
*Subject to validation
The Msc Games Development course provides students with a higher-level understanding and direct professional experience through a multidisciplinary approach across commercial game projects.
This course is ideal for graduates who have completed our BA (Hons) Computer Games Design or BSc (Hons) Computer Games Programming undergraduates degree, as well as those who have graduated from other related technical and creative subject areas who are wanting to enter the video games industry.
We have collaborative partnerships in place with community organisations and employers including commercial and third sector organisations.
Students will be exposed to work on commercial games, providing them with an understanding of business and enterprise as well as preparing students for working within a commercial studio setting.
One of our modules allows students to link up with the Ipswich Waterfront Innovation Centre (IWIC), providing them with access to more facilities and covering a range of business-related topics in connection with games development.
Development Management (mandatory)
This module provides students with industry standard management methodologies and tools used to run team game developments.
Visual Scripting (mandatory)
In this module. students learn how to develop games using visual scripting tools at high and low levels, depending on their discipline and background.
Group Project 1 - Multiple Rapid Prototyping (mandatory)
For this group project, students concept and rapidly develop game ideas, learning how to work efficiently as a team.
Group Project 2 (mandatory)
In this module, students will work on a longer 12-week development project.
Business Development (mandatory)
This moduled covers a range of core business skills relevant to both the independent and large scale development studios. This will be delivered by the Ipswich Waterfront Innovation Centre (IWIC) where students will have access to the Entrepreneurial Programme as well as unlimited access to the IWIC facilities.
Final Project (mandatory)
The Final Project involves independent learning as an extended dissertation covering a detailed exploration of an element of the games industry.
Research Methods (mandatory)
In this module, students will learn rigorous academic and commercial research skills.
Work-based practice is embedded throughout the duration of the course. All modules will relate to work-based learning, relating to commercial management processes or understanding production within a working environment. This will enhance employability and give graduates a greater understanding of games development within the work place.
Graudates can progress in to a range of careers including: Game Programmer, Games Designer, Games Artist, Quality Assurance, Serious Games Developer and Gamification Developer to name a few.
The MSc Game Development course will have access to the Eclipse Suite where students can access the facilities on specific days for independent working and group projects.
Students can benefit from a dedicated lab, access to two other game development labs and a range of game development hardware including, Oculus Rift, Emotive EPOC+ Brain interface, Leap motion, Myo, Phidget components for building custom game controllers, a range of mobile phones and tablets to test your games on.
Students will also have access to a common room area for MSc students and a custom games cabinet in which to run student games.
Music Technology is a rapidly evolving field of study with a diverse and expanding range of possibilities.
The MSc in Audio Technology is designed to go beyond the simple provision of training, and to instead enable you to engage with current debates and actively participate in some of the most vibrant areas of contemporary research.
Throughout the course you will be encouraged to demonstrate self-direction and autonomy as you critically explore and define your position within the wider field. One overarching aim is that you should leave the course as not only an adept user of various hardware and software technologies, but as someone able to actively shape and develop their own, responding as necessary to future developments.
Thus, in addition to developing your theoretical and methodological understanding, the MSc in Audio Technology features a strong emphasis on practical work in a number of different (but related) areas. For example, you will study modules in Advanced Studio Practice, Sound on Screen, Music Computing and Musical Human-Computer Interaction. These are supported by a technology-orientated Research and Development module that provides robust foundation for the final Audio Technology Project.
Acting as summary of all that you have learned and a portfolio going forward, the Audio Technology Project provides an opportunity to plan and execute a substantial project in an area of personal specialism or interest. Innovative projects are encouraged, and there exists the potential for interdisciplinary and/or collaboration with practitioners in other fields.
Advanced Studio Practice
This module explores various methodologies employed in the planning, recording, editing, mix down and mastering stages of audio production. You will conduct research into genre and equipment-specific working practices, which will lead to the development of innovative engineering concepts and techniques. You will evaluate and use a variety of software and hardware tools and produce work in both stereo and surround sound.
Sound on Screen
The module aims to investigate the relationship between sound and the moving image in contexts such as film, television, advertising and video games. Throughout the module you will develop your understanding of theories, practices and techniques used in the production of music intended to be experienced in conjunction with other media. This will initially involve analysing and deconstructing a range of audio-visual media, examining their aims and how effectively these aims are met. You will then use your understanding of the work of others in the field to critically inform and evolve your own approaches. Using a variety of techniques and technologies, you will create a number of short practical pieces to accompany a variety of linear and non-linear media.
Music Computing
In this module you will explore the relationship between theories of music and computing and creative practice. More specifically, you will study perception and cognition of sound, the ways in which computers can analyse music and audio, generative musical structures, and how these compositional processes can be applied to the generation and transformation of audio. In carrying out the practical assignment, you will critically evaluate, understand the differences between, and demonstrate mastery of common musical programming languages in the realisation of your ideas.
Musical Human-Computer Interaction
Musical interaction is a vibrant area of contemporary research with considerable crossover into more established areas such as Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) and Physical/Ubiquitous Computing. In the first part of the module you will look at recent work by the New Interfaces for Musical Expression (NIME) community, using these examples to examine and explore a range of pertinent design issues. These include: novice versus virtuoso users (i.e. ease of use versus the potential for mastery), single versus multi-user, discrete versus continuous data control, the provision of haptic feedback, and causality of sound. Using appropriate Physical Computing technologies (e.g. Arduino, Beagleboard, sensors, actuators, basic electronics), you will then design and implement a musical interface for a chosen real-time application (i.e. analysis, composition, or performance). Finally, you will consider how HCI-inspired evaluation methods may be applied to your work, and document your design (online) in such a way that it can be recreated and developed further by interested others.
Research and Development
The Research and Development module initially explores the nature of innovation, then moves on to examine research process including design and development, fundamentals of both quantitative and qualitative traditions, and HCI-inspired methodologies for the evaluation of audio software, musical interfaces and other technologies. Towards the end of the module the emphasis then shifts to the development of an individual research design/proposal that may form the basis of your final Audio Technology Project.
Audio Technology Project
The Audio Technology Project is an opportunity for students to pursue a substantial, self-directed project in a chosen area of audio or musical technology.
The course will actively equip both graduates and those already in industry with a diverse range of skills to enhance their career prospects. It will also develop a range of opportunities for experience and employment in areas such as studio recording, media production and content creation, video game and software development, education (FE/HE), research assistantships/studentships, and employment in HE institutions.
In addition to subject-specific practical skills, you will also acquire a range of transferable skills relevant for pursuing a research degree. These include critical, analytical, project management and research skills from the study of a broad spectrum of literature, research, and external projects.
Address the image world, find out how images create meaning, and discover what you can do with what you see on this eclectic MA programme
If this degree were a film we’d be watching the beginning and the end. We think, like Walter Benjamin, that it’s in these moments – in their inception and their obsolescence – that you see the utopian possibilities of a form or social movement.
Are we in the midst of a beginning? What can we learn now from visual culture’s past? What’s happening to our bodies when we play a video game? What are the gestures involved in everyday life? How do our bodies relate to technology?
These are the kinds of topics we analyse on this MA. We want to go beyond the borders of a traditional film studies degree so we go back to the beginning of film history to explore what it meant to fashion yourself in an image, or for a society to see itself in an image. Then we explore how images gain meaning now, and where they’re going next.
We’re interested in the evolution of the image, but also image culture. As photographs and films constitute more and more of our communication, we encourage students to try to put their thought into audio-visual form for some modules.
For the MA’s Media Arts Pathway, you can make your own piece of work and submit it as part of the final project, the dissertation. Production values are not the focus for us. We’re interested in what you do with an idea.
We think learning is about trying to get hold of something you don’t know yet; wrestling with ideas you’re unsure of so as to work critically and imaginatively across multiple media forms. While we do look at films, we also investigate such things as contemporary gallery work, the city’s screens, computer and phone interactivity to reconsider our relationship to images.
We study our heritage of image taking and making not just to discover how that relationship has changed over time, but also to find jumping off points for own experimentation and try to create something new.
As part of the University of London you also have the chance to explore one option from the MA Film & Media programmes at other universities. Find out more on the Screen Studies Group website.
The MA offers two pathways:
MA Film and Screen Studies: Moving Image Studies Pathway
The moving image media today are a concentrated form of culture, ideas, socialisation, wealth and power. 21st-century globalisation, ecology, migration and activism fight over and through them. How have the media built on, distorted and abandoned their past? How are they trying to destroy, deny or build the future? This pathway explores new critical approaches that address the currency of moving image media in today's global context – their aesthetics, technology and politics. It seeks to extend the boundaries for studying moving images by considering a wider range of media and introducing students to a wider range of approaches for investigating moving images' past and present.
MA Film and Screen Studies: Media Arts Pathway
The most intense and extreme forms of media, experimental media arts, test to breaking point our established ideas and practices. From wild abstraction and surrealist visions to activist and community arts, they ask the profoundest questions about high art and popular culture, the individual and the social, meaning and beauty. This pathway explores these emerging experimental practices of image making and criticism. Students on this pathway are encouraged not just to study but to curate and critique past, present and future media arts by building exhibitions and visual essays of their own. Short practical workshops will enable students to make the most of the skills you bring into the course.
Structure
The MA consists of:
Assessment
The MA is assessed primarily through coursework essays and written projects. Practical modules may require audiovisual elements to be submitted. It will also include a dissertation of approximately 12,000 words.
Our graduates go on to work in areas such as programming and curating, film and video distribution, and film and television criticism, but many also create their own careers. Twenty per cent of our graduates pursue PhD degrees.
Find out more about employability at Goldsmiths.
We offer a broad-based MMus programme with three pathways: musicology, performance and composition. All three pathways can be used as professional training for themselves, or as preparation for PhD study. Students in our MMus programme benefit from intensive one-to-one instruction with world-leading experts in music history, cultural studies of music, performance studies and analysis; internationally noted performers with active solo and ensemble careers; and prominent composers of contemporary art music, electronic music, media music (including film, television and video game music) and jazz.
Do you want to know how great film scores were composed? Are you interested in the ideas behind musical performances? Expand your knowledge of the components and aspects of music with the MMus Music (Performance, Composition and Musicology) at the University of Southampton and enhance your musical talents. This broad MMus programme will teach you the elements of musical performance, as well as the different genres of music. Gaining this experience across a variety of categories will prepare you for a successful career in the music industry.
The MMus programme in music provides a flexible course of study. Its goal is a professional research project, recital or composition portfolio. Tutors work with each student from the outset of the course to form a portfolio relevant to the student's specific professional aims, whether further research at doctoral level, a career in the music industry or the wider cultural sector, or work as a teacher or free-lance musician. We recognise that music has increasingly become a 'portfolio career' and aim to provide our MMus students with a platform for success in whatever area of music their aspirations lie. Thus the broad modular structure of our programme allows for cross-over between the pathways.
View the programme specification document for this course
