MA Sound Design for Video Games

$12950

Full Time - 12 Months (30 hours/week)
Part Time - 24 Months (15 hours/week)
Part Time - 36 Months (8 hours/week)

Game audio is a rapidly expanding and extremely creative area of the video games industry. Sound Design for Video Games is designed to prepare you, both creatively and technically, to work as a sound designer and eventually an audio lead or audio director. Taught and mentored by top video games sound designers, you will learn how to create the sounds that brings the world of the video game to life. You will also learn to use audio middleware software, such as Wwise and FMOD, to implement your sounds into game engines like Unity.

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Course Details

For those with a background in audio production, audio engineering or music, Sound Design for Video Games offers a great career opportunity in a fast growing industry.

On this course, you will learn:

To create game sound effects both from your own recordings and sourced from commercial libraries.
How to use inexpensive and readily available field recording equipment to produce atmospheres, spot-effects and Foley.
Technical skills like creating and implementing Foley, weapons, impacts and vehicle sounds.
Business skills to help you produce a winning portfolio that will help you into a new career.
Collaborative and remote working skills, vital in such a connected global industry.
To imagine a sound world that fits perfectly with the ethos of the game.

I wanted to focus on learning practical skills and developing my portfolio... I chose ThinkSpace because there aren't many places that teach that.

Right away, from the start of the course, you design sounds - and this is what it's all about!

Kasia Dziekan

Game Audio Designer and 'MA Sound Design for Video Games' Student

Student rating: (4.8)

Teaching Staff

Our tutors are all current working professionals, many involved at the highest level in the business.

The tutors who will be giving you individual feedback, either in writing or at the student workshops, have composing and orchestration credits including:

Rise of the Tomb Raider
Dragon Age: Inquisition
Need for Speed
SimCity
Bioshock 2
Mass Effect 3
Batman: Arkham Origins and hundreds more.

They’ve worked for every major film and game studio and networks and production companies including Blizzard, Nintendo, Capcom, Frontier, Dambusters Studios, 2K Games and many others.

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Mark Angus

Sound Design / Games

Spencer Bambrick

Sound Design / Games

Gina Zdanowicz

Sound Design / Games

Ross Tregenza

Sound Design / Games

Erasmus Talbot

Games

Frank Petreikis

Sound Design / Games

Student Stories

Our students are working in every corner of the industry from features films and television, to video games and trailers. Setting out on their careers as composers, orchestrators and sound designers, they continue to receive active support finding and pitching for work in the months and years after graduation.

Our recent students have gone on to work at Mojang, Creative Assembly, Frontier, Dam Busters and many more. Our graduates have worked on the score for Spiderman PS4 and scored the latest Battlefield 1 Apocalypse trailer.

See our student 'Hall Of Fame'

Course Structure

Your course falls into eight modules plus a final major project which lasts three months. Each module focuses on a different area of sound design, while at the same time developing specific audio, technical and business skills.

The first step to becoming adept with game music and audio is understanding its non-linear nature, and the implications this holds to composers and sound designers.

In this module, we will be discussing some of the fundamental techniques you will be expected to master. From creating seamless loops, writing to a brief, and field recording. You will also discuss game direction and management, storytelling and narrative, level design and game workflows. Specifically, the focus will be on handheld and mobile gaming.

Both professional and academic research gathers relevant information from a wide range of sources before analysing, evaluating, synthesizing and drawing reasonable conclusions on the basis of that information. Your research will be evaluated on the basis of its originality, depth of insight, and the quality of the supporting argument.

Research can constitute examining the practical work of industry professionals, as well as studying theoretical and historical academic research of the topic.

The biggest challenge facing game audio is technology. The rapidly shifting landscape of software and middleware means that technical requirements are a central part of the creation process for both sound designers and composers.

In this module, you will be working in the middleware FMOD, as well as taking a look at other topics such as Game Engines. You will also be learning about asset management, memory budgets, and version control.

While games bring their own set of challenges to the table, learning the art of creating audio and syncing it to picture is still a vital skill in game development. Working with video is still a daily task that sound designers use to create assets.

Here you will look at the application of sound to picture from cutscenes to trailers. You will create your own original sound to a given trailer or cutscene from a professional game.

Building on previous techniques from ‘Interactive Audio 1’, you will look at deeper challenges inside interactive audio.

You will be expected to implement your audio into a game project using audio middleware or appropriate technologies.

The module will also look at the emerging world of VR and AR audio and how sound designers are responding to this rapidly evolving market.

The final major project is a major piece of work that will take 12 weeks to complete. Either picking from the provided projects or delivering their own functional project, that has been approved by the course manager. This is a substantially longer piece of work than any other so far. It requires both solid technical skills and a much broader and deeper creative insight into the source material.

Students will be expected to research their chosen topic, developing a critical awareness of creative and technical problems faced by sound designers at the forefront of professional practice. Students will be supported by a formative assessment from their tutor at points throughout the dissertation. If students decide to deliver their own project, they are responsible for its functionality and the delivery of the project.

If instead of the Final Major Project you would prefer to produce a piece of written work that reflects your accumulated knowledge, then you can choose to submit a dissertation. The dissertation will represent your research into an area of sound intended for media consumption. It is an extended piece of scholarly written work and you will still have the same 12 weeks to complete it as you would if you were completing the practical Final Major Project. It is intended to represent the culmination of your academic, analytical and research skills, as well as taking advantage of your practical experience. This module will cultivate your intellectual and scholarly independence as a specialist in this area.

Schedules

We offer 3 different schedules, and students are able to pick which suits them best.

Full Time - 12 Months (30 hours/week)

Part Time - 24 Months (15 hours/week)

Part Time - 36 Months (8 hours/week)

These are estimates of the time a student will spend on each schedule. It will vary from student to student, depending on your rate of work. This includes live workshops, one-to-one tutorials, reading and watching the course materials, and time spent on assignment projects.

Learn More About Your Time Commitment

Finance

Total course price:

$12950

We offer interest-free payment plans from £218.06 per month, where you can spread the cost of your course across the duration of your studies. The payment plan you are on depends on the schedule you are on.

Students will be required to pay a deposit on enrolling. For more information on this, visit the Student Finance page.

Learn More About Finance Options

Applications

Before applying for one of our courses, we highly recommend getting in contact first. It is useful for us to hear your current musical abilities, and this also allows you to ask any questions you may have about studying with us. Please get in contact at

postgraduate@thinkspaceeducation.com

To find out more about the application process, visit the Applications page.

Learn More About The Application Process

Interested?

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*To submit an application, there will be an application fee

Frequently Asked Questions

For more FAQs, and more information please visit the Applications & FAQs, Student Finance and Study With ThinkSpace pages.

Ideally, applicants will have an undergraduate degree in music. However, there is an option for those who do not have a degree, taking into account real-world work experience of making music, and non-degree professional development courses. This Recognition of Prior Learning (RPL), as it’s known, is always assessed on a case-by-case basis. It also depends on how many other students are using this route during this stage of applications, as there is a maximum percentage of students we can take through this process.

We expect you to have a good, solid knowledge of one computer based DAW like Logic, Cubase, ProTools, Ableton or Reaper. You should be able to complete tasks quickly and to a deadline within these softwares and be comfortable doing new tasks inside them. Your demos should be of good quality and we are happy to listen to your work and give you an opinion on this before you apply. A high-level audio production standard is what we are looking for. You don’t need to be creating sound effects already, but should have demonstrable experiences with audio, whether through music, radio/podcasting, live audio or other audio production activities.

You should be comfortable learning new softwares and troubleshooting problems. Becoming a Sound Designer is as much being a developer as it is about creating assets.

The latest Digital Audio Workstation (DAW) capable of importing video files. We are able to provide extensive support for:

• Cubase 8 (or newer)
• Logic Pro X
• Pro Tools 11

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.

• Unity
• Fmod

Recommended Additional Software:

• iZotope RX
• Sound Forge
• Audio database software such as Mutant or Sound Miner.

For queries about any other platforms, please contact the Course Manager.

You must also have a reasonable to top performance computer (Mac or PC) as well as at least a basic orchestral virtual instrument library (we can advise you if you’re not sure about your setup).

PC:
Minimum Spec:
Intel/AMD Quad Core Processor 2.6GHz
8/16GB RAM

However we would recommend:
Intel i7 Quad Core 3.2GHz (equivalent or higher)
32GB RAM

Mac:
Minimum Spec:
Intel Processor Quad Core 2.6GHz
8/16GB RAM

However we would recommend:
Intel i7 Quad Core 3.2GHz (equivalent or higher)
32GB RAM

You will also need:
Monitoring headphones and/or speakers

We also recommend:
External audio interface
MIDI Keyboard

On successful completion of your course, you will be awarded a Master of Fine Arts degree from the University of Chichester. All UK degrees, including those gained through ThinkSpace Education, are recognised worldwide. The qualification is fully accredited in the UK and subject to regular quality control, review, and external invigilation to ensure the highest academic standards are maintained.

The graduation ceremony takes place in Chichester each year where you will receive your degree alongside your fellow students and the rest of the university’s graduates. If you cannot attend the ceremony in the UK, we can send your certification to you through the post.

Have a question?

Let’s chat…

That’s how most of our future students start: an informal conversation about where you are and where you want to be. No pressure, just getting to know you and how we might be able to help.

Get in touch with Tim Johnson the course manager (and film composer).

postgraduate@thinkspaceeducation.com