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Southampton Solent University logo

Music performance, production and business at Solent

The music industry offers hugely varied career opportunities, from performing on stage or producing the perfect sounds in the studio, to sound engineering or running the music business behind the scenes by managing and promoting acts.

With the world of commercial music growing through the rise of independent artists and the expansion of music festivals catering for specific genres, university is the perfect place to nurture your passion with specialised guidance and grow your professional network.

Under the supervision of practising producers, composers, musicians and DJs you can study areas including music production/composition, audio engineering, live performance and entrepreneurship.

For music business you can cover artist development, live events, festivals, project management, finance, marketing, legal contracts and copyright.

Solent has a thriving community of creatives, enabling you to collaborate with other skilled individuals to engineer your tracks, make your next music video or spot the latest talent for you to promote.

The city of Southampton is a hub for music and arts, and Solent has excellent links to Southampton’s vibrant local music venues including Switch, The Engine Rooms, The Joiners, 1865, O2 Guildhall, Heartbreakers and many more.

You can learn from a dedicated team of professional producers, composers, musicians, sound engineers and DJs with a wealth of international industry experience for you to tap into.

Frequently asked questions

Member of:

UK Music logo

Member of:

Music Academic Partnership logo

Our music courses are available through Clearing

Courses

BA (Hons) Digital Music

Want to make club-ready tracks, or audio for top level games and film? Hone your style using highly technical sound production skills, taught by established sound engineers and DJs.
Music students rehearsing in the studio

Foundation Year in Popular Music

Immerse yourself in a vibrant, creative environment to collaborate with fellow students and hone your music production/composition skills, and gain a broader understanding of the music industry.

BA (Hons) Music Business

The music business offers many careers within artist management, record labels, streaming platforms and live event promotion. Our graduates now work at Universal, Spotify, The O2 and Live Nation.

BMus (Hons) Popular Music Performance

Take your passion for playing and performing skills to the next stage - join Solent’s community of creatives and learn from a dedicated team of professional musicians, composers and producers.

BA (Hons) Popular Music Performance and Production

Play and produce your tracks. Combining performance techniques and studio recording skills, using digital and analogue studios, this degree is ideal to help launch your career in the music industry.

BSc (Hons) Popular Music Production

Produce the perfect sounds in cutting-edge studios and collaborate with the community of creatives out of Southampton’s vibrant music scene.

Facilities

Our facilities can take your skills to the next level, with our cutting-edge studios. Music studios run Pro Tools and Logic Pro X, and our student-friendly music laboratories include a dedicated digital music lab with Logic Pro X, Ableton Live Suite and Native Instruments’ Komplete. There are dubbing suites for TV and film, with mixdown workstations/booths, as well as DJing live zone, rehearsal/practice rooms.

The University’s media loans hatch enables you to borrow equipment for university work or other private projects. Instruments provided include: drums by DW and Mapex; a Moog synthesiser; Korg Kronos; and Marshall, Fender and Vox valve guitar amplifiers. Software includes Native Instruments Komplete and plug-ins by Sonnox, McDSP and Celemony. Live sound mixers include Allen and Heath DLive, Soundcraft Si and Midas M32. Solent’s recording studios are state-of-the-art, and include: Pro Tools Ultimate and Logic digital audio workstations, microphones by Neumann, AKG and Shure, and analog processing including Neve, Universal Audio, Focusrite, Empirical Labs and Portico.


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