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Creative Music Production MA

2025-26

How to apply Order a prospectusPostgraduate Open Days
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This course is eligible for Master's loan funding. Find out more.

Start date

22 September 2025

Duration

1 year full-time
2 years part-time

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About the course

Reasons to study

  1. Music and Music Technology at the University of Huddersfield has an international reputation, and hosts one of the largest postgraduate music communities in the UK.
  2. You will benefit from our regular research seminars and workshops.
  3. Music staff are active across diverse professional contexts, including as producers, sound recordists, programmers, performers, improvisers and publishers of scholarly articles and books

This course aims to enable producer and musicians to fully integrate studio technology with musical outcomes. We strive to develop both your technical and creative potential underpinning this with scholarly insights into production and the studio as a creative, artistic tool.

This Masters level course is designed for both music and music technology graduates, but also for learners from industry or practitioner backgrounds who are looking to develop their musical and technical skills and knowledge, allowing everyone to explore new ways of engaging with Creative Music Production.

Our aim is to combine the essential qualities of musician and producer to deliver post graduates who are adaptable, creative and not afraid to push the boundaries of studio practice in the pursuit of innovative artistic goals.

Music and Music Technology at the University of Huddersfield has an international reputation, and hosts one of the largest postgraduate music communities in the UK. You will benefit from our regular research seminars and workshops, and will be a member of the Centre for Research, in Music and it's Technologies (CRMT) which provides a focus for popular music research in the department.

Course detail

Researching Music

On this module you will be introduced to a range of significant and contemporary scholarship relating to the study of music. You will learn about diverse approaches to music research, and receive training in managing research professionally and ethically. Central to the module is the development of research skills appropriate to postgraduate level work and to your own research interests.

Advanced Desktop Music Production

On this module you will professionalise your DAW techniques. Focusing on modern approaches to music production, the module will deepen your skills in sound design using original synthesis and sampling as well as recording in a digital environment. The module involves multi-software workflows, the expressive use of hardware controllers and hybrid techniques combining digital and analogue processing.

Spatial Audio Production and Analysis

The module is designed to provide you with systematic understanding on both theoretical and practical sides of spatial audio recording and reproduction. The module will start with introducing the psychoacoustic principles of auditory spatial perception, followed by exploring various spatial audio recording and processing techniques, such as microphone arrays, panning and binaural audio synthesis techniques. You’ll learn how to design a microphone technique to capture desired spatial sound in an acoustic environment based on psychoacoustic principles. You’ll also develop critical listening skills as well as objective analysis techniques for spatial audio quality evaluation.

Creativity in the Studio

This module investigates the studio as a creative tool and its relationship to your practice as a songwriter, performer, composer or producer. Practical workshop sessions will provide a basis for developing your own bespoke workflow or performance setup which you will then use to realise a piece of compositional, performance or production work.

Group Project

You will work in a small group of students to devise, manage and realise a practice-based creative project that is relevant to using the studio and/or other music technology and may include a live event or performance. Roles will be clearly allocated to group members with a collaborative approach to the project design and final assignment.

Creative Production Project

On this module, you undertake a substantial independent creative production project. You can undertake work in any area of creative music production that interests you and guidance will be available through staff supervision. Examples of the kinds of projects that would be relevant are an EP/album length production of one or more artists, a collection of your own songwriting or compositional work, a substantial live production (or portfolio of live work) from either mixing or performance perspectives, or a set of music videos (of your own creative work or that of others).

You will take 180 credits at Master’s level, made up of six modules, of which two are project-based. A further module focussing on Desktop Music Production and one optional choice of either spatial audio or advanced mixing.

Entry requirements

You are required to have a minimum of a 2:2 honours degree from a recognised University or equivalent institution.

If your first language is not English, you will need to meet the minimum requirements of an English Language qualification. The minimum for IELTS is 6.5 overall with no element lower than 6.0, or equivalent. Read more about the University’s entry requirements for students outside of the UK on our International Entry Requirements page.

Our Department

Take a look at what studying in the Music Technology department at the University of Huddersfield has to offer. Click the images to find out more.

Student support

The school has dedicated Academic Skills Tutors (AST) who deliver a range of generic skills. The AST offers help and advice with general study skills, IT, literacy and numeracy as well as research skills. The AST may also refer students for specialist support and assessment e.g. for Dyslexia.

In line with the Equality Act 2010, the School will make reasonable adjustments in order that disabled students can fully access their course. The University's Disability Services provide information and advice to disabled students about the support available and liaises with members of staff on disability related issues.

Important information

Although we always try and ensure we deliver our courses as described, sometimes we may have to make changes for the following reasons

When you enrol as a student of the University, your study and time with us will be governed by our terms and conditions, Handbook of Regulations and associated policies. It is important that you familiarise yourself with these as you will be asked to agree to them when you join us as a student. You will find a guide to the key terms here, along with the Student Protection Plan.

Although we always try and ensure we deliver our courses as described, sometimes we may have to make changes for the following reasons

Changes to a course you have applied for but are not yet enrolled on

If we propose to make a major change to a course that you are holding an offer for, then we will tell you as soon as possible so that you can decide whether to withdraw your application prior to enrolment. We may occasionally have to withdraw a course you have applied for or combine your programme with another programme if we consider this reasonably necessary to ensure a good student experience, for example if there are not enough applicants. Where this is the case we will notify you as soon as reasonably possible and we will discuss with you other suitable courses we can transfer your application to. If you do not wish to transfer to another course with us, you may cancel your application and we will refund you any deposits or fees you have paid to us.

Changes to your course after you enrol as a student

Changes to option modules:

Where your course allows you to choose modules from a range of options, we will review these each year and change them to reflect the expertise of our staff, current trends in research and as a result of student feedback or demand for certain modules. We will always ensure that you have an equivalent range of options to that advertised for the course. We will let you know in good time the options available for you to choose for the following year.

Major changes:

We will only make major changes to non-optional modules on a course if it is necessary for us to do so and provided such changes are reasonable. A major change is a change that substantially changes the outcomes, or a significant part of your course, such as the nature of the award or a substantial change to module content, teaching days (part time provision), type of delivery or assessment of the core curriculum. For example, it may be necessary to make a major change to reflect changes in the law or the requirements of the University’s regulators or a commissioning or accrediting body. We may also make changes to improve the course in response to student, examiners’ or other course evaluators’ feedback or to ensure you are being taught current best practice. Major changes may also be necessary because of circumstances outside our reasonable control, such as a key member of staff leaving the University or being unable to teach, where they have a particular specialism that can’t be adequately covered by other members of staff; or due to damage or interruption to buildings, facilities or equipment, or pandemics.

Major changes would usually be made with effect from the next academic year, but may happen sooner in an emergency. We will notify you as soon as possible should we need to make a major change and will carry out suitable consultation. If you reasonably believe that the proposed change will cause you detriment or hardship we will, if appropriate, work with you to try to reduce the adverse effect on you or find an appropriate solution. Where an appropriate solution cannot be found and you contact us in writing before the change takes effect you can cancel your registration and withdraw from the University without liability to the University for future tuition fees. We will provide reasonable support to assist you with transferring to another university if you wish to do so.

In exceptional circumstances, we may, for reasons outside of our control, be forced to discontinue or suspend your course. Where this is the case, a formal exit strategy will be followed in accordance with the student protection plan.

The Office for Students (OfS) is the principal regulator for the University.

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