Music, Multimedia and Electronics

Few disciplines sit at a more productive crossroads than the one joining music, digital media, and electronics. This degree at The University of Leeds occupies exactly that junction, combining the study of sound, musical systems, and creative practice with the engineering principles that underlie the technologies shaping contemporary music and multimedia. You will learn how instruments, studio equipment, signal processing, and software tools actually work, and you will develop the technical fluency to design, build, and critique them.

The course is delivered jointly by the School of Music and the School of Electronic and Electrical Engineering, giving you genuine depth in both worlds rather than a shallow survey of either.

You will study the acoustics of sound and its digital representation, electronic circuit design, programming for audio and multimedia applications, and the creative production of music and sound. The course develops an analytical mind that can move between a composer's concern for timbre and texture and an engineer's concern for signal integrity and system architecture. Because the programme includes a sandwich year and a year abroad, you will have the opportunity to gain professional experience in industry and to study within a different academic or cultural context, both of which strengthen your employability and your creative outlook.

Work placement experience is built into the course, giving you direct contact with industry practice before you graduate.

This combination of disciplines opens pathways into audio engineering, product development for music technology companies, sound design for film, games and interactive media, broadcast engineering, and research into human-computer interaction or acoustics. Many graduates move into roles that did not exist a generation ago, precisely because this subject trains you to sit at the boundary where creativity and engineering meet. Further study at postgraduate level in music technology, acoustics, or electrical engineering is also a natural next step, as is entrepreneurship in the growing sector of music software and hardware.