Music production courses in Southampton
3 schools teach production, DJing or sound engineering in Southampton. Every listing is checked against the school's own pages, with the date shown.
Southampton Solent University
universitySolent's music courses run out of its East Park Terrace campus in Southampton city centre, taught through block teaching where students study one module at a time rather than juggling several subjects each week. Three degrees cover the ground this directory cares about: BA (Hons) Music Performance and Production, BA (Hons) Digital Music (dance genres including House, Drum & Bass, Hip-Hop and Techno, with optional DJ technique and game audio modules), and BSc (Hons) Live Event and Audio Engineering, which sends students to work festivals including Glastonbury, Boardmasters and Camp Bestival. Students get access to nine networked recording studios, Pro Tools Ultimate, Logic Pro, Ableton Live, a 12-speaker Dolby Atmos music studio and a 96-seat Dolby Atmos cinema. Solent is a Dolby Institute Academic Partner and describes itself as one of the UK's largest Pro Tools training locations. Fees for UK students sit at £9,790/yr across all three courses (2026/27 figures); entry typically needs 104 to 120 UCAS points, though direct entry to year 2 or 3 is considered for relevant qualifications. The Music Performance and Production course was previously marketed as Popular Music Production, so older search results and directories may still use that name. Solent's music department was ranked 1st in the UK for student satisfaction in music studies by the Complete University Guide 2026.
University of Southampton
universityThe University of Southampton's BA Music runs from the Department of Music on the Highfield campus, a short walk from Southampton Common. It isn't badged as a dedicated production degree the way Solent's courses are, but production is built in from year one: the compulsory Music Production Fundamentals module covers audio, MIDI, DAWs, synthesis and mixing, and years two and three add optional modules including Music and Sound Production 1, Sonic Performance Lab and The Producer as Composer. Students record in a facility with two control rooms and two live rooms, stereo and 5.1 surround monitoring, Neumann, DPA, Rode, AKG and Sennheiser microphones, and a Mac lab of twenty iMacs running Logic Pro and Ableton Live alongside Native Instruments Komplete and Ableton Push controllers. UK fees are £9,790/yr (2026/27); entry needs ABB to BBB at A-level including Music, plus Grade 8 on a practical instrument or equivalent. Worth flagging for anyone comparing options: this is a broad music degree with a production strand, not a specialist production or sound engineering course. The university's separate BEng/MEng Acoustical Engineering, based at the Institute of Sound and Vibration Research, covers acoustics and noise and vibration control rather than music recording or mixing, so it isn't included here despite the similar-sounding name.
River Studios
private schoolRiver Studios operates out of a purpose-built 10-room complex at 32 Winsor Road in Totton, on the western edge of Southampton, a 10-minute drive from the city centre and a short walk from Totton train station. The complex has four recording studios, four rehearsal rooms and its own licensed bar, and includes a private studio branded 'Black Room': the same business also runs a separate website, blackroomstudios.co.uk, for its mixing, mastering and production-lesson bookings, so students searching either name land at the same Winsor Road address and phone number. Music production and DJ lessons are taught one-to-one, typically over 12 weekly sessions, covering everything from EDM and singer-songwriter production to beat-matching and harmonic mixing on both controllers and Pioneer CDJs/1210 turntables. River Studios is the Rockschool (RSL) and Trinity Rock & Pop exam centre for Southampton, so lessons can be taken purely for skill or graded toward those qualifications. An introductory offer prices three one-hour lessons at £30 each. For 18 to 30 year olds, River Studios also runs the government-funded MAS Records Artist Development Programme, a free course that leads to a BTEC diploma in music production.
Subjects taught in Southampton: Music production, DJ, Sound engineering, Ableton, Logic. Know a school we've missed? See our methodology for how listings get added.