SAE Audio Production student Pete Spence studies at our Glasgow campus and has worked across a number of different projects with peers from other disciplines.
From a love for electronic music to working on various film projects, his influences and passions are broad.
In our interview, Pete shares more about his time at SAE and how his studies have helped him elevate his skills.
Read our interview below – if you’d like to join our Audio Production course, then get in touch with our team now.
How did you get into audio? Where did your passion come from?
My brother got me into electronic music from an early age.
I’ve always had a passion for production although I never got into it until my mid-20s. I had lots of part-time jobs, and all I cared about was getting to the weekends.
But then I thought, there has to be more. So I decided to focus on electronic music. I found a course in audio production,
went for it five years ago, and I’ve not really looked back since.
How did you find your way to SAE?
Well, I did my indie course, finished up, and really enjoyed it. I did really well and got really good feedback from my lecturers.
Then during Covid, I never really thought about what I was going to do next. I applied to a course that was more about starting your own business rather than learning production.
I did that for about a month, but I realised it wasn’t what I wanted. I did a search online and SAE came up.
What’s it like to be at SAE from a community standpoint?
I would say this community is amazing. It’s super laid back, just filled with like-minded, creative people – a massive variety of all types of people.
From all the students to the lecturers and staff, everyone is really easy going but, at the same time, really motivated and looking to do their best. It’s quite an infectious atmosphere. Once you get into it, there’s no going back. It’s amazing. I love it.
Tell me a little bit about your lecturers. Why are they special?
The lecturers are so cool – all of them. A lot of my friends and family are tradesmen, and my brother is in the police. Before, I had random jobs like working in a bank on the phones. I never really met anyone who had the same outlook on life as me in terms of what I wanted to do. Then I met my lecturers, and it was like, “Wow, I’ve found people who are like me”.
I admire them a lot because I aspire to be more like them. They’re
just super cool – really laid back but at the same time pushing to get the most out of you. It’s like they meet you halfway: you put in the work, and they make sure you’re on the right track. I’ve had all sorts of different opportunities and formed really good relationships with them. It’s not your usual student-lecturer dynamic, so it’s good.
In terms of your time at SAE so far, are there any highlights?
When we have studio sessions in here or in Odeon, where it’s smaller, that’s when the class really comes to life. I think everyone is just a bit more comfortable in smaller groups.
I really enjoyed the studio sessions. Last November, one of the film lecturers has a production company and was making a short film. I was able to be the Boom Operator, so I’ve got an IMDb credit, which is really cool.
My lecturer got in touch with a professional who started a new company called Sub Mix. It’s kind of like Zoom, where you can send your audio from your DAW, and they can hear it physically.
There are people from the US working for it, so that’s pretty cool. Then, there are just those chance encounters you have with either students or staff where you pick something up – small details you wouldn’t have learned if you were just doing it on your own.
Are there any challenges you’ve faced during the course, and how did you overcome them?
Approaching some of the biggest challenges, I’d say I’m quite introverted, so speaking to people is quite difficult – or rather, it doesn’t come naturally.
But the classes and lecturers make it really easy. I like electronic music, but I’m not a musician. There are lots of talented musicians in my class, so I’m always picking their brains about music theory, which has been really good.
I’ve also learned to be more comfortable working in groups,
which is a massive improvement since I started the course.
Can you tell us a little bit about what you’re working on at the moment?
For my major project, I’m specialising in sound design and post-production. I’ve got three short films: one is sci-fi, one is horror, and the other is a drama.
Each has a creative restriction on the sound design. The sci-fi has to be strictly synthesised, so even things like clothing movements and footsteps have to be synthesised – using either a soft synth or modular synthesis.
Horror is strictly electro-acoustic, which has become quite popular recently. If you’ve seen Chernobyl, the TV series, they did a lot of electro-acoustic sounds. It’s basically recording any sound, then manipulating it in the DAW to create something new. For the drama, it’s going to be foley and field recording.
Could you expand more on the film project you were involved in?
I’ve done quite a lot of collaboration, especially with film students.
In my first year, I got in touch with one of the second-year film students and did some post-production work, like cleaning up audio from live recordings. Towards the end of the first year, they really made it a point to get students from different disciplines working together. I’ve actually made quite a lot of friends among the film students. I worked with them on a project that involved filming a BBC Live Lounge, and we had quite a few first and second-year film students help out. It turned out really cool.
For Tutor Paul Barrie’s film, it was a proper short film that’s been released. I did the boom operating on that and met plenty of people from the industry. It was a really cool, professional production. I was able to pick the brains of people and get their advice.
Study Audio production at SAE
At SAE, our Audio Production Degree can help students learn the latest production skills and techniques to further their careers.
Our course encourages students to adopt a future-facing mindset where they are keen to understand more about how innovation and technology will shape the industry and their work.
