Kirsty McKinna

Kirsty McKinna is the studio manager for Offbeat Studios and is also an Electric Violinist and Vocalist. She started out in the music business in 1983 as a backing vocalist on the Zed album, a solo project by Iain McKinna.

Kirsty and Iain toured in Italy and Holland and did gigs and radio sessions in the UK including Capital Radio in London before moving to the Isle Of Skye to record a four track album. They then recorded tracks with Producer and vocalists Chris Harley aka Chris Rainbow at Heartbeat Studios in 1985, followed by more productions by Chris at Palladium Studios with guest Drummer Martin Hess, Saxophonist Bill Innes & Percussionist Dave Haswell.

In 1987 they started Sonic Studios where Kirsty began her studio management career working with many local and International acts for major and Indie record labels and management companies. During this period they formed The Harmonics and recorded an album of songs entitled Sonic Waves with percussionist Dave Haswell. They won the Music In Scotland Trust award for best song Living The Dream and gigged locally, sometimes with guitarist Derek Hawthorne.

In 1991 Iain and Kirsty went to Portugal and worked in a live circuit in the Algarve before returning to Edinburgh to start Offbeat. Since then Kirsty has appeared on many recordings of local and International acts including:

In 2001 she joined The Jimi McRae Band and gigged extensively at UK Music Festivals and In France and China. Her unique Electric Violin styles featured heavily on the Instrumental album Kick Out The Ghosts. Other major gigs included T In The Park, Hampden, Blues In The Park & Stirling Castle.

In 2015 she released an album under the name Offbeat Kirsty, entitled Secret Of The Heart, in which she demonstrated a wide range of Vocal styles and Electric Violin. Her video Drifting Around is available to watch on Youtube.

In 2018 she sang lead and played Electric Violin on the debut single You Inspire Me by Harmonic Overdrive which achieved local and National airplay on BBC Radio 6 and is featured on the BBC Music website. The band are currently working on new songs for further releases in 2018/19.