When Nicola Sturgeon recorded her new memoir Frankly for Macmillan Audio, she chose Offbeat Studios in the heart of Edinburgh’s Royal Mile. Produced and directed by Iain McKinna and co-directed by Olivia Caw, the sessions captured her voice with clarity, warmth, and authenticity.
Recording an Audiobook remotely over 11,000 miles. From Edinburgh to Wanaka NZ was a challenge but thanks to good teamwork it all worked out.
the condensed story of Offbeat from 1994 to 2024 with some pre-history thrown in.
It's been a crazy busy Edinburgh Fringe here at the Offbeat Studio, broadcasting LBC and working with Channel4, Sky TV & Loftus Media
We have recently been in the process of producing five amazing Audiobooks commissioned by Publishing Scotland, including The 2022 Booker Prize shortlisted novel Elena Knows by Claudia Pineiro, and Ewan Morrison's How to Survive Everything.
Offbeat have recently been in the process of producing five amazing Audiobooks commissioned by Publishing Scotland in conjunction with Creative Scotland.
Some crucial tips on how to prepare for your first professional audiobook narration recording sessions
Offbeat have recently been in the process of producing five amazing Audiobooks commissioned by Publishing Scotland in conjunction with Creative Scotland.
2023 sees the expansion of Offbeat Audio which now handles all non music audio projects including Audiobooks and Voice Overs working for major publishers and broadcasters and self published authors .
I was introduced to Hamed by Thom McCarthy back in 1998, and in the Offbeat studio he created the first ever album of Bayefall Music entitled Akassa - on the Offbeat Scotland label with World Music distribution through Sterns Music.
Offbeat Audio Ltd now handles all non music audio projects here at the studio
I had the great pleasure of producing this poignant and thought provoking song When The Bees Go for Campion Crew which has just been released on iTunes, Spotify, Youtube and other digital platforms.
Offbeat Audio Ltd now handles all non music audio projects here at the studio
Interview with Iain McKinna by The Church Of Rock in USA
A playlist of artists who have recorded at Offbeat Studios. Richard Davidson Jnr, Imaginary Creatures, Chiara Lordi, Lesley Young and Harmonic Overdrive
Rory Bayliss Chalmers got in touch with me after writing and recording some Alternative Rock tracks on his GarageBand set up on his laptop at home.
Voice Over work has become one of our main activities here at Offbeat over the past 10 years and as 2021 gets underway we are building on that success to do more and more work for major broadcasters as well projects for independent self funded projects. From the feedback we have received from Voice Over […]
It's November 20/2020 and the Offbeat Studio is busier than ever with projects for Major Broadcasters and Indie Musicians and Producers.
In August Offbeat's Iain McKinna was asked to mix and master the new single See Me Now by the virtual band Out Of View. The band have contributed their musical parts from different locations around Scotland. Producer and Drummer Dougie Bonnar pulled all the performances together on Logic Pro X from his home in France […]
"Pandemic Special" What Doesn't Kill You! Using a screen capture app and some iphone footage edited on Final Cut Pro, Iain McKinna has created a demonstration video on how he created a custom backing track for Peel Entertainment for a Dance & Vocal Theatre Group. The video showcases the original Glee version of the track […]
A Film by Anirban Mitra & Tirtho Dasgupta Nemai Ghosh: A Ray of Light' is an immensely moving story of how an ordinary man came to be associated with Satyajit Ray, a giant of cinema--and how he became the photo-chronicler of Ray's creative and personal world. It pays tribute to the elegance of black and […]
Recording Audio Books by Iain McKinna Since I recorded an audio book with ex Dr Who girl Sophie Aldrid for BBC’s Audio Go a few years ago, I’ve recorded quite a few more since. I now produce and direct Audio books for Canongate Books, Audible and Bolinda Audio, Harper Collins as well as for self […]
40 years ago, way back in 1980, before mobile phones, fake recording equipment, the internet and social media, four young (ish) men stepped out of their old (ish) hippy garb to liberate themselves from the tyranny of cool to form a band. The Phonies Phil Phoney - Jamie Campbell - on Lead Vocals, Ron Real […]
Studio Improvements Well it’s been over 10 weeks since the lock-down and we have taken advantage of the situation at Offbeat to completely renovate the studio, update to a new Mac Pro with loads more processing power and invest in a 49inch curved monitor. The monitor allows me to the luxury of loads more real […]
Offbeat enters the new decade in its 27th year in pretty good shape, both with our Music and Audio projects and plans to diversify into Radio Production this year.
Grandpa Jock and the Incredible Iron Bru Incident is an extremely entertaining yarn with illuminating references to Climate Change
Music For Global Change Last year Offbeat producer Iain McKinna also recorded Skyler's vocals for the forthcoming single One World by Amsterdam based Friction and Skyler Jett. This world class reggae project The Global Messengers is sounding amazing and has been produced in Frictions home studio. Harmonic Overdrive During a visit to Offbeat last month […]
Imaginary Creatures The 4th album from Imaginary Creatures is now on release on record shops, and iTunes and all online music distributors. Produced at Offbeat, this album features Cellos, Strings and a Rock based backing of Guitars, Bass & Drums. It's the brainchild of lyricist David Scott who has teamed up with musician and producer […]
Edinburgh University Acapella Cooperative Nothing quite tests the functionality of a recording studio more than large group recordings which require multi-microphone setups. Cloud 9 MD - A male group of 18 singers, Cloud 9 started the session singing a few tracks together as a group. We set up 9 microphones, some of which were shared. A […]
Recording an audio book project like this requires serious concentration from the narrator, and in this case Fay did an amazing job of keeping the continuity of the reading both interesting and engaging. We decided to record it in the 'old school' way, so that any mistakes that were made were dropped in over, so […]
Back in those halcyon days, when I still had a semblance of hair on my head, our studio was a Midi/Analogue set up and the Guilty Party songs were recorded using this mix of technology. Fast forward to 2019 and Dougie put this recording together, firstly using Garageband and then progressing on to Logic Pro […]
In 2018 she came back into the studio to begin recording an album of classics, starting in July, and completed in early December, and again she knocked us out with the versatility of her vocal range on these tracks. I was impressed from the start with her vocal range. The songs which range from Etta James […]
Ted McKenna... by Iain McKinna We are all gutted here at Offbeat as Ted played on quite a few of our productions to fantastic effect. Two Imaginary Creatures albums - Danse Macabre & Sometimes They Get Into The Machinery and "Maybe Someday" by Chris Summers and on some of Sir Chris Evans Evamore recordings. https://youtu.be/9sS6CqKXgKc Sometimes […]
A Unique Production Service Evamore is a project by Sir Chris Evans who created an album of songs based on letters sent back from soldiers from WW1. The album was a huge undertaking which involved many session singers and musicians. On this particular song I worked out the arrangement based on a rough demo sent over my […]
Offbeat Projects & News March 2015 Having had a series of important equipment upgrades we have been buzzing all year, the variety of albums, singers and musicians, voice overs and backing tracks has been astounding. BBC Radio 4 We recently had the pleasure of recording a program for BBC Radio 4 with respected journalist Alan Little. […]
Chris’s songwriting styles on the album are Blues, Folk & Rock influences which required different production approaches. The songs were laid down on average of a studio session per week. Chris established each track on Acoustic Guitar and rhythm tracks were created as a template for each song. Bass, Electric Guitar & Keyboards were […]
Earthrise for Al-Jazeera with Russell Beard We are now currently working on Season 8 of the amazing series Earthrise for Al-Jazeera with Russell Beard, and about to embark on a new project for Time/Warner’s Turner Classic Films. In case you missed it, we started doing major Voice Over projects several years ago after meeting Film […]
His parts survived as midi exports which were then re-triggered with a Native Instruments piano that I had installed as a third party plug in on my Logic Pro-X DAW. Working on his ideas on his iPad was perfect for Mark who didn’t want to get bogged down with gear just to be able to […]
Amazing developments in the Voice Over area of our recording studio here at Offbeat in Edinburgh’s Royal Mile. The Eyes Of Orson Welles, a film by Director Mark Cousins, is to be premiered at the Cannes Film Festival this year. We recorded the voice of Star Wars star Jack Claff who plays the great actor […]
Gavin Blackie – Laid Bare Iain says ” When I first started working with Gav we got immediate results but we have had to go through a process of experimentation to find out what did and didn’t work. Once we hit on the formula some of the songs that initially didn’t suit his style translated […]
Music To Lyrics – A Unique Production Service Evamore is a project by Sir Chris Evans who created an album of songs based on letters sent back from soldiers from WW1. The album was a huge undertaking which involved many session singers and musicians. On this particular song I worked out the arrangement based on a rough […]
Skyler Jett – Grammy award winning singer ‘at Offbeat’. This extremely talented singer is full of energy and charisma and you can easily while away your afternoon listening to his many stories about his career in the music business. Skyler not only grew up in a musical family but was surrounded by and sung with so […]
2016 Gets Off To A Great Start 2015 was another amazing year at Offbeat. 2016 is lining up to be outstanding as it gets off to a great start with Ross Munro’s single Gravel Path (from his ground breaking album Twisted Traditions -Greentrax Records) reaching no1 in the Celtic Radio Charts. The album was produced here at the Offbeat Studio. The BBC/Swedish movie Stockholm […]
Imaginary Creatures album release ‘Danse Macabre’ Lyricist David Scott started off many years ago originally writing fiction and by using his creative writing skills he discovered that he could write lyrics which started seriously from 1995 to 2000 where he had a fertile period writing many lyrics for his own amusement. This culminated several years later and gave him […]
Ross Munro signs to Greentrax Well all his hard work has paid off as the hot news is that after an introduction by us at Offbeat he has just signed a recording licensing contract with Greentrax Records, who will be able to distribute the album worldwide to all of Ross’s many fans. And so Ross […]
Offbeat news from our Edinburgh Recording Studio. THE PRODUCERS BLOG GAVIN BLACKIE – LAID BARE (album) In the past couple of months we’ve picked up the pace with Gavin Blackie’s debut album Laid Bare and I am is now mixing six of the tracks he co-wrote with Gavin for the album. The album was started back in 2013 but […]
Pamela Stephenson Connolly – Josie Long It was fantastic to meet the Australian Sound Designer Derek Wilson who recorded all the spoken parts and announcements for the show. Pamela Stephenson Connolly, who is producing the show, and other members of the cast came into the studio the day before the opening of the show – which was […]
My son, Producer Paul McKinna aka Vigilante talks about how he put together his mega trilogy of hip hop albums with producer Spytec based on his favourite movies. To get in touch with Paul about making beats for your tracks Contact Us. “I started making Hip Hop beats when I teamed up with Profisee to […]
The Voice UK Showcase for Series 4 at Offbeat We had seventeen unique acts in the Offbeat studio ranging from opera to jazz to pop, rock and soul. Thanks to Rich Anderson and Dave Valentine for their superb recommendations and our Kirsty did a great job of looking after the singers prior to their […]
In early January 2014 we put the finishing touches to the tracks and sent it off to be manufactured for its current release on David’s label. The album, which is over an hour in length, consists of 14 original classic rock songs. In the studio, David approached each song with a strong vision in his […]
