Offbeat Studios & Music Production

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Offbeat Studios & Music Production

Trusted by many major companies & individuals We record Voice-Overs, Audiobooks and Film commentaries for many companies including Sky TV..

A creative recording studio and audio production service specialising in Film and TV ADR, Audiobooks, Voice Overs, Music Production, Custom Backing Tracks and general commercial Audio work. BBC...AlJazeera... Film 4.. Penguin Random House, Harper Collins, Canongate Books and many more. We record and produce music for a wide range of applications. Specialist services for singers, songwriters and solo artists. Musical accompaniment and session musicians available.

02/09/2026

The Madame Blanc Mysteries
for Channel 5 - ADR

More great ADR sessions at the studio dubbing Award winning Canadian born Alex Gaumond. Directed over Zoom by from London by producer Tushar Manek and contributors from Ireland. There were just some occasional lines to record here for series 5 of The Madam Blanc Mysteries at Offbeat but setting up for these kinds of sessions in advance can involve more work than the actual recordings themselves. In this case there were five episodes of the current series to do so getting everything in sync and setting up cues to the supplied scripts so that everything goes smoothly when the talent turns up and everyone is online, is where most of the work is done. Once that was achieved Alex sailed through the script lines and everyone was happy with the results.

Alex Gaumond is a highly versatile Canadian actor, singer, and filmmaker. Derry Girls (Channel 4) – Appeared as a guest star in the critically acclaimed comedy.🎭 Notable West End Theatre RolesLegally Blonde (Savoy Theatre) – Starred as Emmett Forrest, earning a prestigious Olivier Award nomination for Best Actor in a Musical.Matilda the Musical (Cambridge Theatre) – Portrayed the iconic, villainous Miss Trunchbull. We Will Rock You (Dominion Theatre) – Played the lead role of Galileo Figaro.Company (Gielgud Theatre) – Played Paul in Marianne Elliott's acclaimed gender-swapped revival.🎬 Filmmaking & WritingIn addition to acting, Gaumond is an active screenwriter and producer.

He recently co-wrote and produced the award-winning short film Two and a Half Minutes

14/08/2026

The New Yorker Magazine Podcast

Critics at Large

Recorded a fascinating podcast today with Emily Nussbaum on the subject of the Canadian TV series ‘Slings and Arrows’ with an interviewer on Zoom from New York. Emily, a Pulitzer prize winning critic, reviews it as a cult classic and her favourite series of all time. All three series are available to stream on YouTube.

Done so many amazing sessions during this first week of the Fringe. More to follow!

03/08/2026

Nicola Sturgeon was back at Offbeat recently recording a new preface for the paperback edition of her memoir, Frankly, for Macmillan. Great to welcome her back to the studio after recording the full unabridged audiobook last year.

Following recent events, the preface sees her address her ex-husband Peter Murrell's fraud conviction directly, giving her own account and reflecting on her new direction since stepping back from Scottish politics.

Produced and directed by Iain McKinna at Offbeat Audio.

This is a personal and difficult chapter for anyone to speak about publicly, please keep comments respectful.

28/07/2026

Zara Larsson - Depop Global Campaign

Great to have been involved in ADR for a range of ads featuring Grammy nominated pop star Zara Larsson for the International clothing brand Depop’s new Global campaign.

US voice artist Chris Ginesi was in the studio recording parts for the series of ads with Directors and Producers who were online from various parts of the World.

Zara Larsson, one of the biggest stars on the planet right now performed brilliantly on the six commercials we recorded and Chris’s deep warm and resonant voice was amazing to listen to and record locally at Offbeat.

26/07/2026

Three Brothers in a Boat

Three brothers. One boat. 139 days. A world record row across the Pacific from Peru to Australia, and a storm that nearly cost them everything.
We’re beyond proud to have been commissioned by Canongate to produce and direct the audiobook of Three Brothers in a Boat. Jamie, Lachlan and Ewan Maclean’s own account of the crossing that broke a world record, and the night one of them went overboard mid Pacific.
Their parents feature too, with their own reflections recorded alongside the brothers’ logs, plus an Afterword by Alexander McCall Smith.
Three narrators, one control room, one hell of a story. Recording starts soon at the studio.

17/07/2026

Deception by Alan Parks — out 2nd July

Our 6th audiobook production for Alan Parks, this time the second in his Joseph Gunner series — a wartime thriller following a former Glasgow soldier turned undercover British Intelligence operative in WWII.

Set in New York, December 1941, Gunner is pulled into a web of espionage, organised crime and N**i sympathisers on American soil. When a covert op goes wrong and a young woman is murdered, he realises someone knows too much — and his own life is on the line.

Alan’s better known for his award-winning Harry McCoy novels (McIlvanney Prize, Edgar Award), but Gunner takes him into a different world entirely: Britain’s real efforts to sway American opinion before the US entered the war.

Narrated by Alex C Stewart
Directed by Zara Louise Kennedy
Produced at Offbeat by Iain McKinna

10/07/2026

The Immortal Sisterhood by Gemma Cairney

It was great to welcome broadcaster, writer and podcast host Gemma Cairney back to Offbeat recently to record her new audiobook, The Immortal Sisterhood, for Canongate Books.

This was our third project together since Gemma moved to Scotland five years ago. We first worked together at our Edinburgh recording studio, recording pieces for BBC Radio 6, so it was lovely to catch up again and hear about the inspiration behind this fascinating new book. She narrates in a stream of consciousness, as though she’s not reading, a skill she obviously gained during years as a broadcaster. Including hosting her breakfast show on BBC Radio1.

Gemma is expecting her second child in a few days, so there was a real sense of purpose in the studio as we worked to complete the recording before the big arrival.

The Immortal Sisterhood blends memoir, biography, philosophy and self-reflection as Gemma explores the lives of twelve remarkable women who have inspired and guided her throughout her life. From Grace Jones and Mary Wollstonecraft to Pharaoh Hatshepsut and Wang Zhenyi, each has helped shape her own personal constellation of influences, offering courage, wisdom and perspective through life’s challenges.

One of my favourite moments from the sessions was hearing Gemma describe Offbeat as a “wonderfully whimsical studio”. I’ll take that

Produced and directed by Iain McKinna

29/06/2026

Delighted to have produced this one. Psychologist Dr Sharon Blackie's Ripening heads the list of Audible's Editors' Best of 2026 and it deserves every bit of it.

The premise is deceptively simple, fairy tales are the stories women need right now. Not the sanitised versions, but the old ones, passed down through generations, built for hard times, demanding real courage from their heroines. Sharon makes the case with the kind of quiet authority that only comes from decades of genuine thought.

Available on Audible now.

Directed by Olivia Caw
Produced by Iain McKinna
For Duckworth Books

21/06/2026

We’re delighted to see The Lonely City by Olivia Laing, published by Canongate Books and narrated by Tilda Swinton, selected as The Guardian’s Audiobook of the Week.

The audiobook was directed, recorded and produced by Iain McKinna at Offbeat Audio in Edinburgh.

Congratulations to Olivia, Tilda and the team at Canongate on this wonderful recognition

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2026/jun/19/the-lonely-city-by-olivia-laing-audiobook-review-solitude-and-creativity-in-manhattan

18/06/2026

The Lonely City by Olivia Laing and narrated by Tilda Swinton is out today on Audible.

It was another truly amazing experience working with Tilda Swinton, this time on her very first audiobook which I directed and produced here at Offbeat for Canongate Books. It was first published in 2016 by Canongate in the UK and Picador in the US. Like Olivia’s previous works, The Lonely City blends research, biography and memoir.

I also had the pleasure of producing the epilogue by the author Olivia Laing for this new edition of the audiobook.

The majority of the research for the book took place when she was living alone in New York City, after having been abruptly left by a partner. Their reflections on the isolation they felt during this time make their way into the book, which studies the relationship between loneliness and art and includes stories about Edward Hopper, Henry Darger, Klaus Nomi and Andy Warhol.

It was a huge honour to be chosen to produce this important work. Tilda did a fantastic job of the narration we were very pleased when the CEO of Canongate, Jamie Byng who attended the final day of recording said “Watching Iain & Tilda working on The Lonely City was a masterclass in audiobook production, and the resulting recording is a masterpiece”.

Music to my ears!!

The Lonely City, is now available on Audible

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