LANARK by ALASDAIR GRAY - An analogue to digital restoration of the late author's narration.
Last year I had the pleasure of restoring the audio of Alasdair Grey’s narration of his landmark novel Lanark from cassette to digital at our Edinburgh recording studio for Canongate Books.
It’s fantastic to hear that Grey’s restored author recording has now been included in a new unabridged audiobook edition alongside narration by Alan Cumming and Angus King.
The restoration involved transferring ageing cassette recordings, removing the characteristic tape hiss, and carefully matching audio from different sources into one coherent digital master at our Edinburgh recording studio. The aim was to retain the texture and personality of Grey’s original performance while making it sit naturally within a modern release.
Hearing Alasdair Grey narrate his own work was hugely entertaining. There’s a particular intimacy when a writer reads their own words, and it was a privilege to help preserve that voice for a new generation of listeners.
‘Probably the greatest novel of the century’ Observer
‘One of the landmarks of twentieth-century fiction’ Guardian
‘A necessary genius’ Ali Smith
First published in 1981, Lanark established Alasdair Gray as one of Britain’s leading writers and kick-started the modern renaissance of Scottish literature.
Audio restoration carried out at Offbeat, an Edinburgh recording studio on the Royal Mile specialising in audiobook production, ADR and voice recording.
Alasdair James Gray (28 December 1934 – 29 December 2019) was a Scottish writer and artist. His first novel, Lanark,(1981), is seen as a landmark of Scottish fiction.
He published novels, short stories, plays, poetry and translations, and wrote on politics and the history of English and Scots literature. His works of fiction combine realism, fantasy and science fiction with the use of his own typography and illustrations, and won several awards.
Forever K-Pop Tour of North America
Behind the scenes at Offbeat, our backing track producer George Wood is deep into one of the most demanding music production briefs we’ve taken on in recent years.
George is currently producing 28 bespoke K pop tracks for the upcoming FOREVER K-POP: A Celebration Concert, a large scale North American tour celebrating the global impact of K pop. The show launches in March 2026 and will tour major venues across the US and Canada.
This is not a simple playback show. Each track is being carefully produced to work in a live touring environment with choreography, visuals and timecode driven show control. That means tight arrangements, robust stems, clear musical cues and absolute consistency from track to track so the show can scale night after night.
From a production perspective, this kind of work sits right at the intersection of music production and live performance design. It demands musicality, precision and an understanding of how tracks behave once they leave the studio and hit an arena PA.
We’re proud to be contributing to a production of this scale for Right Angle Entertainment in California and to see Offbeat’s work supporting an international touring show. It’s also a reminder that great studio production doesn’t stop at records and releases. Increasingly, it underpins live shows, broadcast, theatre and large scale touring productions.
More on the tour can be found via Broadway World.
FORBES GLOBAL PROPERTY - VO
Kitty Dinwoodie was back at Offbeat recording a VO for a film that’s part of the We Actually Live Here series published in the quarterly online lifestyle magazine Storied.
Kitty and husband Nielson Dinwoodie (aka The Good Vikings) produced it for their client Forbes Global Properties, the exclusive real estate partner of Forbes.
Each short film highlights one well-known location – Lake Como, Beverly Hills and now Montecito – and tells the story of what’s it’s like to actually live there beyond the glitz and glamour.
The Good Vikings is a boutique creative agency based in Glasgow.
Kitty and Nielson were last in the Offbeat studio a couple of years ago recording their audiobook Dinner Is Ruined.
RIPENING - Why Women Need Fairy Tales Now by Dr Sharon Blackie ..
... is the January audiobook project here at Offbeat for Duckworth Books.
Sharon travelled up from Cumbria to narrate her audiobook, it''s the third of seven published books that she has narrated herself.
In Ripening, she explains that Fairy tales matter because at the heart of every one of them is transformation. In this world in which all our old certainties seem to be crumbling, many women feel lost. In Ripening, Sharon Blackie insists that fairy tales are precisely the stories we need for such times.
Dr. Sharon Blackie is an award-winning and internationally bestselling author, speaker and teacher. She’s a former neuroscientist and a psychologist with a background in mythology and folklore, and her work is focused on the mythic imagination and its relevance to the personal, cultural and environmental issues we face today.
‘She knows her archetypes, knows her Jung, knows her fairytales and knows her neuroscience, and is sick of being patronised by men who don’t’- THE SUNDAY TIMES
‘My standout interview of the year’ MATTHEW TAYLOR, BROADCASTER, CEO OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY OF ARTS AND HOST OF ITS ‘BRIDGES TO THE FUTURE’ PODCAST