Happy Xmas To One And All

Offbeat wishes all your customers a very Happy Xmas and a Happy New 2008.

Spirit Of The Glen..Xmas no1-UK classical charts

The album by The Royal Scots Dragoon Guards, produced by Jon Cohen and Engineered by Iain McKinna has reached no1 in the UK Classical Charts.

Brian Rice and Clive Moorhead

Brian and Clive were in the studio on Saturday with a dance track they recorded on their home system using Cubase on a PC. All the tracks on the song “Edge Of Love” were converted to 48 audio tracks and we then dropped the tracks onto the Offbeat studio Logic Audio program. In the first five hour session I then reworked the the track, adding a new bass and piano sound to the mix. On Monday we mixed the backingtracxk which is destined for the USA where billboard charting dance artsist Rachel Pany will be adding her vocal at New Yorks Powerhouse studio. The vocal tracks will then be sent back to the UK where the final mix will be taking place in January / February prior to release. I really enjoyed this session, Brian and Clive, who hail from Ireland, were a pleasure to work with and their clear direction made the song turn out great so far!

Simon Kempston + Rosie Hunter

Singer/Songwriter/Guitarist Simon Kempston is in the studio this week recording 4 new acoustic songs. Simon was in the studio earlier in the year with guitarist Louie Robertson. This time round the songs are more rootsy sounding and the recording, which also features violinist Rosie Hunter, is free of any overdubs and is strictly Acoustic Guitar, Violin + Simon’s very distinctive vocal. The recording is principally for swinging a gig at January’s Celtic Connections festival in Glasgow, but it’s turning out really well and has a lovely fresh original feel to it. Simon doesn’t mess about and one hour into the session all the guitar parts were done and dusted. By the end of the four hour session all four songs were completed. The mix takes place on Wednesday.

Rod Clements + Allie Fox

Fantastic session yesterday on Allie’s album with guest slide guitarist Rod Clements from Lindisfarne. So far by far the best addition to the album as the slide really complimented Allies guitar style so perfectly. Taking advantage of the day we got Rod to play on 4 tracks and he was kept busy right up until the end of a four hour session apart from a couple of short coffee breaks. Looking forward to editing and mixing him into the album sometime in January. Remaining guests to appear now prior to completing the album is Celloist Ron Shaw and Harmonica player Fraser Spiers.

Tom Tufnell

Had a great session with young songwriter/guitarists Tom Tufnell on Thursday. The song entitled Numbers + Letters was about maths and how perhaps a music career was not as lucrative as being a maths genius but Tom conjectures that perhaps it is a happier choice. Hope to work again with Tom in the future. A really nice guy and a great musician.

Allie Fox

Yesterday Allie Fox was back in the studio to continue the recording of her acoustic guitar instrumental album. Guest guitarist Neil Warden played a session on her tracks ‘Poor Boy’ and ‘Pavane” with nylon strung acoustic guitar. Next Friday (14th) Lindisfarne slide guitarist Rod Clements will be in the studio to guest on a couple of tracks.

Spirit Of The Glen enters top 20

After a week of being released on Universal Records the ‘Spirit Of The Glen’ album has entered the UK Classical charts at no2 and the UK album charts at no 17. The album was produced by Jon Cohen and the pipes/drums and whistles were recorded by Iain at Edinburgh’s Heartbeat Studios in August this year.