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Backward Guitar Recording the Easy Way

By Sweetwater on September 14, 2016

The Beatles and Jimi Hendrix both experimented with recording guitars (or other instruments) to a reel of analog tape that had been reversed on the tape recorder. Once the part or parts are recorded, the reel was flipped over to play in the correct direction. When the reverse-recorded parts were played back, they sounded backward with inverted dynamics and other anomalies. Famous examples are The Beatles’ “Tomorrow Never Knows” and “Within You Without You.” Up until recently, the only way to get this effect was in the studio, but now you can do the same thing with guitar pedals. Loopers like the Boss RC-300 and the Electro-Harmonix 720 Stereo Looper will allow you to record a phrase into them and flip it around at the touch of a button. Other pedals will allow you to create a backwards-sounding effect that can be used in real time, like the Strymon TimeLine Multidimensional Delay or the Eventide Time Factor Delay.

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