ssendrawkcaB

Bob-Dubery

This morning's commute listening was the Beatles marvellous Revolver. That album is considered a groundbreaking one for general studio wizardry. Amongst other things it includes TWO (count 'em) songs with backward guitar parts.

Now I'm wondering if backward parts are a thing that's used a lot these days. First problem with such parts is that they're pretty hard to reproduce live.

The last time I can remember hearing backwards parts was on Paul Simon's Graceland album. There's a guitar part that sounds backwards towards the end of "Under African Skies", but that's Adrian Belew so he might just have been conjuring up some piece of sonic weirdness. The other is in the bass break on "You Can Call Me Al". It's not that apparent. It's actually two pieces - one the original, "forward" piece followed immediately by the original sampled and reversed (as I found out when sampling that break and playing it backwards - I thought the darn sampler was broken at first).

Since then?

Go on... tell me there's been loads.

That all said, I wouldn't be surprised to find some ssendrawkcab in poh-pih.

Bah! I bet Brian Eno's been using them. Wouldn't surprise me.

Bob-Dubery

!FYIG

Seems the Red Hot Chilli Peppers used backwards recorded guitar.

Squonk

Marc Bolan - just can't think of any others. A bit before Graceland!

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Norman86

taylor swift - we are never getting back together seems to feature some reverse delay!
and yes, i like her, her voce isnt bad, and she's easy on the eye ?

peterleroux

REM's "What's the Frequency, Kenneth?" has a backwards solo, I think the only one Pete Buck did. But that was 18 years ago

domhatch

easy? she's heavenly!

to be frank, she's not my cuppa, but there's no denying the talent. zappa was not my cuppa either, but you can't argue the level of talent there, can you? (not that i'm comparing taylor swift and frank zappa, before anyone gets upset.)

oh, and yeah, that solo on 'kenneth' was great, really enjoyed it - thanks for reminding me.

dh|

Bob-Dubery

Squonk wrote Marc Bolan - just can't think of any others. A bit before Graceland!

Yeah. It seems to have been a 60s and 70s thing. I have a bell labelled "Joe Walsh" ringing in the back of my head, but I can't put a name to the track. Hendrix, as one would expect, also indulged in the backwards solo.

Doesn't seem that common now, but I suspect it wasn't all that common THEN. Probably because most attempts sounded like a pile of goat droppings. It took Harrison nine hours in the studio to finally get it right on "I'm Only Sleeping".

AlanRatcliffe

It is a 60s' thing and few do it well.

Not surprisingly The BBC Radiophonic Workshop were one of the first to do it. The original Dr Who theme... The Beatles used it a lot too.

King Crimson are regular users/abusers. Thank heavens. Belew usually plays a solo normally, flips the tape and learns to play the part backwards, records it that way and then flips the tape around again. So all of the notes are in the right places, but backwards.
"I'm a dinosaur, but someone's diggin' my bones" - King Crimson, Dinosaur

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Michael Hedges did it in a very interesting way for Spare Change (Aerial Boundaries), by recording it normally, then cutting, flipping and splicing every single note, one-by-one.

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I still love doing backwards delays and reverbs - the old fashioned way so they happen before the original sound. Think Tull's Dun Ringill...

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