[78-L] Playing reels backwards - separating myth from fact

[Kristjan Saag]

Or the recording in the run-out groove on Sgt Pepper's first side, which 
sounded like something being played backwards, and everyone thought 
contained a secret message when played forwards.
Here's what it sounded like: (jump to 0'55 for the forward version...)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DaXnqw-Zv0Y
Kristjan


On 2016-02-08 18:37, Malcolm wrote:
> Seems everyone's forgotten the flip side to "They're Coming To Take Me 
> Away" by Napoleon XIV which was flipped on purpose. 
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4gbvcEkuFFI The artist and writer was 
> Jerry Samuels. M ******* On 2/8/2016 5:58 AM, David Lennick wrote:
>> In radio, we'd get tapes that were "head out" or "tails out" (i.e. 
>> rewind before playing). One operator thought he was smarter than 
>> everyone else (part-timer) and "assumed" that the music tape I'd left 
>> him, a dub from a direct-to-disc that we didn't want people to get 
>> covered with peanut butter, was tails because that was "the only way 
>> to do it". So he wound it and started playing it backwards on the 
>> air. Another time, I threaded a reel from Radio Nederland of a 
>> concert tape..cued it to ambience, started it on air, heard applause, 
>> then heard strange sounding words, and thought "Oops, they sent the 
>> Dutch language version". Turns out that the "rewind before use" tag 
>> was on the wrong side of the reel. dl
>>> To: 78-l at klickitat.78online.com Date: Mon, 8 Feb 2016 15:50:58 +0000 
>>> From: dnjchi78 at live.com.invalid Subject: Re: [78-L] Playing reels 
>>> backwards - separating myth from fact In 1954 I was a college 
>>> student working at a record store on Long Island. My job one day was 
>>> sorting the discs that had arrived in the mail that day. I overheard 
>>> a woman complaining to the manager about a faulty 45 she's bought 
>>> there the day before. Naturally he played the 'faulty' disc, to 
>>> determine its fault. It was indeed faulty. As I heard it from the 
>>> back room, I immediately knew the problem. I rushed to the counter 
>>> and told the manager I'd find a replacement for her. I did, and she 
>>> was happy. So was I! I noticed immediately that the 45, Frank 
>>> Chacksfields "Ebb Tide" had been recorded backwards! The seagull's 
>>> "Caw, Caw" came out "Awk, Awk", and the orchestra sounded like a 
>>> pipe organ. I found another similar 'faulty' record in the bin and 
>>> bought them both. I later sold one, but kept the other. I figure, 
>>> the London presser in the US had made the pressing master from a 
>>> tape that hadn't been rewound, and to the operator it probably 
>>> sounded ok. Don Chichester From: 78-l-bounces at klickitat.78online.com 
>>> [78-l-bounces at klickitat.78online.com] on behalf of David Lennick 
>>> [dlennick at sympatico.ca.invalid] Sent: Monday, February 8, 2016 9:58 
>>> AM To: 78-l at klickitat.78online.com Subject: Re: [78-L] Playing reels 
>>> backwards - separating myth from fact Our first recorder was a big 
>>> full track machine so this was literally child's play! dl
>>>> To: 78-l at klickitat.78online.com Date: Mon, 8 Feb 2016 08:20:47 
>>>> -0600 From: jsalerno at collector.org.invalid Subject: Re: [78-L] 
>>>> Playing reels backwards - separating myth from fact I did something 
>>>> similar but with my first open reel toy machine. My sister and both 
>>>> got one for Christmas one year. I could play a tape backwards 
>>>> easily enough without having to open a cassette shell. For the good 
>>>> old days..... I started with simple words, like "cat" because of 
>>>> the hard consonants at the head and the foot. After I learned it 
>>>> backwards I would record it and reverse the tape, thus re-reversing 
>>>> it. I noticed the difference in the attack altho the word made 
>>>> sense enuff. Then I would record 78s and listen to them backwards, 
>>>> and every once in a while there would be a fragment of a melody 
>>>> that sounded melodious backwards as well as forwards. There was a 
>>>> little fragment from the Tchaikovsky Concerto #1 like that, about 5 
>>>> notes long. F-F-Gb-F-Ab IIRC. Then one day I Was listening to the 
>>>> radio and heard those 5 notes within the context of some song! So 
>>>> now I wonder if industrial composers used that kind of reverse 
>>>> technique for inspiration. Joe Salerno On 2/8/2016 2:23 AM, Iñigo 
>>>> Cubillo wrote:
>>>>> Talking about that, it reminds the old experiments I used to do 
>>>>> with my old cassette player when child... I even got my father 
>>>>> involved in the issue... Reassembling cassette tapes upside-down I 
>>>>> managed to play them in reverse, by the opposite face, of course, 
>>>>> with the unavoidable lack of treble, but... anyway it worked. I 
>>>>> had lots of laugh listening to my favorites backwards... Of 
>>>>> course, I used to do that with 78s too, moving the turntable with 
>>>>> the finger. One of my favorites was Bing Crosby's "Amor Amor", 
>>>>> which in reverse mode was a quiet strange song ending in a sort of 
>>>>> Bing's braying "Romaaa... Romaaaa... Romaaa...". Very nice. But 
>>>>> that's another story. The true thing with the reversed tapes 
>>>>> arrived when I started to record backwards, then reassemble the 
>>>>> tape in direct mode to hear the results... Nice...! The next idea 
>>>>> was to read a text backwards (strange business in which I really 
>>>>> got thoroughly trained) while recording backwards, then reverse 
>>>>> the tape and listen to the results... Heavy uncontrolled laughing 
>>>>> here...! And there I got my father involved... helping me to read 
>>>>> poems backwards, one chorus each one, in turn... Bursts into 
>>>>> laughter were unavoidable while reading backwards, which in 
>>>>> reverse (direct mode) sounded like barking dogs... No need to say 
>>>>> that, apart from the strange voices and vocalization, we sounded 
>>>>> slow and clumsy... And when you made a mistake, then corrected 
>>>>> it... the result was that you say it well first, then correct it 
>>>>> to wrong...! ... I've played this too with my children, few years 
>>>>> ago. We used the old Windows Sound Recorder that allowed reversing 
>>>>> the WAV soundfiles, etc. They were amazed and we had a great time 
>>>>> singing songs in reverse, which we learnt by heart. If you read it 
>>>>> is easier... but if you learn by heart and then repeat from 
>>>>> memory, mistakes are more frequent, which is much more funny. 
>>>>> Imagine the difficulty tryin'g to learn a song in reverse, melody 
>>>>> included... Inigo, from Madrid, SPAIN 
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