Reversing stuff is a great way to get a fresh and interesting new twist on a sample or section of our song, especially in the beginning stages of production. Pretty much every DAW has a built in reverse function.
Using the reverse function can be useful in meeting a number of various production effects. Reversing stuff can be used to:
Build tension
Reinforce and support harmony
Coloring a sound
Creating fresh material within a stagnant idea
Building Tension:
You can reverse a number of different things to create different types of tension.
Say we have an EDM track with a long, powerful build. Everything sounds good, but we feel like there should be a little extra something in the last bar to really up the stress, so that our drop feels a bit more satisfactory. One very common practice is the use of reversed crash cymbals into a drop, so that our last final seconds of build up are extra tense.
But you don't have to stop there.
Reversed snare drums are super effective for creating emphasis on a particular snare hit in a pattern.
You can even go above and beyond by adding additional processing to your snare (i.e. Reverb, distortion, delay etc.) before you reverse it.
Reinforce and support Harmony
One of my favorite uses of reversed sampling is on finger plucked acoustic guitars. By selectively choosing important notes in a harmony, and reversing them into themselves, you can make your guitar line draw listeners in with the allure of the unfamiliar sounds of the reversed guitar.
This can be achieved cleanly by duplicating your guitar track, choosing which notes you want to accentuate, cutting out those notes individually and reversing them, and deleting the notes we don't want.
Coloring a Sound
A similar effect to reinforcing a sound, but reversing samples doesn't have to be restricted to solely harmonic endeavors. The characteristics of reversed samples are a very distinct sound, one that is easily recognizable, and using this distinct coloration, we can get great results on all sorts of samples through creative cutting and reversing. This is especially pertinent if you are a producer who prefers to do a lot of their sound design through the cutting and splicing of various audio samples.
Creating fresh Material within a Stagnant idea
Pretty much any audio file with a clearly defined Attack and Decay has the potential to yield interesting results. Never be afraid to see where inspiration could strike. The reversal of samples, even as a joke just to hear what it would sound like, has yielded amazing results for me in my music, and I'm sure it will for you as well!
