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Confessions of a Backward Guitarist Series: Here comes the first installment!
Jimi Hendrix elevated reverse-tape guitar parts, to an Artform in the 60's. Was it his genius, a sign of the times, psychedelic influences, or all of the above. When people heard that sound for the first time; it captured imaginations, (or at least took them for a little walk). Frenzied "Hippies", longed to create that effect live. We used to wonder if an Echoplex or two, could be rebuilt with Mobius Strips to wind tape into spaghetti that would eventually play backward, live. Believe it!
It's amazing what sounds good backward! Slow vocal "Spirituals" can be show stoppers. One Stanley Bros. record featured a tune where the Tenor part moves between the 4th, and 5th scale degrees, sung over a suspension. This voicing is resolved, then fades to silence. The swell in reverse, is awesome! Not sure what that feeling is, but there's a whole lot of it. Digging backward sound is one of those experiences where society hasn't penetrated to quantify, or qualify every last gasp: you get to have your own innocent experience.
In honor of our first effect, the "Confessions of a Backward Guitarist" series is going to begin at its culmination, then develop less and less. Don't be afraid, it won't hurt. Surreal concepts usually don't.we find them curiously refreshing. We'll feature several backward effects over time.
The subject of our first feature is a pedal that many of you might find familiar.but don't run away, there's a magnificent wrinkle on the horizon! Here's another hint: A lot of the technology necessary to place Televisions in nearly every home, was created in the USA. The same goes for Color TV, then later, the "remote control". Yet patents for these seemingly disgarded ideas were released into the Public Domain. The throw-away society was crystalizing domestically, but numerous other countries jumped at the opportunity to refine those concepts, creating billions in profits.
It's amusing to finally witness an imported, consumer electronic product refined to its full potential here in the US of A. There's your "reversity" in action! Baffled by this teaser? OK, drumroll please: The honored guest of our first "Confessions" feature is the Boss DD-5 Delay pedal!
Yes, you heard right, we passed on it too when it first came out. It's Reverse Reverb sabotages itself by letting the dry, (forward) signal be heard at an obvious level: "All that meat, and no 'Taters"! Have mercy! The old RPS-10; Boss made in the 80's, is a better backward effect.
Enter the Dragon!
This site is centered in a profoundly diverse region: Our Asian friends have taught us that the Dragon is held in very high esteem in their cultures. Dragons are usually summoned by the forces of Nature to restore balance. Too esoteric fer ya? Then stow this in the, "you never know who's going to check out your site", file. Out of the blue; we received a nice e-mail from Jeorge Tripps. In gentle understatement it went something like: "Aloha, nice Website! You guys might be interested in knowing that a Boss DD-5 delay, can be modded to produce a clean, completely wet, reverse loop. Aloh, JT".
Yowsers!
Our lengthy devotion to reverse sound had, precipitated an enormity from the very "Heart of Hugeness"! Our symbolic Godzilla was specialized perfectly: breathing fire from a skilled, mighty SOLDERING IRON it! Zap, PoW, BaM.now the Boss DD-5 oozed reverse sound perfectly, continuously: All yes, nothing but triumph! "And it just kept going, it didn't really have to stop"* Jimi* Grown men, indeed, yet we wept openly, for joy among ourselves.
Please Note:
The pedal was significantly changed in this procedure. The use of an A/B box is necessary, because the modded effect stays on at all times. The A/B box allows you to select, or deselect having the effect heard, as you play. It acts only as an ON/Off switch in this case. Clearly time for a second "Confessions of a Backward Guitarist", piece. It would be neat to include email from our visitors.
Not sure what was done inside the DD-5's box, (we're not about to pick around in there and screw it up), but it works flawlessly. You plug the DD-5 into an A/B box, to allow bypass, send the signal to input, then out, and continue back out through the A/B box Dial in mode 6, and voila, you're a backward guitarist, with about a one second reverse loop! No emulations, no reverse-oid, reverse-like simulations, no harmonizing effect payments just for the backward loop. Check out the Tonefrenzy sound files to hear this bad boy.
We'd like to thank Jeorge Tripps for his time, and design skills. He owns "Way Huge Elecrtronics". He's very involved with R&D for Line6 which is bringing out effects which will likely include this capability. Additional backward guitarist confession features, are on the way. Even Rockers have history, we'll touch on some of the ingenious gear developed along the way to tomorrow. Ladies and gentlemen; boys and girls, listen to the samples below... Aloha! Tonefrenzy
Sound
Sample 1 | Sound
Sample 2
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