How to get the reverse guitar sound

This type of sound is mainly associated with two very specific songs.

I'll describe what this sound is, where most people heard it first, how this sound used to be made, then how it's made now using modern digital recording.

What this is: A single track of audio played backwards.

Where most people heard it first: Strawberry Fields Forever by The Beatles (released February 1967) and Castles Made of Sand by Jimi Hendrix (released December 1967). In guitar circles, the Hendrix song is given more attention.

How this sound used to be made

This is where things get interesting.

In the old days of multitrack audio recording, reel-to-reel tape systems were used, and recording backwards required flipping the reels around. In later years when the technology got smaller, this could be done with compact cassette recorders like the Tascam 424, and that's how I used to do it.

My process on the 424, a 4-track machine, was to always put my reversed audio on track 4 just to keep things simpler. I would record stuff to tracks 1, 2 and 3 first. Then I find the section where I went the reversed audio to be recorded, go to the end of that section, stop, flip the tape over so track 4 is now track 1, record my stuff, stop, flip the tape back over, adjust levels, done.

I make it sound easy, but it really wasn't.

How this sound is made now

Software can reverse the playback of audio very easily, but that doesn't mean the process is simple because there is still the multitrack environment to take into consideration.

You'll notice in a video I made about this that, thankfully, when you do a select-all of a track in Audacity and reverse it, the software "mirrors" where both the audio is reversed and placement of the audio itself is flipped, almost like reversing a photo in an image editor.

I can't adequately describe in words how nice this is. When both the audio and the placement of audio is reversed, there is no need to worry about timestamps. You reverse, record, reverse again to bring it back to normal, and all the timestamps line up. This is simply lovely.

How to reverse guitar in Audacity

Step 1. Generate a rhythm track on track 1.

Step 2. Record your primary rhythm guitar to track 2.

Step 3. Count the number of peaks in the rhythm track from left-to-right and remember this number. You'll need it in a moment.

Step 4. Select-all track 2.

Step 5. Effect > Reverse

Step 6. That number you remembered from step 3? Now you need it. Count the number of peaks from right-to-left so you know when to stop recording. That is your end point.

Step 7. Pick a spot before that end point and record a second guitar (this is the one which will be reversed) to track 3.

Step 8. Select-all tracks 2 and 3.

Step 9. Effect > Reverse. This reverses track 2 to normal and track 3 to reverse.

Done.

Why I still wear a watch in 2021

There are times when the convenience of one of these can't be beat.

I did a little personal experiment where I didn't wear a watch at all for a few weeks.

When I wasn't wearing a wearing a watch, I did what most people do to get the time and used my phone.

That didn't work out well. Having to pick up a thing and press a button just to get the time was annoying. It became even more annoying when I was somewhere the phone couldn't go, like the kitchen. I'm not about to take my phone where there's routinely boiling water and hot cooking oils in use.

I then tried just using the existing clocks I have. There's a clock on the microwave, a clock on my computer desktop, a clock in the car, and so on. This was better, but only slightly. Whenever I wanted to know the time, if I wasn't sitting in front of my computer, I had to go looking for a clock. This got old fast, because I had to stop whatever I was doing and find a clock just to know what time it was.

Another annoyance I found was not having fast access to the date and weekday. With the exception of my computer, a little travel atomic clock I keep in the bathroom and of course the phone, none of the other clocks I have tell me date information.

Most of the time I can get along not having fast day/date info access, but I can tell you the one time where it is needed. Driving. Pulling out a phone to do anything while driving is just plain stupid and I won't do it. If I wanted to know day/date info while on the road, the only way to get that from a phone safely is when stopped either at a traffic light or when parked.

Obviously, I went back to wearing a watch. And it's typical that a cheap Casio digital is what you'll see on my wrist. Usually either the A168W, A700W or F91W.

Not wearing a watch for the time I did wasn't awful, but annoying. I didn't realize how much I actually used one until I stopped wearing it.

Texas garage rock from the '60s

Texas garage rock? Yeah, this happened.

This is interesting where guitar history is concerned.

For a time, I was playing nothing but Jazzmaster guitars and learned about all things surf from the 1960s. I did some searching if there was any Texas-specific music going on during the '60s, and oh yeah, there was. But it wasn't surf. That's a California thing. Texas had a garage/punk flavor going on instead.

To be clear, this is '60s garage rock, which is very different from what most people think this style is supposed to sound like. Basically put, it's like surf rock but with a much more forward in-your-face vibe to it.

A few bands from this era are Coastliners, Y'Alls, Status Quo and Reddlemen to name a few. There were many.

This is a music style where while I'm not totally in love with it, but can still appreciate the simplicity. It is the simple nature of the songs that gives off the punk vibe more than anything else. Some bands sang while others just shouted loud into the mic.

One of the better ones to my ear is Is It a Lie by The Mysterions (very cool band name).

It's probably true you haven't heard these particular songs before, but most likely have heard the style. Where? Movies and television.

The more you listen to this stuff, the more you recognize the style. Few of these were ever hit songs, but the style definitely made its way into motion picture soundtracks.

And, interestingly enough, it's a Texas-specific sound. You'd never peg Texas as a garage rock state, but at one point in history it absolutely was.

Silvertone, that other '60s guitar

Okay, technically '50s and '60s, but you get the idea.

In my early years of guitar playing, I remember coming across Silvertone electric guitars every so often. And wow, were they crap. They could not hold tune, were impossible to intonate and were just generally difficult to play.

The new reissue guitars, thankfully, benefit from modern manufacturing processes. This makes them much, much better in every way. And I really do mean every way. Woods, electronics, tuning stability, playability, and so on. All better.

Said very honestly, there's no way you could ever get me to buy a vintage Silvertone electric guitar. But with these new ones, I could actually play one of these and enjoy doing it.

This is the most affordable way to get '60s guitar mojo

If the headstock said Fender or Gibson on this guitar, it would be selling for over $1,000. The Silvertone Model 1449 however is nowhere near that price. Much more affordable.

What you get is a solid mahogany body 24.75" scale (like a Gibson) guitar with 2 volume and 2 tone controls for the pickups.

"But I only see 2 knobs." Correct. Each knob is stacked where the center post is the volume and the ring is the tone control. One for each pickup.

You also get real-deal lipstick pickups in this guitar. If you're not familiar with those, they use bar magnets and are ridiculously responsive and twangy in a good way.

The best part about a lipstick pickup is that every string gets "full coverage" while vibrating, so to speak. Instead of each string hovering over a small pole piece magnet, they're all hovering over a bar. The end result is a huge, twangy sound on both pickups.

Lipstick pickups typically do sound best clean, but with overdrive they can totally do a '60s acid rock tone easily. Just bear in mind that they do feed back quite easily, so don't get too crazy with your overdrive.

If you dig the whole '60s guitar thing but the Fender and Gibson offerings are out of reach, get the Silvertone. The new one is absolutely better than the original, easy to set up and easy to play. And it won't sound like any other guitar you have (in a good way, of course).

Is a fat Telecaster right for you?

This is a type of Telecaster that seems like the ultimate Tele, and for some it might be.

Take a Fender American Performer Telecaster Hum. This is an attempt by Fender to make the ultimate "workhorse" Telecaster.

Before getting into that, I'll explain what a fat Telecaster actually is.

Fat does not refer to the body nor neck thickness but rather the pickups in the guitar. If there is a humbucker pickup at the neck position, that's what makes it "fat".

I own two Telecaster type guitars. One has the traditional overwound single-coil at the bridge and the mini single at the neck. The other is a fat Tele with an overwound single-coil at the bridge and a humbucker pickup at the neck.

Then there is the Fender American Performer Telecaster Hum. This is a fat Tele and the Hum in the name refers to the humbucker pickup at the neck. However, this guitar also has a fair amount of fancy dan electronics in it. The bridge pickup is a newer design by Fender that they call the Yosemite, and the neck humbucker is something they call the Double Tap. Also, there is a push-pull potentiometer to split the humbucker to a single-coil. Also also, there is what Fender calls a Greasebucket tone circuit that allows you to roll off treble without increasing bass frequencies.

The Hum is the do-it-all Tele. It has both the vintage and modern Tele tones all nicely packaged in one guitar, and does do without the sound "mudding out" anywhere...

...but not everybody can afford the Hum. In fact, most people can't.

This is where we get into more affordable options, examining common Telecaster complaints, and figuring out whether having a humbucker in the neck position is actually a good idea or not.

That darned mini-single pickup

The biggest complaint about traditional Telecaster pickups (regardless of who made the guitar) is that the mini-single neck side pickup isn't usable. (And yes, it's a mini-single, meaning not a lipstick pickup. That type of pickup is totally different.)

"Isn't usable" defined: Some complain that the mini-single is either too weak, too "muddy", or both.

I've personally never had a Tele mini-single sound that way. But then again, I don't regularly play a true-to-vintage-spec Telecaster either.

In my experience, yes, a vintage spec Telecaster mini-single does tend to be weak and not all that dynamic. But I wouldn't call it unusable even though others do.

The good and bad of having a humbucker in the neck position of a Telecaster

Whether you do like I did and outright buy a cheap Tele copy with a humbucker in the neck, or install an inexpensive humbucker in your existing Tele yourself (assuming the wood is already cut out under the pick guard to house a humbucker and you've bought a pick guard that can fit a humbucker pickup), this is what you can expect:

Clean rhythm sound: Good.

Overdriven rhythm sound: Not-so good for regular rock, but good if you use fuzz and/or like that '60s rock sound.

Clean solo tone: Good.

Overdriven solo tone: Very good.

Bridge + Humbucker clean sound: Your Tele will still sound like a Tele but you're now combining the bridge pickup with a humbucker that has greater output compared to the mini-single. You may or may not like this, but it works very well for jazz. More on that in a moment.

Bridge + Humbucker overdriven sound: Whether you can actually use this sound or not directly depends on the type of overdrive you're using. Lighter overdrive tends to sound better.

Best benefit of the humbucker at the neck: Jazz tones.

This is where the dynamic response of a neck side humbucker really works on a Tele. The greater output and midrange work very nicely to ring out "fuller" jazz style chords whether using bridge+humbucker or humbucker alone.

No, you will not get the sound of an ES-335 because we're talking about a solid body Telecaster here. But usable jazz tones are definitely way easier to get on a fat Tele compared to a traditional pickup set.

The humbucker just looks cooler

There are some Telecaster players that never use the neck pickup at all and bought a fat Tele anyway. Why? They think a humbucker at the neck position just looks better than the mini-single.

Does it?

Yes.

The bigger shiny rectangle of the humbucker is visually more interesting than the skinny mini-single and looks more impressive. It also looks more expensive even though it's not.

Any Telecaster looks better with that big shiny rectangle at the neck position.

And now the last question. Should you own two Teles?

Should you own two Teles?

As mentioned earlier, I own both types of Teles. One with the traditional pickup set and a fat Tele.

Before answering the question of whether to own both types of guitars, I did own this for a very brief period of time back in 2018:

The Fender HH Standard Telecaster in a special edition color called Sea Foam Pearl, which is not the same as the modern Fender Player Telecaster HH as that one has different pickups in it, is what made me stop playing HH Telecasters. I could not get this thing to sound good no matter what I tried. Maybe the modern Player Telecaster HH sounds better, but I've noodled around on a few Telecaster HH guitars since the one I had, and nope... I just can't make them work for me.

With the fat Tele I have now with the single + humbucker, yes, I like the sound of that. But I also like the sound of the single + mini-single too, hence the reason why I own both.

If you're a Tele guy, you might actually need both types of Teles in your life. I certainly appreciate having both of them.

However, were I to pick just one, it would be the fat Tele for sure. But that's just me. You'll have to decide for yourself if you need both if you're a fan a Telecaster type guitars.