The backward record - Something I didn't know was possible.

As always...Technmoan delivers.

This week is a video clip about a record pressed backward, from the inner groove to the edges. I love this channel because almost every episode is interesting and manage to teach me something new. This week is something which I had no idea was possible at all.

That's the link to the YouTube episode, A look at an unusual record that plays from the *inside out*, enjoy!

 

Techmoan deserves his own thread.

 

I think this was fairly common in the early days of records. Especially transcription discs.

 

They should have pressed this Arch Oboler album using this technique...

 

I was reading on another forum that there was a Can record from years ago cut the same way.

 

Jack White's Lazaretto has a side recorded backwards

 

Maybe now we'll find out if Paul is really dead?

 

I thought you were posting about this upside down, reverse record trick:

The Upside Down Reverse Record Trick: DJ Tricks with Claude Young

 

That was common with 78s. One record played outside in, and the next record played inside out. They did that because the tonality of the record is different inside/outside, and that way, when you played them on the radio, there wasn't an abrupt sound change.

A record that plays "backward" would be rotating counterclockwise.

 

A record played from the inside to the outside? Big deal, CDs do that all the time.

 

Someone brought up a good point in the comments section: would playing a disc from the outside in negate the effect of your anti-skate mechanism?

 

It would not have any effect on skating or the anti-skating device. The stylus still sits on the record in the same way, and is pulled by friction in the same way.

 

I used to have a 45rpm single by Napoleon XIV "They're Coming To Take Me Away" that played from outside to inside on the "A" side, and played from inside to outside on the "B" side....both sides were the same song.

 

A recent example:



TACET-Website - english

 

More novel is a record with more than one groove, that run parallel to each other, each with there own audio. There was a Mad Magazine "surprise ending" disc with 8 separate tracks, theoretically it would play the first part and randomly play one of eight separate song endings.


Or a "roulette" record that was supposed to play one of 35 grooves.

Some DJ skratch records are cut so that there is a groove lock after each track.

 

They've also got a solo piano version of Pictures at an Exhibition that's played outside in on the A side and inside out on the B.

 

Way back in time, some recording engineers preferred playing from the inside out because most classical music had climaxes at the end of a movement. If the climax came at a point where the diameter of the record is the largest, that would make it easier for the needle to successfully negotiate the more demanding passage.

 

*Faul.

 

On my copy the B-side is simply the A-side played backwards, I.e. the tape was played backwards but the disc was cut normally.

 

There was a new wave band called "King Kurt" who cut a 12" single that way in the late 70s in the UK.

 

The UK 12" of "Pop Muzik" by M had two grooves on it.

 

Monty Python's album "Matching Tie and Handkerchief" had two grooves on Side 2 which contained two different programmes. This meant that, when you placed the stylus on one of the opening grooves, there was no way of knowing which sketches would play. I knew nothing about this when I bought the album back in the 70s, and I couldn't figure out what was going on!
This of course could not be duplicated on the CD version.

 

A record playing inside-out was common for radio transcription records. Jack White's Ultra LP may be the most recent example. In the past, other records have been recorded backwards and to actually hear what was on them, you had to have a turntable with reverse rotation switch. Two records which come to mind are Napoleon XIV's "They're Coming To Rake Me Away Ha-Ha" and Crazy Elephant's "Gimme Gimme Good Lovin' ", which had to be played at 78 rpm.