Making things strange and scary with reverse reverb

You have surely heard this effect before. It might be hard to describe and place exactly where, but it’s like the sound is swelling up into the track before it plays. While the origin of it is contested, the practice was originally performed with analog tape, flipping the direction of the tape to reverse the playback, recording a reverb track of that, then flipping both tracks. What you get is the sound of the reverb building up to the start of the track. It can be unnerving and offsetting or trippy and mystical. However you describe it, it’s a great technique to have in your arsenal as an audio designer.

Getting ready

For this recipe, you will need a Pro Tools session with two mono audio tracks. One track should have an audio clip. While any sound can work, this effect is used most often in musical and dialogue situations. This recipe also uses hotkeys, so either make sure the edit window hotkeys button is active...